Chapter 4
The Truman Show, Psycho Style, Baby
With his eyes darting toward me almost as often as to the road, Griffin zipped Clyde out of the Periwinkle Hill neighborhood without picking up Hunt.
By the time the blaze of Griffin’s desire ebbed, and the crotch of his jeans loosened, his right hand wasn’t on the gearshift but was running through his hair, leaving the dark strands messy and mussed, a clear sign of his agitation—and an indication I was going to struggle to keep my hands off him.
His hair standing up in all different directions was sexy as fuck, like we’d been pressed to the bed together all night.
A slight frown tugged at his mouth. He probably had a million questions but was heeding my warning, too confused, stunned, and cautious to ask any.
I should use the time to update him. I mean, obviously. There was so much to tell him! But all of it was as unpleasant as a surprise sucker punch to the gut on a full stomach. He’d startled so hard when he heard me speak into his mind.
But Griff was chill under pressure. He’d roll with things until he understood—and then he’d probably want to course correct and speed over to “Uncle Magnum’s” to murder the fucker while he sat at the breakfast table.
My stare hadn’t left Griffin since he’d rocketed up my driveway.
I couldn’t stop admiring his every perfect detail.
There wasn’t a single blemish on him that I could spot around his Thrasher t-shirt that exposed his arms. There was just smooth, tanned skin, sculpted by lean muscles and highlighted by the weaving bands and swirls of his tattoos.
The last time I’d seen that flesh it had been a charred crisp that flaked off the bone.
Or perhaps worse, it had been covered in red boils and blisters, the meat beneath the skin not yet cooked.
The smell … oh God, the smell. Too reminiscent of putrid barbecue when I knew I was smelling the burnt body of the man I loved.
His car—this car, sort of—had blown up like a cask of gunpowder.
The explosion had brightened the night more than the plumpest moon.
There’d been nothing to dampen the senses, to disguise the visceral signs that Griffin was burning with us mere feet away and unable to do a single damn thing to prevent it.
The adrenaline that pumped through my veins had made the sizzling smell, the popping and crackling of the consuming fire, the taste of meat in the suddenly sweltering night air, and the sight of the Mustang reducing to its steel skeleton all the more vivid.
“Stop the car,” I mumbled on a cresting wave of nausea.
Already slowing, Griffin’s eyes were on me immediately. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Fuck no, I’m not okay. I’ll probably never be okay again.
With my hand hovering around my mouth, I said the first thing I could think of for our invisible audience’s benefit. “A rock. In the tire. On my side.”
Griffin’s eyebrows arched at the glaring absence of the clicking against the pavement that signaled said stone lodged in the tread of a tire.
“Pulling over,” he said.
The moment he drew to a complete stop on the shoulder—I’d never jump out of a moving vehicle again, thank you very much—I hopped out, bolting for the nearest bramble of bushes.
I puked, heaved, then puked again before I finally realized I was shaking, and that at some point Griffin had begun rubbing a soothing hand over my back, not saying anything, just being there for me like he always was.
When I couldn’t bring up even bile anymore, I staggered away from the patch of vomit and collapsed onto my butt on the grass. Griffin lowered himself next to me, still rubbing my back, still waiting. When I swiveled to point my face away from the curious looks of passing drivers, he turned with me.
“You okay, baby?” he eventually asked, his voice deep as always, but as calming as a swaddling blanket. I could wrap myself up in the sexy lull of his voice and remain there forever.
I shook my head, tucking some of my loose strands behind my ears. “I must’ve eaten something that didn’t sit well.” My voice was a croak, inconsistent with my first story of a stone in the tire.
“Don’t worry. I’ll remember to check the tire before we get back on the road,” Griffin said.
He’d always been sharp. Didn’t matter that he’d essentially been thrown into the deep end without knowing how to swim. He was treading water like a champ regardless.
“I’m only worried about you right now.”
“I’ll be fine,” I lied. “Just need to catch my breath for a few, that’s all.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder, breathing in his fragrance: his usual soap that reminded me of fresh, crisp mountain air, and today the faint scent of sawdust and leather, as if he’d been working on cars, not coming back from the dead.
I willed this smell—of him so wonderfully alive—to overwrite the memory of his burning flesh.
I shuddered.
“Hey,” he soothed, rubbing a hand along my thigh. “I need to get you home.”
“No,” I said, too fast, too forcefully. Home was the place our not-parents lived, though it seemed he wouldn’t know that.
“I’ll stay with you.”
I was shaking my head again but had to stop when another wave of nausea rolled through me.
“I don’t have to stay with you if you don’t want,” Griffin offered.
I squeezed his hand. “Of course I want you to stay with me. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” He bit his lip, probably remembering how I told him our conversations weren’t our own.
“Like I said, just something I ate.”
I sucked in a fortifying breath, rubbed my tongue along my teeth—no longer minty fresh, yuck.
I told him.
He stiffened but didn’t say anything. Whether that was because he didn’t know how to or because of the gravity of the news he likely wasn’t expecting, I didn’t know.
He let out a long, shaky exhale, but never stopped rubbing my thigh, comforting me.
He jerked his body back so he could look at me. “What?”
He nodded, cleared his throat as if preparing to speak aloud, then, hesitantly,
I smiled, easier now that the side of his body was pressed against mine. The grass was wet enough to dampen the seat of my jeans. I’d care in a bit, but I couldn’t bring myself to care just yet.
He gave me a Hmmph, whaddya know, that was easy arch of his mouth and brows.
I told him.
His eyes grew wide, their hazel churning, troubled.
I gulped as my memory assaulted me with the acerbic sounds of sliding gravel, next the crunching, creaking, and straining of steel as Griffin went over the cliff in Clyde. Then, that awful, disturbing, terrifying silence.
Fuck, a decade of therapy might not make a dent in my trauma. Swallowing again, I winced.
“Think you could hand me my water? It’s in my bag. My mouth tastes like something died up in it.” I winced again. What a fucking poor choice of words.
He disengaged from me gently. “Yeah, of course. Sorry, should have thought of that.”
I tsked. “Nothing to be sorry for. You’re being wonderful.” I received the bottle with a smile of thanks.
As composed as I was going to get, I told him,
His brow drew low, shadowing the trouble that wasn’t leaving his eyes now. He looked at Clyde with open suspicion.
His brows couldn’t furrow any more deeply. Lines bunched between them.
I chortled darkly.
He ran his free hand through his hair some more.
I swallowed, drank more water, nibbled on my lip.
He gaped at me.
But he trailed off, glancing once more at his baby.
Only the hand raking through his
hair told me he was already accepting that it was. He’d never doubt me.
He shook his head slowly.
I said with a scowl of disgust.
His mouth dropped open.
He barked an incredulous laugh.
His mouth dropped open again and took a few seconds to close.
I scowled.
I slid my phone from my back pocket.
I smiled but it fell quickly. Our lives were so royally fucked.
All too aware that our text messages were being monitored, my thumbs flew across the screen of my iPhone.
Me: U guys up for playing hooky? Just had a puke fest on the side of the road. Griff’s with me.