Chapter 20 Idiots in Love
IDIOTS IN LOVE
ARTEMIS
Gryff and I stayed up almost all night just talking and laughing and kissing. It was the perfect night, even though we didn’t do anything more than that. I honestly thought it was so incredibly sweet that he wanted us to date and do all the girlfriend-boyfriend things first.
At some point we must have fallen asleep, and I swear it was mid-deep conversation, because I woke up still wrapped in Gryff's arms. Our legs were tangled together, we were fully clothed and holding each other like we might disappear if we let go.
For a moment, I kept my eyes closed, afraid that if I opened them, it would all have been a dream.
My body felt different. Aware in new ways, the slight beard burn on my neck, the tender spot where Gryff had sucked a mark just below my collarbone, the pleasant ache in my lips from hours of kissing.
Six years of careful distance, and now I knew exactly how much pressure Gryff liked when you bit his bottom lip, how he made this tiny gasping sound when you traced your fingers along his ribs, how his hands shook when he was trying to go slow.
“I can feel you overthinking,” Gryff's voice rumbled against my hair, and god, I'd heard his morning voice thousands of times but never like this, never with his lips pressed against my temple.
“How do you know I'm awake?”
“Your breathing changed. Plus you're doing that thing where you scrunch your nose when you're thinking too hard.”
I opened my eyes to find him watching me with so much affection it made my chest tight. This was Gryff looking at me without having to hide it, without having to mask it as friendship. The difference was devastating.
Vincent and Holly were at the foot of the bed, looking extremely pleased with themselves.
“I think they're taking credit,” I said.
“They should. They're smarter than us.”
“Everyone's smarter than us. We took six years to figure this out.”
“Six years, two months, and twelve days,” Gryff corrected, his fingers tracing patterns on my arm. “But who's counting?”
“You were counting?”
“Since the day you walked into gym class.” His voice went soft, vulnerable.
My throat went tight. All those years, he'd been counting.
He kissed me then, slow and deep, nothing like our practice kisses.
Those had been careful, controlled, with clear boundaries and endpoints.
This was Gryff kissing me because he wanted to, because he could, because stopping wasn't required anymore.
His hand came up to cradle my jaw, thumb stroking my cheek, and I melted into him completely.
When we finally came up for air, I was half on top of him, my hands in his hair, both of us breathing hard.
“We have to get up.” I kissed just the very tip of his nose. “You have practice, and I have work.”
He grabbed my hips and held me tight against him. “I'll call in sick. Lovesick.”
“I need to thank Tempest,” I said, trying to calm my racing heart.
“Please tell me you've been reading her sex scenes and have ideas. Wait, does it involve tying me to the bed?”
I smirked at him, but I was remembering that for later. “For pushing us when we were too scared to push ourselves.”
I grabbed my phone, dropped down and pressed myself against Gryff's side, unwilling to put any distance between us. I snapped a quick selfie of us still in bed, Gryff pressing a kiss to my temple, both of us looking completely blissed out and thoroughly kissed. I sent it to Tempest with:
Thank you for the trust exercises idea. I think they worked.
Her response was immediate.
TEMPEST
!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG OMG OMG
JULES NEEDS TO SEE THIS
“Oh no,” I said, but I was laughing.
My phone exploded.
The Kingman family group chat, which I'd been added to years ago, suddenly had fifty-hundred notifications. Fifty-hundred and one. Fifty-hundred and two.
JULES
[Photo]
FINALLY! I thought we’d have to lock you two fools in closet to get to admit you are in love.
CHRIS
Wait, they weren't already together? Like since high school?
DECLAN
Chris, how are you this dense?
CHRIS
They live together! They have goats!
FLYNN
They were “roommates”
CHRIS
But they've been together at every family thing for six years
JULES
PLATONICALLY
CHRIS
They share clothes
JULES
STILL PLATONICALLY
TEMPEST
I'm a genius. Romance author powers activate. LOVE WINS! Also Flynn is crying.
FLYNN
I AM NOT CRYING.
Okay I'm crying a little.
Shut up.
