Chapter 4
Chapter Four
JULIETTE
Iwas grateful Griffin was driving. If I’d been behind the wheel, we would’ve ended up in a ditch already.
No matter how many times I told myself to stop, my eyes kept drifting over to him.
His perfect lips. The way his thumbs tapped the steering wheel to match the rhythm of the radio.
How his thick hair was cut into a slick, textured crop.
His muscled forearms. That insanely hot five o’clock shadow.
He was so… technicolor. So alive. It was as if all the men in the world had suddenly become desaturated except him.
And he was saving himself for his wife?
The man was a complete anomaly. I shook my head, still in disbelief.
My phone vibrated in my lap, and I flipped it over.
Fallon
I can’t believe you’re going to Zion with him. Aside from the fact that he might Ted Bundy you, he is so HOT. You’re going to have the most beautiful red-haired babies. If you make it back alive.
Fallon
I’ll cover for you in exchange for pics. Please let me live vicariously through you.
I had no idea what lie Fallon would tell Cecil when I didn’t show up for my meeting tomorrow, but she’d think of something.
Juliette
I’ll see what I can do.
Fallon
It sucks that you have to take my phone whenever you leave town and that you can’t be upfront with Cecil about going to Zion with Griffin. I hate that he’s so much harder on you than the rest of us.
Juliette
It’s just part of being the Sunburst.
Just doing my part to drop breadcrumbs of doubt so that maybe she’d rethink her career ambitions.
Juliette
But yeah…
Juliette
Thanks for trading phones with me.
Fallon
Of course.
Juliette
I’ll definitely bring you a souvenir back, and I’ll see what I can do about getting you that pic. Love you!
Fallon
Love you! Be safe! I can’t wait to hear every juicy detail.
As Griffin checked the time on his smartwatch, he scowled slightly.
“Worried we’re going to be late?” I asked.
“No.” He smiled, but his shoulders were hunched slightly. “We’re good on time.”
I lifted my phone to snap a picture.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No pics allowed.”
“Seriously?” I lowered the phone to my lap. “My friend Fallon is demanding photographic evidence that you’re not a serial killer.”
“Sorry.” He flashed a confident grin, and it did things to my stomach that I didn’t mind at all. “I’ve just learned to be very protective of my face.”
“Oh, really? Why’s that?”
“Reasons.” The grin was still firmly in place, but his eyes grew guarded.
Fallon wouldn’t share it, but now I was curious. “Is that why you never post on any of your socials?” The moment it was out, I cringed. Now he was going to know I’d once been high-key obsessed with him.
As soon as I started at DayGlow, I learned the difference between a dream and a fantasy.
Dreams were things you could reach for. Fantasies were just beautiful things you weren’t allowed to have.
And a life with Griffin Dupree was a fantasy.
So I’d placed him in a lockbox and never went looking for the key.
He stared at me like I’d just blown his mind. He probably would’ve kept staring if he hadn’t hit the rumble strip. “You looked me up online?”
“Uh… yes… Last night.” At least that part was true. I pursed my lips. “It was extremely… disappointing.”
“Wow.” He rubbed three fingers over his lips, thinking. “Now I’m super glad I never let myself be on camera.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m not photogenic.”
I snorted. “A model who isn’t photogenic? That’s like a chef who can’t cook.”
“Fine.” He chuckled. “I didn’t use to be photogenic.”
“Really? Did something magical happen to make you photogenic now? Because I looked up that Hollister shoot last night too, and the picture where you’re wearing a zip hoodie unzipped, no shirt, all pecs?” I made a sizzling sound.
My fingers twitched, wishing I could run them over his chest right now. My biggest regret was that I never frequented Hollister and had missed seeing him life-sized on the wall.
“Ah…” He winced. “You found the shirtless photos.”
I let my gaze drop to his chest. “Indeed, I did.”
He chuckled and squirmed uncomfortably. It was so cute.
Just then, his phone rang, illuminating the dashboard. Incoming call: Momzie.
Momzie? Okay, that was adorable.
He sat up straight. “I need to take this.” There was an edge in his voice, asking if I could behave.
I held up my hands and whispered, “I’m not here.”
He tapped the accept-call button. “Hey, Mama,” he said, like talking to her was the best part of his day.
My pulse stumbled, and I glanced out the window before he could see what that did to me.
“Hey, bud,” his mom said, her voice soft and sweet with a slight southern twang.
The kind that said refined, not redneck.
“Looks like you’re almost at Zion.” So they were one of those families who stalked each other.
“How was the convention?” There was a muffled sound in the background.
She released an easy laugh, and I couldn’t help but smile.
She sounded nice. Really nice. The kind of mom who reads bedtime stories every night or bakes homemade bread.
“Dad wants to know if you tripped on the runway.”
I laughed silently.
Griffin chuckled.
“That’s not what I said,” his dad called in the background.
“What he said wasn’t nearly as nice,” Griffin’s mom quipped.
