7. Libby #2
“I’m not short. I’m literally the average height for women in this country.”
“You make my neck sore when we look at each other. That means you’re too short. Put on a pair of heels, and we could move right along into the next portion of this .”
“The next…” I choke. A literal choking sound escapes my throat at his audacity. “What?”
“We should get dinner.”
My brain short-circuits when he licks his lips mere inches from my face. His warm breath tickles my skin, minty and refreshing compared to what I’m certain is stale coffee coming from me.
“I’d really, really like to get dinner with you sometime, Libby.”
“How’d…” My eyes snap until they’re narrowed slits. “How’d you know to call me Libby?”
“That’s your name,” he bats back with barely a stumble.
“No, my name is Elizabeth. If you looked me up, you’d have read Elizabeth.”
He waves me off with an air of… fake . “Libby is just a shortened version of that. Why is this such a big deal?”
“Because Beth is also an option. Or Ellie. Or Lizzie. Eliza. Ella. Betty. There are a billion other options, but you went with Libby. How did you know to call me Libby?”
“Because… I don’t know. I just did.” I’ve cracked his smooth cover and now feel the heat coming from his glare. “You’re a fuckin’ cop, huh? Through and through.”
“Do cops bother you, Griffin?” I lean toward him and reclaim my power. “Only guilty men dislike the law. What did you do wrong?”
“Not only guilty men,” he spits back. “Sometimes men who’ve been hurt by the law hold a grudge. Men who wanted to go to the police for help, but the police were the enemy. Not every cop follows the law, Elizabeth.”
I slam my head back against the shelf as though he hit me. Heat burns my eyes despite the fact he doesn’t truly know me. He’s not talking about me or my family, because he doesn’t know us. But the fact he says those words still cuts me.
“I’m sorry you needed help and couldn’t find it.”
A moment of truth settles between us. From the man who wants to push my buttons, and me trying to act tough, to both of us simply feeling the truth pulse in the air. He was hurt by the police, and now he can’t trust us.
His Adam’s apple bobs as his eyes flicker between mine. I don’t know this man, but I feel the heat now just as I felt it when he stared into my eyes at the gym.
“Do you believe in prophecy?” I feel so dumb asking such a question. “Do you think dreams can predict the future?”
“Well…” His brows pull tight as he brings a hand up to straighten the hem of my shirt. “I’m not sure. I guess, in a way. I often dream about things for work. It’s where I get much of my inspiration.”
I give a gentle nod and swallow. “I feel like I know you. I dreamt about you before I met you, and now it feels like I recognize you in real life.”
He considers my words for a moment. “Was I the good guy in your dreams? Or the villain?”
“You were…” I swallow. “ Watchful , I guess. I feel like I know your eyes, and you stare so much that it confuses me. I would remember if I’d ever met Theodore Griffin.
I obviously haven’t, but my dreams are clashing with reality, and my reality is that you helped me in the weight room one time for thirty seconds, but I feel like there’s more. ”
“It bothers you not having clarity?” he asks softly.
“I like to be in control of things,” I admit. “I hate surprises; they don’t bring me happiness, they bring me anxiety. So to dream of this blue-eyed man, then to meet him the very next day…” I blow out a heavy exhale and shake my head. “It’s fucking with me.”
The worry clears from his eyes, and a smile tugs his lips higher. “You got a potty mouth, huh? That’s kinda sexy.”
I roll my eyes and slip out from between his heavy body and the shelves. Here I am, going deep with a stranger in the store and telling him about my dreams, and all he can do is smile at my cussing. “Forget about it.”
“Yes.” He grabs my hand and swings me back around until our chests crash together. He gets a sore neck from looking down, and I get a sore neck from looking up. “Yes, I think dreams can be prophetic sometimes. I guess some call it déjà vu, some call it coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. I feel like maybe we met in another lifetime,” I hedge.
Why do your eyes mean something to me ? “And saying that feels super dumb, because I’m not normally that…
I don’t know, wishy-washy . I have a logical brain, I work on facts and science, not prophesies or dreams. My entire career is built around finding facts, finding physical proof to support those, and then presenting those facts. Dreams aren’t proof.”
“So maybe you’re allowed to be Elizabeth the cop while on shift.
Elizabeth is the logical one, the one who demands control and no surprises.
And when you’re not on shift, you can be the wishy-washy Libby, the girl that believes in prophecy and destiny.
