Chapter 27 Jacob #2
Griffin doesn’t speak as he stands up. There’s a stiffness to his movements that tells me he was not planning on her being here and that loosens the knot in my chest. “What are you doing here?”
Sabrina doesn’t flinch or act like his angry tone affects her at all. Instead she tilts her head to the side and smirks at him in a way that feels kind of flirtatious.
Griffin’s gaze is steady but strained. He keeps clenching and unclenching his fists and I feel so fucking out of place. Honestly I feel like all of us are watching something that we have no right to be a part of.
Before I can even take a breath, she pushes past the threshold, eyes blazing with that familiar combination of entitlement and fury that makes my stomach knot. She clearly is unhappy with the welcome she is getting in this room.
Griffin is a step in front of me before I even register what’s happening, voice already low and controlled, “What do you want?”
Sabrina doesn’t hesitate. She steps forward with her jaw tight and her nostrils flared, and she spits it out, “I want to talk.”
Griffin’s eyes narrow. “We have nothing left to talk about.”
Her voice drops, sharp and bitter like he just insulted her intelligence, “You cheated on me. You owe me a conversation.”
And for a beat, I just sit there with beer in my hand, watching it happen, feeling this surreal mix of disbelief and anger that’s already warming behind my ribs, ready to make itself known.
I let out a humorless abrupt laugh because the hypocrisy is so fucking thick you could build a damn fortress with it. I wish I could take it back the second it leaves my mouth, but I can’t.
Her gaze snaps to me and the realization dawns so fucking fast as she hisses, “You.”
I freeze, because of course it’s my fault. In her mind, at least. Griffin turns toward me, confusion written across his face.
“You fucking told him,” she continues. “You turned him against me.”
I open my mouth and close it multiple times because I can formulate a response, “What? No… I-”
Before I can finish, Griffin’s expression shifts from confusion straight into accusation and anger.
“You hooked up with Jacob?” he nearly yells, that angry tone has become raised and I feel the hair on my arms raise.
I defend myself right at the same moment that Sabrina speaks up over me
“Of course not!” I blurt and she immediately cuts in with that wounded, dramatic flair, “Not him!”
The room hits this surreal freeze, like someone just dropped the temperature by twenty degrees all at once. Griffin turns toward her, jaw tightening slowly.
“Not him? So… you slept with someone?” he says, voice low and brittle like every word is sandpaper.
She huffs, face flushing a shade that’s a mix of embarrassment and defiance, and says, “It was one time.”
Just one time.
Like that’s supposed to make it any less of a goddamn shitty.
There’s silence then this thick, uneasy kind of quiet where everyone is processing differently.
Griffin standing there with this sharp, hurt edge in his shoulders, Sabrina bristling and flushed, Terry and Mack staring, and me… just trying to steady my breath because holy shit. How the fuck did this happen?
“Who?” Griffin hisses, voice low and shaking in that way that tells me he’s right on the edge of losing his shit completely. “Who did you cheat on me with?”
Sabrina’s face is bright red now, anger and humiliation bleeding together as she squares her shoulders. She throws her hands up, palms out, like this is all being blown wildly out of proportion.
“It’s not a big deal,” she snaps. “It was one time. We both messed up!”
That’s when Griffin explodes.
“I kissed Jacob one fucking time,” he shouts, the sound ripping through the room and punching straight into my chest, “and it is not the same as fucking someone else!”
Every single eye in the room swings to me like I just grew a second head.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I’m stuck staring at the floor because if I look up I will see how everyone is looking at me and I can’t handle it. He completely just threw our business out there in a way that I hadn’t expected.
“Jacob?” Sabrina says, her voice suddenly sharp with disbelief, cutting through the chaos like a blade. “You kissed him?!”
Griffin doesn’t even seem to realize what he’s just done. He doesn’t hear her shock, doesn’t clock the way the room has gone dead silent except for the pounding of my own pulse in my ears. He’s still locked on her with eyes wild and a jaw clenched so tight it looks painful.
“Who was it?” he demands again, louder now. “Who did you sleep with?”
The tension is unbearably thick. No one moves. No one speaks. It’s like we’re all waiting for the same inevitable crash, knowing it’s coming but powerless to stop it.
And then…
Like a bomb detonating in slow motion…
Hughie speaks.
“It was Connelly.”
His voice is flat and empty. My gaze snaps to his and my jaw falls open because I never once believed that Hughie would be the one to say it.
I mean, sure, I thought about telling him.
But I also kind of hoped that Sabrina would.
Well, no, I hoped this situation would never come to light but it has… in the worst fucking way.
“It was Connelly,” he repeats, monotone, like he’s reading the weather instead of detonating the entire fucking room.
The words hit all at once.
Griffin’s face drains of color. Terry’s mouth drops open. Mack swears under his breath, sharp and furious. My stomach lurches so hard I have to grab the back of the couch to keep myself upright.
And Sabrina?
She doesn’t deny it.
She just stands there, jaw tight, eyes flashing, like she’s already decided how she’s going to justify this next.
“And you knew?”
Griffin’s voice is soft when he says it, and that somehow makes it worse than if he’d yelled. I expect him to be looking at Hughie because Hughie said it but when I lift my head, his eyes are locked on me.
There’s so much hurt there that it feels physical, like someone cracked my ribs open and reached straight in. Betrayal, confusion, and pain are all of it layered so thick I can barely breathe under the weight of it.
“Griff-” I start, my voice already breaking.
“Did you fucking know?” he yells, and the sound of it snaps through the room like something shattering.
I don’t lie. I don’t even think about lying. There’s no version of this where that helps.
I nod. “Yes.”
He lets out this sharp, humorless scoff and closes his eyes, like the answer is worse than whatever he was imagining. When he opens them again, the distance there is brutal.
“Get out,” he says.
“What? No-” I push forward, panic flooding my chest, “We need to talk.”
“Get the fuck out,” he yells, and this time there’s no confusion in it. Just fury.
I don’t move right away. I can’t. My legs feel locked, like my body hasn’t caught up to what just happened, like if I stay still long enough maybe this will rewind itself and give me a second chance I don’t deserve.
Then Mack speaks, quietly and carefully, like he’s trying not to break anything else.
“Jake… you and Hugh should go,” he says. “We need to…he needs space.”
That’s when it hits me. Really hits me. The finality of it. The way this isn’t just an argument or a messy night. Because the way that Griff is staring at me like I betrayed him is…final. There’s not a good way to come back from this.
My eyes burn as I stand, Hughie rising beside me without a word, his presence steady but heavy.
“You can get the fuck out too,” Terry snaps, his voice sharp and unforgiving as his glare cuts straight to Sabrina.
She huffs like she’s been inconvenienced and storms toward the door without another word. The sound of it slamming shut feels obscene in the quiet that follows.
I move slower. Every step feels like I’m dragging something behind me. When I pass Griffin, I stop for half a second, my entire body aching with the need to fix something I can’t.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, the words barely making it past my throat.
He doesn’t look at me.
Not even once.
And that hurts more than anything else tonight.