“It was great.” Griffin grinned. “No tripping or making an idiot of myself.”
“Damn it!” his dad hollered.
A laugh shot out before I could stop it.
Thankfully, Griffin’s laugh covered it. “Sorry to disappoint, Dad.”
“I’m going to check cows,” his dad said, as if his day had just been ruined.
A door banged in the background, and his mom snickered, “Silly man.”
Griffin laughed, but his shoulders hunched. “So I take it from everyone’s happy mood that the news was good?”
What was this?
“Yes.” His mom exhaled. “The doctor said that even though Sage has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, she should be fine.”
That sounded serious.
“They can deliver the baby safely?” Griffin asked.
So Sage, whoever she was, was expecting.
“Yes. Probably by C-section. After she’s born, they’ll do a procedure to cut away the wall that’s blocking blood flow.”
“Dang.” Griffin dragged a hand down his face. “That’s… wow. Open heart surgery?”
“Yes,” his mom said. “But the doctor’s confident they’ve got a handle on the situation.”
“Is James taking the news okay?” Griffin asked.
James was his brother. I remembered that from their high school reels.
“It’s James… so….” his mom’s sentence trailed off.
“Yeah,” was all Griffin said.
“Sage keeps telling him to stop being such a worrywart.” She laughed. “I’m just grateful we found out before something bad happened.”
“Me too.” Griffin’s shoulders finally relaxed. “Tell them I love them.”
“Will do. And sweetie?” her tone turned tense.
“Yes, Mom,” Griffin said with a laugh.
“Please be safe.”
“I will.”
The call ended, and he stared straight ahead, lost in thought.
“Who’s Sage?” I asked.
“Oh. Sorry. She’s my sister-in-law. She’s married to my older brother, James.”
We talked about her heart condition for a few minutes.
“So, like, your family sounds happy and stuff,” I said stupidly, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Sure.” His forehead creased. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“No reason. But if your family is so close, why are you all the way out here, so far from them?”
“My job. I love being a hotshot. I can’t do that back east.” He shrugged barely. “I like who I am out here, away from my family’s spotlight. I’m way more chill.”
He was chill. His posture. His smile. His attitude. Even the way he’d turned me down last night. None of it was intense. Which made me wonder what he was like when he was home with the rest of the Duprees.
When the next song started on the radio, one of Cash’s latest hits, he grinned, turned the volume a little higher, and hummed along. And I just watched.
I wish I could be that calm, I thought. But then, as I paid attention to myself, I realized that for the first time in maybe ever, I was.
Huh.
Apparently, somewhere between Las Vegas and La Verkin, Utah, the noise inside me had gone quiet.
My stomach wasn’t buzzing with anxiety. In fact, it was buoyant—and it was accompanied by the feeling that for the first time in my life, I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right person.
I undid my seatbelt and slid over next to Griffin. “One selfie. Just so we can remember,” I pleaded. “And so my friend Fallon will cover for me at work?”
He looked over at me, his eyes warm. “You need covering? It’s Saturday.”
“Tomorrow, I do,” I admitted. “I have a mandatory meeting, and my boss will want to know why I’m not there.”
“On a Sunday?”
I shrugged. “On a Sunday.”
“And hiking the Narrows with a friend isn’t a good enough excuse?” he asked, voice light. But his expression was a tad concerned.
“Not after I just got back from vacation,” I lied.
“And Fallon doesn’t work for free.” I blew out a pfft like that fact annoyed me.
Truth be told, I wanted the selfie way more than Fallon.
When this weekend was over, I’d need a visual reminder that it hadn’t all been a dream.
“So, unless you want the world to find out I was with Griffin Dupree, I have to appease Fallon with a bribe,” I teased.
“Fine.” He smiled.
I wrapped my free hand around his bicep and leaned my head on his shoulder, my heart racing at finally being able to touch him. Then I angled the phone down so we were both smiling up at the camera.
Click.
I studied the picture, my stomach and chest floating at being pressed against his side. “Not photogenic, my eye. I mean, look at you.” I showed him the picture. “First take, and we could be a book cover couple.”
“Let’s be honest.” A chuckle rumbled from his chest, reverberating into me. “You’re doing eighty percent of the heavy lifting in that photo.”
I laughed. “Eighty percent. Whatever. Fifty-fifty.”
“Seventy-thirty. Final offer.”
“No deal.” I beamed at him. “Sixty-forty. Your deep voice tips the scale in your favor.”
“You can’t hear my voice in a photo.”
“I can.” I sighed happily. “For the rest of my life, I’ll hear your voice every time I look at this picture.”
“You like my voice, huh?” he murmured.
“Yes,” I said unabashedly. “I like it very much.” And with that, I reached over and grabbed the middle seatbelt so I could stay right where I was. I quickly sent Fallon the photo with strict instructions not to download or show it to anyone. Then I shut off my phone and slipped it into my purse.
I glanced over at Griffin once more and bit my bottom lip, holding in a squeal.
If only fourteen-year-old me could see me now.