28. Griffin
28
GRIFFIN
M y phone alarm jolts me out of a deep sleep. Jack whips his head up from my chest, his bedhead sprouting in all directions. He wipes the sleep from his eyes. Somehow, with the help of some warm blankets, we drifted to sleep in the truck bed. Whatever discomfort I felt laying on an unforgiving surface was canceled out by having Jack’s body against mine.
I shut off the alarm and rub a hand through his hair.
“What time is it?” he peeks through the garage window, where moonlight and streetlights illuminate the darkness.
“Three-thirty.”
“In the morning?”
“Uh huh. I wanted to make sure I’m up before them.”
“What time do they get up?” Jack rolls off me, and my body instantly craves his warmth.
“June sometimes gets up at five, maybe four-thirty if she’s having a rough time sleeping. And that usually wakes up Annabelle, too.” I want to be certain that if they wake up, they can find me in my bed. Alone.
I’m not ready to explain why Jack was sleeping over. I’m still figuring out what this means. My heart is all over the place.
“The last thing they need is to see my bare ass when they wake up,” Jack says, and I’m grateful that he gets it.
He wipes a hand through his hair trying to smooth it down. One piece in the back insists on sticking up. I push it down, but it springs right back to its upright position. Not unlike my dick right now.
He rubs an arm across his eyes.
“Are you okay to drive?” Even though he understands, I can’t help but feel like a jerk for asking him to go. “And for the record, if I had my way, I’d lay in bed with you all day. A real bed.”
“That sounds nice.” He yawns into my chest. “I’m going home and crashing before the game.”
Shit. Today is Sunday. We both have games. Jack can play on a few hours of sleep. I’m going to have a tougher time. At least Carmen has the girls today, so I can crash this afternoon.
Jack sits up for a moment, then flops against me, mashing his face into my chest. I could get used to him living permanently in the crook of my arm. “What a night, huh?”
“You said it.”
A far-off look clouds his face, dimming my enjoyment. His eyes are a thick curtain I can’t pull back. “This was…nice.”
My heart lifts, thinking about us playing with the girls, about us kissing tenderly. I didn’t think of myself as the guy who would ever get Hallmark moments. Nice is nowhere near as strong a word to describe the past twenty-four hours.
“I guess I should get going.” He searches for his clothes, thrown about somewhere in the truck bed.
I reach for his arm, stopping his hurried pursuit. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“I’m trying to find my clothes so I can go.”
“Jack, I wish you could stay. I want you to stay. I just think if the girls saw you this morning…it’d be a conversation I don’t know if I’m ready to have. But I want to, eventually. I don’t see this ending anytime soon.”
I surprise myself as well as Jack with the admission. It’s probably bad form to mention anything serious in the afterglow of sex, but time waits for no man. I spent the first forty years of my life not letting myself feel these feelings.
“I like you, Jack. I really like you.”
He nods, his jaw tight, emotion welling behind his eyes.
“Is it crazy that I want to be with you?” I ask.
“A little. But I’m just that good in the sack.”
“It’s not that.” He’s trying to deflect. I won’t let him.
“Griffin, maybe we should just leave it as some hockey season fun,” he says, his voice detached. He finds his boxers in a tangled ball against my leg.
“Is that what you want?” Did I completely misjudge the chemistry between us? Because what we had last night was not just sex.
Jack licks his lips, but stays silent.
“Is it because of your dad?”
“I mean, I doubt he’d be a fan of us fucking, to put it lightly. But come on, Griffin, we had some fun and maybe it’s best that it doesn’t go any further and ruin things. Our big game is in a week. Don’t mess with the juju.”
I don’t know what changed with Jack, but the wall between us went up fast.
He puts on his boxers, then finds his jeans. His dexterity at dressing himself while laying down is impressive and suggests that this isn’t the first time he’s snuck out of someone’s bed. I’d been using his shirt as a pillow.
“Can you lift your head?”
