Chapter 31
GRIFFIN
The next town over from Quince Valley isn’t as pretty as home, but it’s only a half hour away and boasts a plethora of big box stores, including a lumber depot.
Sasha insists on driving. “I’m going to forget how to do stuff if you’re always the one doing it,” she says.
I don’t know what she’s talking about, given she’s driven into town plenty of times while I’ve been working at home, both for errands and to her shifts at Bijou.
But I hand the keys over to her, and she skips over to the driver’s side.
I try to ignore how she’s the most adorable fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
I try to ignore the bigger feeling that comes on the heels of that thought as she cranks up the radio when she discovers they’re playing a Reese Franco song.
It feels like my heart’s stuck in a fist. The worst part is, it isn’t mine.
I have no control over how hard it squeezes.
Ford calls me as we’re on the highway, and I let out a breath, glad for the distraction. I lean forward to turn the music down a little, and Sasha seamlessly takes her solo down to miming.
“What’s up?” I ask Ford.
“I got the tap in place.”
I shift in my seat. “Okay.” I haven’t told Sasha I’m going to be monitoring her brother. I will, I just haven’t yet. “That’s great, thanks.”
“You’re with Sasha, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
He sighs. “Well, try to pay attention. I was thinking about taking a little trip over your way.”
“Oh.” Not what I was expecting. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not dying or something, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I was.”
“Nah, I just miss you.”
“Fuck you.”
Ford chuckles. “I’m heading out to Houston after I wrap up here, and it’ll be a while before we’re in the same room for a bit. I just want to chat a bit about what we talked about back in Bern.”
I blink. Bern. That was a couple of years ago. Back when…
“Oh.”
We were out at a pub after successfully handing a client over to one of our safe houses. Our client had gone public with her information, and we were on our way to landing fat bonuses from Lionel for how well the whole mission had gone.
But we’d both struggled with that project.
Our feelings about how things should have gone had diverged from Lionel’s.
It wasn’t the first time, but it was the most significant.
We’d helped a woman who’d uncovered a web of sexual harassment at her Fortune 500 company that went far, wide, and ugly.
Lionel had wanted to focus on the company breaking its policies.
We wanted to blow the lid off this kind of behavior in the whole industry, and in response, Lionel had told us to keep our dicks in our pants.
Ironic, given the news story we’d just helped break.
Ford and I had both been pissed. We were both most passionate about the cases like these, where asshole men were thinking with their dicks and not their brains, throwing their female employees under the bus while touting equality out the other side of their mouths.
“Yeah,” Ford says now, bringing me back. “I think it’s time we had this conversation again, especially considering how things have been going.”
“You know I’m up for it.”
I hang up the phone feeling energized about work for the first time in a long time. And guilty as fuck for thinking about abandoning Lionel, no matter how bad things have gone.
“Everything good?” Sasha asks. We’re just pulling into the parking lot of the Lumber Depot.
“My friend Ford’s coming to Quince Valley. He wants to meet you.”
I grin.
“This is Ford from work? I can’t wait. He sounds handsome.”
“He what?”
“You know. That time I picked up your phone when you had grease all over your hands.”
I grimace. “It was supposed to be Chelsea.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Sasha.”
Her mimicking of Ford’s voice would make me laugh if it weren’t for the spike of jealousy running through me. “You know what? I’ll just tell him I’ll meet him in the city next time I’m there.”
“No way.” She throws the truck into park. “He can come out to the bar with us. We’ll be there to talk ghosts anyway.”
I groan. I’d forgotten about that meeting she’d set up. Jude had rescheduled it twice, first due to something going on with the non-profit he ran and the next because of back-to-school teacher interviews. We were locked in for next week, though, he promised.
“Let’s just get this wood and get back home so I can show you exactly how much I don’t care about you thinking Ford sounds sexy.”
Sasha hops out of the truck before I can go over and open the door for her. I scowl, even as she kisses my cheek and especially when she whispers, “I like you a little jealous.” Even though she makes me blush.
The trip inside is quick—we know exactly what we’re there for, and we end up buying the longest lengths of lumber the store’s got. Sasha also insists on getting three brand-new rocking chairs with padded seats we see on a “last chance” display of outdoor furniture.
“One for each of us,” she says, smiling. I have to look away. The rocking chairs have a permanent kind of feel that belies our shorter-term arrangement.
“These are going to stick out of the bed, Angel.” I warn her about the lengths of wood as we load them onto the flatbed cart. “By a lot.” Luckily the rockers come flattened so everything should still fit.
“I’m still driving home.”
I’m not sure if she’s still convinced that’s the best idea once we reach the parking lot. She moves the smaller pieces of lumber herself, but I have to get up onto the tailgate to strap on the big pieces.
Sasha huffs as she throws the next smaller piece on the load a shade too hard. It’s only then I notice there’s a woman nearby looking quickly away. Was she looking at me?
I pay attention after that and see Sasha puff herself up every time a woman passes by, whether she’s looking at me or not.
I have to try hard not to smile. “You all right?” I ask when I hop down off the back once it’s all secure.
