Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
ENOUGH
Griffin
Theo had been crying since Jessa left. Not sulking or pouting the way kids do when they don’t get their way. But the crying that shakes a small body from the inside out. It comes from a place so deep you can’t reach it with words or promises or distractions or new video games
His was genuine grief. And the worst—it ripped me in half because I knew I caused it. I’d pushed Jessa away, and I couldn’t see a way to fix it.
It started the morning after she left. He’d woken up calling for her, stumbling down the hall in his pajamas, still half-asleep.
When I sat him down and did a horrible job of explaining that Jessa and I would not see each other for a while, his face crumpled.
He didn’t throw a tantrum. Didn’t yell or scream.
He just stood there in the middle of the living room and cried like his heart was breaking.
I tried everything. Made his favorite breakfast. Put on his favorite show. Promised him we’d go to the arcade, the planetarium, anywhere he wanted.
Nothing worked.
He pushed his plate away. Turned off the TV. Looked at me with those red-rimmed eyes and sadly proclaimed, “I want Jessa.”
I had no answer for him. Because I wanted her too. I’d pushed away someone pretty special and had no idea how to recover from it.
The tantrums came later. Days of slamming doors and wet pillows and eyes so swollen they looked bruised. I worried about sending him to school looking like that.
I decided that bringing another nanny into the house wasn’t a great idea, so I worked from home for now.
He went from screaming that he hated everyone to clutching the letter she’d left him like it was the only thing keeping him afloat. He’d folded and refolded it so many times the creases were nearly torn through.
He wouldn’t let me read it. Kept it stuffed in his coat pocket when he went to school, tucked under his pillow when he slept. It was like a secret only between them he wasn’t ready to share.
The penthouse felt wrong without Jessa, too quiet and empty.
The spaces she used to fill with laughter and warmth were hollow now.
Her coffee mug still sat in the cabinet next to mine.
Her scented body lotion was still in the guest bathroom.
A hair tie mysteriously appeared on the kitchen counter, and I didn’t have the heart to throw it away.
I couldn’t look at any of it without feeling like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart and soul. I kept waiting for the hurt to pass. Only each day made it worse.
It was after midnight. I’d been staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep, when I heard the pad of bare feet on the marble floor. Cupboards opening. Something rustling. I got up to investigate.
I found Theo standing on a chair in front of the pantry, still in his pajamas, reaching for something on the top shelf.
“Theo? What are you doing?”
He froze and didn’t turn around.
“It’s late. You should be in bed.”
Nothing. I figured he had his hand in the chocolate chip granola box again.
I stepped closer. “Buddy, what are you looking for? Are you hungry?”
He climbed down from the chair, clutching something in his fist. Without looking at me, he brushed past and headed back to his room.
“Theo—”
The door to his room slammed shut.
Dumbfounded, I stared at the open cupboard and the box of pasta on the shelf. Jessa had used the same pasta to make the bingo game with him.
I closed the cupboard and went back to bed, but I couldn’t shake the image of my son sneaking around in the middle of the night, hiding something from me, and shutting me out.
This wasn’t like us. We used to be so close. How did everything over the past year get away from me, turn my relationship with my son into this?
The next day, I did laundry—Theo hadn’t bothered to wash his clothes and hockey gear at all. He seemed to wake up, go to school, half-ass his way through practice, and come home straight to bed after dinner.
Admitting defeat, this was beyond me. I finally called the best child therapist around to help, and solidified an appointment scheduled a few days from now.
As I shoved the wet clothes into the dryer, I pulled out a pair of Theo’s jeans and found red mushy stuff all over them. “What the hell?” I checked the pockets and came up with what looked to be a half-disintegrated red pasta noodle.
My first instinct was anger, the hot flash of frustration that came from dealing with a kid who forgot to empty his pockets. I almost stormed into his room to remind him. But then I stopped.
