Chapter 45
TIANA
Oh. My. God.
For a moment I forget how to breathe—I forget everything, except the implausible fact that Sylas just called me Mommy.
I glance at Griffin, unable to process. He stares back at me, stunned. I want to say something, but the words tangle in my throat.
“Did you—did he—” I stammer.
Griffin nods once, like he’s afraid to inhale and jinx it.
I cover my mouth, feeling my own heartbeat thundering at my lips. For so long I’ve been just the nanny, the temp, the plug-in parent. No one told me you could fall in love with a kid at the same speed and intensity as an adult, that the title “Mommy” could ever apply to me.
Griffin’s hands are gentle on me, as if I’m about to shatter. “You okay?” he whispers.
I nod, tears threatening. “I think so. Are you?”
He cracks a smile, leaning his forehead to mine. “Yes.”
The next call from Sylas is more insistent, ringing down the hall: “Mommy! I want a snack, please!” This time there’s no denying it, no mistaking accident for intent.
I’m out of the closet and racing down the hall before I know what my legs are doing. Griffin is on my heels. At Sylas’s open doorway, we find him sitting on the floor, playing with his toys.
I cross the threshold and crouch down to his level. I sit back on my heels, hands pressed over my mouth, and just stare at this little person who has just made me his.
“Sy… you just called me mommy.”
He shrugs, dragging a stegosaurus across the rug with focus. “Yeah,” he says, then glances up at me, brow furrowed. “You don’t like it? Was that bad?”
“Oh, Sy. No, bug. I love it.” I say, hugging him. I want to stay in this moment forever. “You can call me anything you want.” His head tucks under my chin, and one of his hands pats my shoulder. Tears actually spill now, sliding down my cheeks.
Behind me, I sense Griffin in the doorway. He joins us on the floor, and I don’t care what I look like, curled up on the carpet with a child in my arms, laughing and crying at the same time.
Griffin’s arm drapes over our shoulders, as if the three of us have always fit like this—like the missing parts just needed time to find each other.
His lips press to my ear. “Thank you. Thank you for making us feel complete.”
The words curl around my spine, a gentle caress. I don’t know if he means himself or Sylas or all three of us together, but I believe him.
I squeeze Sy tighter, and he worms out of my grip so he can haul his stegosaurus up to Griffin’s face. “We’re a family,” he declares, and I don’t know how he got so wise, but there’s nothing truer.
Griffin ruffles his hair, then tucks me against his shoulder, like he can sense I’m trying not to dissolve into a puddle.
I can feel his breath at my temple, the steady thump of his heart under my hand.
We sit there for a while, the three of us pressed together on the carpet, until the ache in my knees and the ache in my heart become one and the same.
“Are you going to get married now?” Sylas asks.
Griffin and I burst out laughing. I can barely get it under control.
Part of me wants to say, “No, of course not, Sy, that’s not how grown-ups work,” but I can’t bring myself to.
If we were a normal family, I’d probably already be looking up venues and imagining a wedding dress I’d never afford.
Instead, the question lands between Griffin and me like a dare.
Griffin clears his throat and says, “That would be up to Tiana.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it, but his hand finds mine, threading our fingers tight together on the rug as if he can anchor the moment before it slips away.
I shoot him a look. “Don’t you dare, Hayes. You’re still in the dog house.”
He raises his free hand in mock surrender and smiles innocently.
“I’m not going anywhere, bug,” I tell Sylas instead, as a promise and a truth.
Later that night, after Sylas conks out with his cheek mashed against his pillow and his thumb hooked in the neck of his favorite pajamas, I slink from his room, careful not to trip on the piles of plastic predators littering the floor like landmines.
I pause in the doorway for one last look.
I still can’t believe that he called me Mommy.
Not just once. A handful of times, as if the word had been sitting patiently on his tongue, waiting for permission to come out.
My heart squeezes when I remember the way he looked at me afterward, so casual, as if he hadn’t just tilted my entire world on its axis and handed me something I never thought I’d get to have.
