Chapter Twenty-Two Ruby
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ruby
“Oh my,” I breathed, taking in the utter chaos in front of me. “What happened?”
Griffin was lying in the middle of the family room floor, legs out, arms on his chest as he stared up at the vaulted ceiling. “Maggie.”
I slowly set down my bag on the floor and took in the carnage in the kitchen—mixing bowls; an undoubtedly cold stack of pancakes; two half-empty containers of eggs; a half-eaten, lopsided cake with blue frosting dripping sadly down the side.
Happ Birth was all that was left on the cake, written messily in a red gel frosting. Colored sprinkles coated the parts of the cake that hadn’t been touched, and I swiped my finger through a glob of frosting on the cake plate and sucked it into my mouth while I turned in a slow circle.
“Is it your birthday today?” I asked.
From his spot on the floor, Griffin made a quiet grunt of assent. “I’m not moving. I’m staying here all day. That’s what I want for my birthday present.”
“Well, now I feel bad,” I said. “I didn’t know to get you a present.”
“You can help me clean up the kitchen. It’ll be the greatest gift anyone’s ever given me.”
I laughed, turning toward the dining room. My eyebrows shot up when I saw the table. Beads everywhere. Stacks of construction paper. Stickers. Glitter.
“They were here for like, twenty-four hours,” I said incredulously.
Griffin sat up with a groan, rubbing a hand over a bleary-looking face.
“I know. She found the crafting closet, and it was all over. They didn’t want to go to bed because they only had one night, so I let them stay up until midnight thinking they’d sleep in a bit.
” He shook his head. “Nope. She was standing over me at six a.m. Scared the absolute shit out of me when she whispered my name, asking if she was allowed to make breakfast.”
I smothered my grin, because he really did look exhausted. “Everything go okay when Barrett picked them up?”
Griffin yawned, giving his stomach a lazy scratch as he ambled into the kitchen to survey the damage.
“He stayed outside, which is probably for the best. If he’d seen this, it would’ve just reinforced that whole Griffin-is-an-irresponsible-child mantra that makes up the cornerstone of his tidy, perfect little universe. ”
With a tight throat, I started picking up the mixing bowls and moving them to the sink, then turning on the hot water and adding soap so that they could soak for a little bit.
“Everyone’s always looked at me a certain way,” I said quietly, tossing the cold pancakes into the garbage. The eggshells went in right after. “I’m the responsible one. The quiet, smart one. I never got into trouble, but I also wasn’t very noticeable either.”
Griffin joined me in the kitchen, soaking a washcloth with hot, soapy water. He started wiping at the dried frosting on the gleaming counters, swiping up little piles of crumbs while he listened quietly.
“In high school, I was constantly picked on by the popular kids.” In one of the drawers, I found aluminum foil and covered the cake, sliding the plate into an empty spot in the fridge. “Because I was too nerdy and too quiet and didn’t party and no one asked me out.”
Griffin’s eyes were heavy on me as I closed the egg cartons and moved those to the fridge as well.
“I was one of those kids, wasn’t I?” he asked quietly. “Before you moved.”
My eyes fell shut, but instead of answering—because even if there was a good-natured angle to it, we both knew he was—I kept cleaning, busying my hands as I washed the bowls and stacked them next to the sink to dry.
“It didn’t take me long to realize something,” I continued. With the counters clean, Griffin went over to the dining table and started stacking the construction paper, his eyes still on me as we moved around each other in the big space.
“People’s perception of others is always colored by their own issues.
Their own insecurities. The things we see in other people—especially when it’s a trait that we’re secretly a little jealous of—twist around in our brain before we’re even aware it’s happened.
It becomes an ugly thing to tease them about.
Make them feel like they’re doing something wrong, because we’re sick with envy that we don’t have just a little bit of that. ”
I joined him at the table, using a damp paper towel to pick up the glitter.
My arm brushed his, but instead of lingering, I moved away again.
“The kids who teased me about being a boring little bookworm—I saw them struggle in class. Saw them fight with exhausted teachers, when all they really wanted was respect.” His eyes were fixed on mine when I glanced up, the space between us thick with tension.