KELSEY
This is definitely going in my next album
TRIXIE
Book club is going to SCREAM. I've been shipping you two since page one.
JULES
I have a PowerPoint ready. 47 slides. IDIOTS IN LOVE: A six year saga of denial. I was going to base my thesis on it.
CHRIS
SIX YEARS?! And they're just now...? How is that possible?
But they seemed so together. Like a couple
FLYNN
That's because they SHOULD HAVE BEEN
CHRIS
I'm so confused. Trixie, did you know?
TRIXIE
Everyone knew, babe
CHRIS
I didn't know!
JULES
We know, Chris. We know.
“Your family is insane,” I said, watching the text continue to fly.
“Our family,” Gryff corrected, reading over my shoulder, his chin hooked over my shoulder. “And yes, they're completely insane.”
We'd have to deal with all of that eventually, but right now I just wanted to stay in this bubble where Gryff's hands were allowed to wander under my shirt, where I could kiss him whenever I wanted.
“Want to be idiots in the shower?” he asked, his voice low and promising.
“Together?”
“I'm never showering alone again if I can help it.”
“Hmm.” I crawled out of bed, and headed for the bathroom, dropping my shorts and then my shirt along the way.
I was going to have so much fun teasing and flirting with him in every way I possibly could.
Just in the doorway to the bathroom, I turned, standing there only in my bra and panties.
“I thought you wanted to take things slow, do boyfriend and girlfriend things first.”
“Uh… did I say that?” He sat there in bed looking dumb-founded, and also very turned on. “I don’t remember saying that. But I also can’t remember my own name right now either, so…”
“Don’t boyfriends and girlfriends wash each other’s backs, or hair, or something?”
He jumped out of the bed and was half naked before I even took another breath. “Yes, they definitely do.”
I'd never let myself look at Gryff before. Not really. Now I could catalog every detail. I loved the way water ran down the muscles of his back, how his eyes went dark when I pressed him against the tile wall, the sound he made when I dropped to my knees.
To be fair, it was his turn.
Also, god bless whoever had the foresight to install the tile bench seat and that fancy-ass eight-jet-plus handheld sprayer.
“How,” I gasped later as Gryff hung that sprayer back on its hook, after giving me the cleanest pussy on the planet, and two, count them, two more orgasms, “did we do this for months without jumping each other?”
“No idea,” he said against my neck, sucking another mark that I'd have to cover for work. “I wanted to do this every single time.”
“The practice sessions were torture.”
“Torture,” he agreed, his hands skimming down my sides, learning every sensitive spot. “Sweet, perfect torture. Do you know how many cold showers I took?”
“Not as many as me.”
“Want to bet?”
I traced the muscles of his back, the ones I'd been wanting to touch freely for so long. “We're going to be so late.”
“Don't care.”
“Flynn's coming to pick you up for practice.”
“Really don't care.”
But eventually we had to get out, mostly because the hot water ran out and partly because my legs were shaking too much to stand.
We stumbled into the kitchen, me in his robe that smelled like him, Gryff in boxers and nothing else, looking edible.
That's how Flynn found us when he walked in, negotiating bed arrangements, which was headed toward combined mega-bed for us and room for the goats, while Gryff remained plastered to my back like an oversized koala.
“Oh good, you're both alive,” Flynn said, taking in our disheveled appearance, the visible marks on my neck, Gryff's refusal to stop touching me. “I was worried you'd died of sexual frustration. Finally.”
After they left for practice, I tried to focus on getting ready for work, but everything felt different.
The house looked the same but felt transformed.
This wasn't just where we lived anymore, it was our home in a new way.
Our towels hanging side by side in the bathroom meant something different now.
The way Gryff's clothes mixed with mine in the laundry suddenly seemed romantic instead of practical.
At work, I was useless. Completely, utterly useless.
Nichelle from Accounts Receivable appeared at my cubicle. “Spill. Now.”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“You've been smiling at your computer for an hour. You've checked your phone twelve times. And is that a hickey?”
My hand flew to my neck. “No.”
“It absolutely is. Oh my god, did something happen with Hot Roommate?”
“His name is Gryff.”