At almost twenty-two years old, becoming any kind of mother figure should probably terrify me. Maybe for someone else my age, it would. But I’ve always loved kids. I’ve always known I’d want them one day.
I just never thought it would happen like this, after stumbling into a temporary nanny job and finding a little boy who would rearrange my heart without even trying. The thought of being needed by Sylas feels like a gift. One I want to hold carefully with both hands.
Closing Sylas’s bedroom door behind me, I cross the hallway, grimy from an entire afternoon of playing bodyguard to a herd of rubber triceratops.
If love is an energy, I spent every last volt of it keeping up with Sylas today, and now my bones ache in places I didn’t know could ache.
The knees of my jeans are green from grass stains, and the backs of my hands are smeared with the sticky aftermath of popsicles and god knows what else.
I don’t remember a time when I felt so completely exhausted or this happy.
It’s dark and quiet as I tiptoe down the hall to the bathroom.
Once inside, I peel off my shirt and run the shower, the pipes groaning awake. There’s a split second where I just stand there, hands braced on the lip of the sink.
I ease out of the rest of my clothes and let them puddle to the floor, then step into the stream. The water is too hot, and the sting on my skin is exquisite. For a long minute, I stand under the spray, eyes closed, letting everything go slack.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”
The voice breaks the spell.
I spin around, nearly slipping on the wet floor. Through the fogged glass, I can just make out Griffin’s silhouette freezing in the doorway, a stack of towels clutched to his chest. He drops them on the counter and wheels around so fast one of them slides to the floor.
“Did you not hear the shower turn on?” I screech.
Griffin doesn’t move, shoulders rigid, facing the door. “I have my earphones in and the door was unlocked. I had no idea you were in here.”
I try to hide, but it’s pointless—Griffin’s seen every inch of me, worshiped it with his mouth and hands.
He pauses, then risks a glance at my reflection. “I can leave, or—I’ll just leave.”
But he doesn’t move. Instead, he hovers at the threshold.
I watch him through the mirror, the air between us thickening by the second. He’s now looking back at me, knuckles white as he flexes his fists, and that’s when I know I want him to stay.
“Wait. Don’t go.” I’m not sure which version of me says it: the one who is still mad, or the one whose skin sings at the thought of his eyes on her.
He moves a step closer, then stops at the edge of the vanity. “You sure?”
I can’t see his face clearly, but I can feel the energy rolling off him in waves. I press my palm to the glass, water running down my arm. “You can look, Griffin. It’s not like you haven’t before.”
For a minute, he just stares at my shape behind the steamed glass. I resist the urge to cover myself, tilting my chin up instead, daring him to look away.
And then, without any warning at all, my eyes fill with tears. Suddenly it’s all too much. The betrayal, my emotions, the mess that is Griffin and me. I bite my lip to keep from making noise. I want to be invisible, maybe even evaporate with the steam. This is so embarrassing.
I scrub my hands over my face and try to calm down. But it’s too late.
Griffin doesn’t hesitate.
He slides the glass door open and enters the shower. He’s still fully clothed, jeans and a t-shirt, and water splashes his chest when he steps under the shower head beside me.
“Sugar. Please, don’t cry.”
I want to tell him to go away and let me have this embarrassment alone, but as soon as his arms come around me, I melt.
He leans into the water, soaking his shirt in the process, and pulls me flush against him, my wet skin sticking to the cotton.
The force of his hold almost knocks the air out of me.
“Baby,” Griffin whispers, rocking me back and forth while water beads down his cheeks and soaks his collar. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.” He nestles his face in the space between my neck and shoulder, every muscle in his body tensed as if he’s shielding me.
I bury my face in his chest and sob harder, the sound echoing off the tile.
My hands cling to his shirt, bunching the rough fabric at his waist, and all the tension I’ve been holding for days—weeks, is torn up and out of me in a rush.
My knees buckle and Griffin lowers us carefully to the wet floor, his arms never letting go.
If he’s uncomfortable or cold, he doesn’t say it. He just keeps rocking me, letting the droplets run off his hair and drip down his nose.