I do not. I shove the shirt behind my back. Immature, yes, but I had no better ideas. Looking into those crystal blues would make any man do crazy things.
“I know I should give you back your shirt and let you go and let that be that. But dammit, I can’t.” I cup his determined chin in my hand. “You’re the first guy who makes me feel like I didn’t completely fuck up my life, that all of these setbacks and hardships were all put in place for a reason, because they led me to you. When I came out, I did it to be honest with myself and those around me. I didn’t expect to feel this kind of hope. Like maybe I’m actually doing something right in my life for a change.”
“Griffin…” I feel his chin tremble in my grip, quivering with barely contained emotion. If I let him leave this garage, then this connection will be lost forever.
“And I know you’re supposed to be the cocky one, but allow me to indulge for a moment: you feel it, too. You’re into me.”
He softens a touch, but it’s very short-lived. His face hardens, a flash of anger bolting across his vision before he breaks from my grasp.
“Of course I am! But who says you’re not going to push me away like the rest of them!”
“Who would ever push you away?” I don’t mean to sound aloof. I’m confused as to why that would ever happen to someone as wonderful as Jack.
“Oh, let’s see? I thought I had loving parents, but my mom bailed without saying goodbye. And as soon as I stopped being a hockey star, my dad stopped being my number one fan.”
Red clouds his face. All I want to do is hug his anger away. He looks away, as if considering what to say next. He suddenly whips his head back to me.
“You know, before I became this big slut, I did try to do the relationship thing,” he says. “Guys loved the idea of fucking a professional athlete, and once the excitement faded, they bolted, too. So I figured it was smart to just leave things at one night only. Keep up the mystique, get my rocks off, and onto the next. I was good at that. You don’t get hurt that way. People don’t leave you if you leave first.” He shakes his head, his jaw incredibly tight. “And then I had to meet you.”
I put a tentative hand on his shoulder. His muscles are incredibly tense, like he’s always poised to run.
“I would never do anything like that to you,” I say. I’ve never been so angry in my life. Rage boils inside me at what’s been done to Jack. “You know I’m not like that.”
“They all say that. They all say they love me until they don’t.”
“I will never hurt you,” I whisper in his ear. “I would take the most brutal check on the ice every day for the rest of my life so you’d never have to feel this way again. I’m not going anywhere.” I kiss his forehead, waiting for the moment he shoves me back, but it doesn’t come. “I want you to love me. But more than that, I want you to trust me.”
Shit. Did I just use the L word? It was something that had been percolating inside me over the past day. Listening to Jack bare his soul pushed it to the forefront for me. There may be a big age gap between us, but Jack has lived more life by twenty-four, a life filled with ups and down and victory and hurt, than most people have by fifty.
“Jack.”
Slowly, he curls his hand around mine. A sliver of light at the end of this tunnel.
“I…” he croaks out, his voice stifled with emotion. A tear falls down his cheek. “Just kiss me already, Griffin.”
Will fucking do.
I pull him into my lap, kissing him with all my love, all my heart, telling him everything I can’t say with words. I will give him all the love he deserves, and I’m not going anywhere.
“But keep in mind if you do turn out to be an asshole, I will gouge out your other eye.”
“The people in your family sure do love coming after my sense of sight.”
“It’s genetic.” He laughs and presses his mouth to mine again, the salty taste of his tears hitting my tongue.
We pause, though, both coming to the same realization.
“Are you going to tell your dad about us?” I ask.
“Eventually. I think if I win this game next week, he’ll be in a good mood, so maybe that’ll be my opening.”
It wasn’t something either of us wanted to dwell on.
“Speaking of openings.” I drift my fingers into his boxers and down his crack. He pulls them back.
“I should go, and you need to sneak back to your bedroom.” He kisses me one last time before hopping off me. He finds his pants and leaves the truck bed.
This time, when I watch him walk out that garage door, I know he’ll be back.