“I think they wanted to be a little bit more like me without having to give up the good parts of being themselves.” I dumped the glitter-covered paper towel and turned in his direction.
“Just like I gave you a hard time about being a player. Someone who made women line up to do a song and dance.”
Griffin’s movements slowed. “You wanted to be a little bit like that,” he said.
After a slight hesitation, I nodded. “I was jealous of how easy it was for you.”
His brow furrowed. “My brother isn’t jealous of me.”
“Isn’t he?” I shrugged. “Look at the lengths his kids went to just to spend a single evening with you. He probably doesn’t know how to be more like you any more than you know how to be like him.”
It was like watching a wall lock into place behind his eyes. “I don’t want to be like Barrett. He’s cold and hard and impossible to soften.”
“And he’s respected,” I said quietly. “Admired. Taken seriously.”
The hard muscle in Griffin’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth.
I dropped my eyes, stomach fluttering nervously at the change in subject. Anytime we’d tiptoed into the harder things, they were always mine. But seeing him yesterday, facing off with his brother, I saw something in Griffin’s face that was entirely foreign.
Intimidation. The thought of this larger-than-life man being intimidated by anyone was impossible to reconcile, but it was there all the same.
Only until his brother requested that I leave the room; then there was a pulse of anger, of possession—like the release of a flash-bang into the enclosed space, momentarily disorienting me with the painful brightness and the staggering echo.
It was the mention of me that brought Griffin back into himself, with the straightening of the shoulders and the puffing of his chest.
Not for the first time since we’d started whatever this was, I desperately wanted to pry back the layers of this man. If he’d let me, of course.
It seemed at every turn, this thing with Griffin was destined to challenge me. Force moments of bravery where before I might have hidden from the hard—allowing the thoughts of what could go wrong to dissuade me from acting.
I walked closer to him and pulled my phone from my back pocket, clicking on a link that I’d saved, and turned the screen around so he could see it. Confusion bent his brow as he carefully took the phone from my hand to bring it closer to his face. His mouth went slack with shock.
“What is this?”
I sucked in a breath, letting my shoulders rise and fall in a helpless shrug. “Figured you could let someone else push the rock up the hill for a little bit.”
His eyes were fierce and bright when he tore them from the phone screen, locking onto mine for a breathless moment. “How did they get these pictures?”
I gently eased the phone out of his grasp and smiled at the headline of the article.
Griffin curled his hands around my hips and stood behind me, resting his chin on the top of my head while I scrolled through the article, stopping at a picture of Griffin crouching in front of the dunk tank.
In this one, he was surrounded by a group of first graders from the elementary school.
His shirt was soaked from a recent trip into the tank, his smile wide and happy as the kids held up his number on their hands.
Underneath that one was a shot I’d snapped while he took a selfie with a tiny elderly woman who lived down the street from me. Her wrinkled hand cupped his face while she grinned, and the picture caught Griffin midlaugh.
The article talked about his appearance in a small town north of Denver, where he’d been spotted helping with various fundraising efforts for the local library. The last line made my eyes gloss over, and I carefully highlighted it, making sure he took the time to read it.
Denver may have signed the younger King for much-needed power on the D-line, but from the looks of things, his superhero presence is being felt in far greater places than on the football field, making this one of the best roster moves we’ve seen in a while.
Welcome to Colorado, Griffin. We hope you stay for a long time.
“It was you,” he murmured. After I managed a short nod, throat tight and my eyes still filled with helpless tears, Griffin wrapped his arms around my waist and ducked his nose into my hair for a long inhale. “I think you’re too good for me, birdy.”
Slowly, I turned in his arms and cradled his jaw with my hand. “Says who?” His brow pinched briefly, but I laid my finger over his lips before he could answer. “I see you, Griffin. Not what people say about you or what you used to be. I see you, and I have never respected anyone in my life more.”
His eyes held mine, and the thick line of his throat worked on a swallow. “I see you, too, Ruby Tate.”
A soft, warm feeling spread through my chest—something good and wonderful and undeniably bittersweet.
Was that the thing I’d been missing all this time?
Not the sex or the affection or sharp snap of desire.
It was that. Being known by someone intimately and trusting that they liked what they saw enough to stay. That was it, wasn’t it?