“I’m fine,” she says as I strap the red flag to the back.
“You sure? You looked a little jeal—”
“I said I’m fine. You look a little sweaty. Your arms are all glisteny.”
“Is that a word?”
“You stink, too.”
I clench my jaw to keep myself from laughing. “You’re cute when you’re jealous, Angel,” I say, kissing her forehead.
“I’m not—ugh, so sweaty!”
“You sure you want to drive?”
“I said I did, didn’t I?”
Now it’s my turn to practically whistle as I head around to the passenger side of the truck.
Sasha does a good job of pulling out of the parking stall slowly, making sure no one’s around as she navigates our extra-long load.
My cheery mood continues…until the blast of a horn startles Sasha into slamming on the brakes. The horn sounds again. Not once, but three times. Long, hard honks.
I glare in the side mirror.
The truck tries to edge around us, but Sasha’s blocking their way. “What the hell!” she says. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you’re doing everything right, sweetheart. Ignore him.”
“I’m in his way—”
“That’s how parking lots work.”
I need to heed my own advice, though, because when he lays on the horn again, anger flares in my chest.
The other people in the parking lot are starting to stare, pausing in their loading of trunks and trucks.
I can see him angling his head out the driver’s side window. He’s young. Cocky. “Learn how to drive!” he hollers.
“Jesus,” Sasha says. But her hands tremble as she works the gearshift, trying to get the truck back into reverse.
The asshole lays on the horn again.
“Put it into park.”
“What?”
I kiss her on the cheek as I undo my belt. “Please.” I do a bang-up job of keeping my voice steady, given the anger rolling through my veins.
She pushes the stick up.
“Stay here,” I say before calmly opening my door and jumping out.
The guy didn’t see me in the passenger-side mirror. All he could see was a beautiful blond woman trying her hardest to move an oversized load around a tight fucking parking lot and decided to be an asshole.
He realizes his mistake as I round the front of my truck and appear on the driver’s side. Maybe it’s my size or maybe it’s my ugly mug. Maybe it’s the way I’m not exuding the irritation he was expecting. I’m a calm fucking rock.
A rock with red-hot lava bubbling underneath.
“Hey man, I…”
He trails off as I come right up to his open window.
I lay my hand on the roof of his car and lean in. “Hey, buddy.” I pause, as if searching for just the right words. “I’m just wondering—where’s the fire?”
“What?” He screws up his cocky little face.
“I said, where’s the fucking fire?”
“Fire? I just want to—”
“If you were fleeing a fire, I’d understand this kind of impatience.
I’d move the hell out of your way. But there’s no fire.
” I raise my voice. “My wife is trying to back up a load of lumber without sending it through your front windshield, Final Destination style. So first, count yourself lucky she’s looking out for you.
But second, if you lay on this horn one more fucking time, I’m going to come back, flip up this flimsy-ass little hood, and rip that horn right out of your truck.
Then I’m going to get back into my truck and ask her kindly to move over so I can gun it in reverse at just the right spot so that wood narrowly misses your head.
I’ve got good aim. I’ll do it. I’ll probably go to prison for a little while, but I’ve got a few connections.
I’ll be out on bail in a year, and then I’ll look you up and make your life a living hell for as long as I feel like it, because I’m patient like that.
Unlike some assholes. Do you understand me? ”
The man’s face has gone pale, but he can’t seem to find his words. Finally, he says, “You’re fuckin’ crazy, man.” Then he shoves his truck into reverse, and with a peal of tires, backs all the way out and screeches through another exit, making another car swerve and honk.
A smattering of applause sounds from around the parking lot, and a woman passes with her husband. I catch her hissing, “I could use even half that kind of support when I’m parallel parking, Brian!”
When I get back in the truck, I’m still breathing hard, but not as hard as Sasha.
“What the hell was that?” she demands.
I open my mouth, but not fast enough to speak before Sasha throws herself on me, her arms tangling around my neck, her lips kissing my mouth and nose and cheeks in a flurry.
“I should be mad at you,” she says when she finally releases me. “Pulling that caveman shit.”
Then she kisses me again.
I can’t stop my hands from holding her close, letting the last of my anger drain out of me. Honestly, half of that anger wasn’t even for the little shit behind us. It was at Creelman. At Sasha’s brother.
At the masked man who shot Laura all those years ago, leaving her to bleed out on the floor while I showed up too late.
But right now, that anger’s gone, and all I know is the intensity of my feelings for the woman in my arms.
“It was overboard,” she says when she pulls far enough away to speak. She grips my head in her hands. “But you went overboard for me.”
“Assholes need to be called out sometimes. That’s all.”
I pull her back into me and kiss the shit out of her for so long that I can tell the person behind us wants to honk but doesn’t dare.
A minute later, as she puts the truck into drive, calmly turning us in the right direction, she says, “Thank you, Griffin.”
I brush her hair off her cheek, swallowing down the words threatening to spill out of my mouth. Instead, all I say is “I love being your apeshit caveman.”
Which also happens to be true.