Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
GRIFFIN
Standing on Theo’s front porch, I peered through the window.
Jules was nowhere to be seen. Theo, however, was hunkered down in front of his computer, headphones on, screaming at the top of his lungs like the zombie coming for him was real.
Jules’s location dot hadn’t moved in over two hours, and it was well past midnight. She was definitely asleep.
I knocked lightly, hoping not to wake her—assuming Theo hadn’t already done the job.
Theo didn’t even flinch. I tried knocking louder. Still nothing.
I called Cash on the phone. “Yo,” I said when he answered. “Are you playing with Theo right now?”
“Yeah.” He yawned. “Charlie’s already asleep, and he’s been begging me all week. Wanna play with us?”
“I’m good. Maybe tomorrow night.” I scrubbed a hand over my hair. “I’m outside his front door freezing my butt off.”
“Gotcha. Theo,” he barked. “You have a visitor on your porch.”
Theo peeled off his headphones and spun around. When he saw it was me, he shrieked like I’d come to give him another wedgie and kicked himself sideways, halfway across the room in his bougie gaming chair. “Cash,” I heard him pant through the phone. “This is how I go. Tell Chuck I love her.”
Cash laughed. “Will do. I’m out. Peace,” he said before Theo could protest.
Theo scowled, bottom lip curling in a pout. The man lived for midnight video game rendezvous. Poor guy.
But then he held his fingers in a cross. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” he ordered. His voice was muted through the glass. “I refuse to die tonight.”
I threw my hands up. “I’m not going to touch you,” I hollered. “I just want to sleep by my wife.”
“Do you swear?” he called.
“I swear.”
“On what?”
“Theo.” The tip of my nose was starting to go numb from the cold.
“Don’t Theo me. Swear on your holographic Charizard,” he shot back. “I know you still have it. I saw it in your room the other week. Top shelf. Back corner.”
“Why were you in my closet?” I growled. I waved that away. “I don’t care. Just let me in.” My teeth were starting to chatter.
“The Charizard,” Theo countered like he needed my blood oath.
“So if I kill you, you want my Charizard from fifth grade? Makes sense.”
“You can bury it with me in my coffin. Put it in my left hand. Palm up. Displayed respectfully.” He pointed at me, eyebrow raised. “Promise?”
I rolled my eyes. “Promise.”
Finally, he opened the door. Then he jumped back like I was some kind of turncoat about to shank him between the ribs.
I shook my head as I stepped inside. “Bro, get a grip. Or a Xanax prescription. You’re acting like a goldfish when someone taps on the glass.”
A strangled whimper came from Jules’s room, which made the hair on my neck stand on end.
“I guess so,” Theo said, waving both hands in the direction of her room. “I’ve been listening to that since October. I’m not built for this.”
I patted down his noise and tilted my head. Another whimper came through the door. “Is she crying?”
“Nah. Those are her nightmare noises,” Theo said. “Happens every night.”
“It happens every night?”
“That’s what I said. Off and on all night long, truthfully.”
When did she start having nightmares? She hadn’t had a single one when I’d slept next to her.
I propped my hands on my hips, horrified at the sounds coming from her room. “Did you try to comfort her?”
He stared at me like I’d sprouted a third eye.
“You wanted me to step across the threshold of her bedroom, under cover of darkness, and play emotional support husband to your wife?” He scoffed and plopped back into his chair.
“Dude. I wasn’t trying to die.” He put the headphones back on and immediately took them off.
“Oh, do you want me to get the blow-up mattress out for you?”
“Why would I want that?” I shot back. “I told you I was going to sleep next to her.”
“Not my business.” He held his hands up, absolving himself. “But there’s a note on the door stating otherwise.”
I glanced that way and sure enough...
Theo hopped up and jogged down the hall.
I strode over to read the sign.
Girls only. No Griffins allowed. None. For any reason.
PS: Not even if I’m having a bad dream. I made it the past three months without you here to comfort me. I don’t need you to start now.
PPS: Unless the house is on fire. You can save me then. But that’s the only exception.
I read it twice. “Well, dang.”
“Told you.” Theo appeared beside me, holding out the air mattress. “Sorry, I don’t have a pump.”
“It’s fine. Thanks,” I mumbled, face hot, lungs hotter.
I spent the next twenty minutes hyperventilating into a mattress—an appropriate punishment for a fool who singlehandedly fumbled a marriage to the most stunning woman on the planet, inside and out.
Theo didn’t go to bed for another hour, but it didn’t matter. Not with Juliette on the other side of that door, making noises so terrible, I couldn’t stop wondering what she’d lived through to sound like that.
I couldn’t have slept through that if I wanted to.