Chapter 72 Two Men, Two Missions
Two Men, Two Missions
Ryder
I wasn't hitting the grocery store only to hassle Griff. Or at least, that's what I told myself after spotting him from my balcony.
Looking way too earnest, he'd been heading straight for the entrance like a man on a mission.
And me?
I had a mission of my own.
Call it recon.
Last night, Griff – chivalrous bastard that he was – had robbed me of the chance to walk Tessa home. Instead, I'd been stuck watching from the shadows as Griff escorted not only Maisie, but the girl I was crazy for, back to their front door.
Griff got a kiss from Maisie.
And I got to watch as Tessa slipped quietly inside after giving her surroundings a curious glance, like she knew I was watching.
Of course I was.
I'd promised, hadn't I?
Sure, I trusted Griff to get them home safely, but I had intel that Griff didn't, especially when it came to Evan Carver and Tessa.
Apparently, Griff had been keeping me in the dark too, because the situation with his boss wasn't as simple as he'd implied.
Thus, the recon. I'd been in the store for less than five minutes when I spotted him by the deli case, squinting at lunch meat like the meaning of life was hidden somewhere between sliced turkey and ham.
I slowed, watching him with open amusement as he continued to stare at the meat. When I sidled closer, he didn't notice, but his basket told me plenty.
In it, I spotted fancy bread, Dijon mustard, chips, and two sodas.
Two.
One for him and one for Maisie.
That was my guess. So of course, I couldn't resist tweaking him. "What, did your private chef quit?"
Griff turned, looking irritated by the ambush, even as a ghost of a smirk tugged at his mouth. "What I'm sick of is you showing up to give me a hard time."
I grinned. "Who says I'm here for you?"
He paused. "You're not?"
"Alright. Yeah, I am." Mostly. But I didn't say that last part, because hell if I wanted to be hassled in return.
Griff shook his head. "See?"
Last night, I'd seen plenty and heard a little more from Tessa on the phone. But just as the story was getting interesting, she had stopped short, claiming – in her words – that she was being "respectful of a friend's privacy."
But me? I wasn't respectful at all.
The way I saw it, Griff needed to lighten up, which was half the reason I enjoyed hassling him. Every once in a while, the guy actually laughed.
I leaned closer to say, "But when I stopped by your place last night, you were gone." Actually, I had stopped by twice. Both times I'd been frantic with worry for Tessa.
But now? Yeah, I was mostly amused.
And why?
Because I knew exactly where Griff had been – and what he'd been doing.
At my mention of me stopping by, Griff gave me a funny look. "In the storm?"
The first time had been during the worst of it. The second time had been after, when it was all over but the rain. To keep it simple, I focused on the second. "Eh, it was after the storm. Maybe around eleven."
And of course, he changed the subject back to me. "So you were what? Flying here during the storm?"
Griff didn't know about the suite. He didn't know that I'd been staying on the island mostly from the start. And he sure as hell didn't know that I'd been sticking around for a reason – one that had nothing to do with Griff or the property where he was squatting.
I was sticking for her. Tessa.
But this was my issue, not Griff's.
Whether he realized it or not, he needed this getaway. And the last thing I wanted was to muddy the waters by saddling him with a problem that wasn't his own.
But I wasn't above needling him. "Forget me," I said. "I wanna know what you're up to." I lowered my voice. "You wanna talk about it?"
"Nope."
On impulse, I tossed him a bone. "Not even over steak?"
"Sorry, I've got plans."
I made a show of looking at his basket, noticing out loud when I'd already seen in silence. "Wait a minute. You've got two sodas."
"Yeah, so?"
"So for you and who else?" As if I didn't know.
"Maybe I want two."
Nice try. "Bull. If they were both for you, they'd be beer."
He said nothing.
Like Sherlock himself, I announced, "You're planning a picnic." When he still said nothing, I teased, "Don't tell me you've gone native?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Look at you. You're totally blending." I dropped my voice again. "Should I stage an intervention? What's next? Flannel and a tandem?"
He frowned. "Hey, I've seen you in flannel."
"Not on a tandem, you haven't."
Right on cue, a couple rode past the front window on a bicycle built for two, smiling like they didn't know the meaning of regret.
They were barely out of sight when Griff shocked the hell out of me by saying, "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."
No fucking way. "Oh, my God. You have gone native." If so, that wasn't a bad thing. Truth be told, I was glad to see it. But Griff didn't need to know that.
Abruptly, he asked, "Don't you have a lunch to get to?"
"I can't. My lunch partner just bailed." No lie. On the phone last night, Tessa and I had made plans to meet for lunch during her break – plans she had broken maybe an hour ago, thanks to some emergency at the coffee shop, something about her boss spraining his finger.
Griff was still frowning. "You mean me? We didn't have plans."
No kidding. "Maybe you didn't. But I did." Except those plans had been with Tessa, who was too responsible for her own good.
Griff suggested, "So ask the barista. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did."
I stiffened. "What?" I gave him a long, penetrating look. "So you've been hitting on her?" If so, his thing with Maisie made no sense. And more to the point, Tessa was all mine.
Griff replied, "Not hardly." He gave me a funny look, like I was the one losing it. "I've been trying to get information like you asked."
"Oh." Right. I'd almost forgotten. I had asked him for info, hadn't I? And now, I felt like an asshole.
Worse, Griff was watching me now, really watching, like I'd just slipped up. Looking far too suspicious, he said, "Wait…is there something you wanna tell me?"
Nope. I glanced toward the exit. "Sorry, gotta check out." I turned and headed toward the register, grabbing a bag of pretzels on the way – not because I liked them, but because I needed something to justify my being here at all.
Still, my recon had paid off. I'd learned something important.
Griff was in deeper than he realized.
And here was the real kicker. Probably, so was I.