She stole a chair from the next cubicle over and sat down. “Did something happen with Hot Gryff?”
I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face.
At lunch, I stepped outside to call my mom. She needed to hear this from me, not from the Thornminster gossip network.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she answered. “How's work? Are you contributing the highest percent of your paycheck to your 401(k)?”
“Yes, Mom. And another ten percent of my paycheck to my rainy day backup savings account. But that’s not why I’m calling. I have news.”
“Oh god, you're not pregnant, are you?”
“Mom.” She always went for the worst-case scenario first. “No.”
“Sorry, mother's prerogative to panic. What's the news? Oh, I know, you’ve impressed your bosses so much with your work ethic they’re giving you a promotion. Be sure to get a raise and make them pay you for what you’re worth. You’re very smart and they’re lucky to have you.”
“No, that’s not it.” Here goes. “Gryff and I are together now. Like, together together.”
There was a pause, then she let out a hard breath. “I can’t say I didn’t see this coming, but, honey, he’s an athlete. Do you really think that’s wise? Consider what that kind of unstable lifestyle did to our family.”
“I’m an athlete too.”
“Yes, but that’s not your career. You were smart and got a degree and work in a field that is stable.”
And boring. And not necessarily what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. But I’d definitely never said that to her.
“Gryff got a degree too. He’s not a dumb jock. You like him.” I couldn’t believe I had to defend my best friend to her. She knew Gryff, she loved him. Said more than once that he was a good influence and liked how grounded he was. I even think she had a little crush on Zaddy Kingman.
“He’s a lovely young man, but so was your father at twenty-two. But Gryff could get hurt, will likely get traded to one team or another, and you’ll just have to pick up and move to wherever he’s called to go. What if you end up in someplace like Cincinnati or Timbuktu.”
Then I’d adjust exactly like I always did. I was quite literally raised to be adaptable.
But what struck me was that in all of this what she didn’t understand was that it didn’t matter where Gryff and I lived, or what we did.
We could live in little huts in the Indian countryside making goat milk soap and weaving hats out of the fur Holly and Vinnie leave on our pillows every morning, and I would still be happy.
“Mom, I’m going to say this as gently as I can because I love you and know you’re just trying to keep me safe. But Gryff is not dad. He prioritizes family above everything else.”
“Ouch, sweetheart. But… that's actually helpful. I'm sorry I put my own worries and fears on you. I just want you to be happy.”
I knew she was sincere, but that didn't mean I wasn't a bit frustrated with her. “I am happy. Happier than I've ever been.”
“Good. That's all that matters.”
After I hung up, I stood there for a moment, letting the frustration drain away.
But then I smiled, because when I got home from work, I was going to get to tell me boyfriend all about the crazy conversation I had with my mother and he was going to hug me and kiss me and tell me every little thing was gonna be all right.
My phone buzzed with a text and it made my heart sing to see it was him.
GRYFF
Can you take time off work/practice next week?
Why?
Thought you might want to see your dad?
What? I mean, of course I do, but...what?
Bandits are playing in Edinburgh next week. It's one of those weird international games. Wanna come with?
I had to sit down on the bench outside the office building.
He was doing it again, taking care of me, thinking of what I needed.
After that conversation with my mom, the contrast was overwhelming.
Here was Gryff, remembering that I hadn't seen my dad in years, knowing how much I missed him, planning around it.
Are you taking care of me?
Always. But also I selfishly want you there.
I want to see Scotland with you.
And meet your dad as your boyfriend, not your roommate.
Plus I want to see where little Artie learned to be a badass.
I was born a badass.
True. But Scotland made you a rugby badass.
Also I already bought you a ticket and booked a hotel.
Of course you did.
You know me so well.
I love you.
Never going to get tired of hearing that.
I love you too.
Flynn started a tally.
Of?
Times I've said “my girlfriend” or “Artie and I are together”.
I'm at twenty-three.
TWENTY-THREE?
Might have announced it in the locker room.
And at the coffee shop.
And to the janitor.
You're ridiculous.
Ridiculously in love with you.
Your face is ridiculously in love with me.
It is, my strawberry girl. It so is.