I can be Theo the businessman while working, and just Theo the guy who wants to buy you high heels when I’m not. ”
“I’m not short!” I snatch my hand from his and turn away from his teasing laugh. “Google it, jerk. I’m literally average height. Why are you so obsessed with how tall I am? Not everyone had a growth spurt and shot up.”
“Evidently,” he chuckles. “Seems you forgot to hit your spurt. Too busy playing with dolls?”
I lift my brows. Are you fucking serious ?
“Okay,” he continues to laugh. “So maybe you were riding bikes with the neighborhood boys. Right?” His eyes turn almost desperate, which brings a strange sense of foreboding to my heart. “Did you play with the boys from your neighborhood, Lib? The boys from your school?”
I shake my head. “I went to an all-girls private charter school. I stopped coming home for the weekends once I was in fourth grade or so.”
His eyes warm. “You stopped coming home?”
I nod. “I didn’t want to come home, and my family didn’t much want me anyway.
I was an only child, but I had lots of… well,” I pause and think of those bitchy girls who always pounded on me.
“I guess we could call them cousins, but I hated every single one of them, so I stayed at school and studied.”
His eyes flicker across my face. “And now?”
“Now what?”
“Do you go home to see your cousins? For the holidays and such.”
I shake my head. “My family is here now. My colleagues and friends, they’re my family.”
Theo takes a step closer, and doesn’t stop until his hip rests against my side and his chest touches my arm.
He slides a fingertip along my forearm, drawing my eyes down, and doesn’t stop until his fingertip rests on my collarbone and somehow, the tip of his nose almost touches mine.
“I’d like to get dinner with you sometime.
No pretense, no cops, no work. Just dinner. ”
I shake my head and try to pull away. “I don’t date.”
“Ever?”
“Never. I don’t have time, I don’t have the inclination to sort through the losers, I don’t have the patience to sit through a shitty dinner that I’m probably not enjoying anyway.
I count calories and macros, and there isn’t a single restaurant in a hundred-mile radius willing to give me the exact ingredient list for what they serve. ”
“Not even the colonel?”
Shocked for a moment, speechless, what I thought was a serious conversation turns to a stolen smile.
That smile turns to a laugh that makes my heart thud.
“Especially not the colonel. All of those secret herbs and spices really screw with my diet.” I take a step back and firm my lips.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Griffin. I don’t date.”
“But you dreamed of me.” He steps in and replaces that space I took. “That means something, right?”
“I dreamed of a person with blue eyes, and then I woke up almost sick to my stomach. It felt like someone was studying me while I slept, like someone was in my apartment. I’m the most vulnerable while I sleep, and I’m not sure if you’ve figured this out yet, but I don’t enjoy vulnerability.
My subconscious might recognize you, but it wasn’t a good dream.
” I pat his arm and turn away. “Good luck with your plans to conquer the stock market or whatever. Make good choices.”
I push my cart along the aisle and act as though I’m totally okay, but then I slip into the next row and flatten my back against the shelves.
I’m not okay. I have no clue who that man is, but if there was ever such a thing as two halves of one person, if there was ever proof of something more, I feel it right now.
There’s something inside of me, a magnet of sorts, and it’s trying to send me north.
There’s a deeper power at play, a reason I’m dreaming of him, a reason his eyes are already burned into my brain.
But I don’t do vulnerability. I don’t do weaknesses.
Pull yourself together. Sack up and get back to business.
“Libby?”
I jump out of my skin and squeal when he pops his head around the corner of the aisle and gives a rueful smile. “This doesn’t have to be so scary. Adults get dinner all the time. Sometimes they fuck afterwards. We could do one or both, I won’t judge you.”
“Fucking?” Insecurity makes way for anger. “Are you insane? You were talking about dinner, and now you’re suggesting bed?”
“Doesn’t have to be a bed,” he answers quietly. “I’m partial to standing and fucking. Couch fucking. Car fucking. I enjoy the thrill of fucking on my desk, because my office is all windows, and I know people can see in if they have binoculars.”
“You’re a pig.”
“I know you like casual sex too. I know you like sex in general. A woman doesn’t have the kind of body you have unless they use it; in the gym, at work…
in bed. I know you have a healthy sexual appetite, I can see it in your eyes.
And since you don’t date, that implies sex for convenience.
Where do you go, Libby? What places do you visit to get your hit? ”