My sobs eventually settle, replaced by a hollow feeling. I’m left exhausted, face pressed into Griffin’s soaked shirt, hands stuck to his torso.
When I peel my cheek up from his chest, he smooths hair away from my face, then holds his thumb at my temple.
“I did this to you. You’re hurting because of me.
” His voice cracks on the last word, and he swallows, fingers trembling as they brush under my jaw.
“You don’t have to make it easy on me. I want to be the one to fix this.
You are the best part of my life, and I was still so… afraid.”
I want to say something cruel, or at least smart, but all I can do is nod.
Griffin then reaches for the shampoo sitting on the shower tray, squeezes a dollop into his palm, and works it into my hair.
My eyes fall shut after the first drag of his hands over my scalp, and a sigh slips out of me.
His fingertips move through my hair in slow circles, working the shampoo into a lather, massaging at my temples, the nape of my neck, the tight place behind my ears where all the tension seems to have gathered and refused to leave.
He lowers his mouth to the top of my shoulder and presses a kiss there. Then he turns me beneath the spray, guiding my head back so the water can rinse the shampoo from my hair.
Griffin releases my wrist and reaches for the conditioner next, working it through the ends of my hair, combing his fingers through the tangles.
I keep my eyes on the center of his chest, and stare at the scar near his collarbone. A pale line from some old work injury. Water gathers there, then slides down over the hard planes of him, disappearing between us.
I want to touch it, but I don’t. My hands stay curled against my stomach.
After he rinses the conditioner from my hair, he takes the body wash. He looks at me then, asking without words.
I nod once.
His throat bobs.
The washcloth moves over my shoulder first, warm and soft, carrying the scent of eucalyptus.
Griffin washes me like he’s memorizing the places he’s been allowed to touch and apologizing to all the ones he took for granted.
Down my arms. Over my wrists. Across my palms, one at a time, his thumb sweeping over the center.
I watch his hands move over mine, and my chest aches so sharply I almost step back.
This is not forgiveness.
I’m not pretending the lies didn’t happen just because he’s gentle and beautiful and loves me in a way that makes my bones hurt.
It’s trust being rebuilt.
This is me, letting him take care of me because I want him to. Because I need it.
Griffin kneels to wash my legs, and the sight steals whatever breath I have left.
He doesn’t make it sexual. His hand is steady around my ankle as he lifts my foot, rinses the soap away, and repeats the motion on the other side.
When he’s done, Griffin stands, water sliding down the hard lines of his chest. He reaches behind me to turn the water a little warmer when I shiver, then gathers my wet hair over one shoulder.
I look up at him, at the wet strands of hair falling over his forehead, at the grief and regret and love carved into his face like he has no idea how to hide from me anymore.
My fingers curl against my stomach, but then I force them to move. Slowly, I lift one hand and place it against his chest. His heart pounds beneath my palm.
“Tiana,” he whispers. My name sounds ruined in his mouth.
I slide my hand higher, over his collarbone, over the strong column of his throat, until my fingers brush the rough edge of his beard. Then, I rise onto my toes and kiss him.
Griffin doesn’t move at first. He lets his lips rest against mine, uncertain beneath the rush of water. When my fingers tighten at his jaw, a rough sound breaks low in his throat, and his hands come to my waist.
I press closer, and the kiss changes. It’s slower, deeper. It feels like grief and forgiveness, like love with a bruise pressed right through the center of it.
His mouth moves over mine with aching restraint. My other hand finds his shoulder, gripping tight.
When he pulls back, it’s barely enough to separate our mouths. His forehead rests against mine, his breathing uneven, his hands still fixed at my waist.
“I’m not forgiven,” he says, voice rough.
My eyes burn. “Not yet,” I whisper.
I swallow hard, then I kiss him again, because I can’t say thank you. I can’t say I love you.
And I can’t say “I’m scared that I’m already halfway back to you,” because I don’t know how to protect myself from that.
When we break our kiss, Griffin wraps his arms around me, and lets me hide against him until the water starts to cool and my breathing finally evens out.
For tonight, this is all I can give him.