I stared at the red noodle in my palm and remembered our game night—When Jessa had pulled the noodle to make up for the missing piece on our board.
Theo must have taken the red pasta from the cupboard last night. He was keeping it in his pocket.
Because Jessa was his missing piece.
The anger drained out of me in an instant, replaced by something that pained me so much worse.
Grief. Guilt. The crushing weight of knowing I’d pushed away the one person who’d made my son feel complete.
I stayed there in the laundry room with that soggy red noodle in my hand as my chest caved in. Every breath shook me as I fought hard for control.
What the hell had I done, and how could I fix this?
By the time I called Atlas, I was barely holding it together.
He showed up with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and that same West-family scowl carved into his face.
“Thanks for coming, and for agreeing to watch Theo for a while,” I said, letting him into the foyer.
He dropped his bag and looked around. “Jesus, Griff, turn on some lights. This place looks like a tomb.”
“It feels like one. Drink?”
I led him to the bar and pulled out a bottle of our dad’s best old scotch. I poured two glasses and slid one to him.
“Where’s the kid?” He asked.
“Asleep. Finally.” I took a long pull from my glass. Oh the sweet burn. “He’s been a wreck. Won’t talk to me. Cries himself to sleep every night.”
“Can’t blame him. I told you he liked her.” He studied me over the rim of his glass. “You look like hell, by the way.”
“Feel like it too.”
I finished my drink and poured another. The burn didn’t touch the ache, but at least it gave me something else to focus on.
“Do you remember this label?” He tipped his glass toward the bottle. “Dad’s investment. He dropped more money on liquor that year than most people make in a lifetime. Had a whole collection he never touched. Just kept it locked in a storage room like trophies.”
“Which each of us brothers got a share of. Cheers to Dad’s legacy,” I muttered.
The silence stretched. I moved to the windows. Outside, were several million hearts in the city. None of them mine. Jessa had returned to Holly Creek by now, a million miles away from me.
“Dad thought money bought everything. Happiness. Women. Us.” He joined me at the view. “And look how that turned out.”
My jaw tightened. “Look at us now.”
“Exactly.” His smirk faded. “You ever wonder why each of us screws it up the second a relationship gets real?”
The words hit like a sucker punch.
“Because he never showed us how,” he said quietly. “He worked himself into the grave chasing more. More money. More power and experiences. And we’ve been doing the same damn thing ever since.” He paused. “We don’t know how to be enough for someone without turning everything into a transaction.”
I stared into my glass. “Are you a shrink now? Because I have a little boy in his room who needs counseling.”
“Okay, poke fun. But I’m being serious. You’re like Dad, and I worry about you.”
“I’m nothing like him,” I seethed. But the words were hollow.
“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you killing yourself over this IPO? West Games is already successful. Why isn’t that enough?”
The question hung in the air between us. I didn’t have an answer.
“Jessa was enough,” I said finally. Voice rough. “And I still fucked it up.”
“Yep. You did. Be sure to thank Dad for that one.” Atlas said nothing more, only refilled my glass before retreating to one of my guest bedrooms.
Alone in the dark penthouse for another hour, replaying Atlas’s theories about Dad, and half the bottle now gone, the truth I’d been running from for weeks finally struck me.
I loved Jessa. And she was pregnant with a child we made together one fantastic night in Holly Creek. Our baby…
Somewhere between the first night we met, the night she walked into the lake house, and the moment she walked out of here, I’d fallen completely in love with her.
It wasn’t about the contract or the image or having someone to help with Theo. It was her laughter. The way she made up bedtime stories for Theo. How she looked at me like I was more than just a bank account with a pulse.
The way her body made me feel alive again.
I’d been so busy protecting my heart, so determined not to get hurt again, that I hadn’t realized what was happening until it was too late.
Fear had held me back from loving Jessa after losing Elsa long ago.
But how long was I going to let fear be in control of my heart?
How long was I going to let it cost me everything that mattered?