Chapter 9
GRIFFIN
By the time we get to my place, it’s close to midnight.
My arm is cramped from holding hers against my chest—I spent the last hour panicking she was going to fall off the bike, and I kept having to ask her questions to keep her awake.
I’m not a great conversationalist to begin with, so things got a little weird.
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Muffaletta.”
“Is that some kind of lady muffin?”
Soft laughter. “It’s a sandwich.”
“So it’s a euphemism.”
“Oh my God.”
“What’s your favorite, uh…emoji?”
“Do you even know what an emoji is?”
“Why would I ask the ques—”
“Kissy face.”
Wrong question. I cleared my throat.
“Uh… What do you like to sing at karaoke?”
“My heart will go on.”
“Really?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It’s ambitious.”
“What’s yours?”
“Do I look like I do karaoke?”
She laughed again at that. I wanted her to keep laughing, but I was only ever accidentally funny. My mom always used to tell me we needed the serious, thoughtful people in life to make great things happen. I’d leaned on that when things I wished I could take less seriously happened.
“You don’t seem funny, but you are, Griffin Kelly,” Sasha said sleepily.
For the first time in my life, I wished I had Jude’s easy affability. Then I thought about what a pain in the ass I’d be and unwished it quick. Luckily I managed to keep her awake long enough to stay on the bike.
My sturdy log cabin isn’t messy—it’s spartan clean. I don’t keep a lot of stuff, unless you count tools and a small selection of outdoor gear, which are all neatly organized in my shop.
But as I lead her in now and see her look around the space, I wish it were a little more homey for her.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more out of place. I help her out of my coat, and she kicks off the rain boots. With her pink-toed bare feet, expensive-looking linen pantsuit, and diamond earrings, she fits in a log cabin about as well as a porcelain doll in a…well, in a log cabin.
“Probably a little basic for your taste,” I say.
I’ve owned this place for twenty years, ever since I moved back to Quince Valley after college and a few stints overseas, and I’ve never once considered how my house looks. Maybe I need more blankets or pictures on the wall. A cat? How do you make shit soft?
“I like it,” she says, drawing her fingers along the back of my big, worn-in couch as she walks by. “It’s rustic.” She makes her way through the living room, inspecting everything in the place like she’s walking through a museum, suddenly wide awake again. “Were you ever in the army?”
I frown. “No.” I did every kind of martial art under the sun—still do. I’ve done weapons training. I’ve extracted people from war zones. But I don’t think that’s why she’s asking. “Why?”
“There’s just a…precision about this place.
” She glances over at me. “That’s complimentary.
You should see my place. I like to try to make stuff, but I’m not very good at it.
It’s kind of a graveyard of failed DIY I don’t have the heart to throw out.
My mother’s always offering to ‘redo the entirety of the space.’” She says that in a slightly snobby-sounding accent.
With just enough of a note of hurt I feel like I can see their whole relationship.
“Do you and your mother get along?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I think I was born into the wrong family. I think I might have been happier in a place like this.”
I don’t know why that makes warmth spread in my chest.
“You should see my parents’ place. It looks like a freaking mausoleum. It’s just devoid of life, you know? Kind of like their marriage.”
She laughs, but I can tell she doesn’t think it’s funny.
Sasha gets to my bookshelf. “At least you can tell someone lives here.” She tilts her head at an angle to read the titles. “Ship-Making in the Iron Age. Jiu-Jitsu: Form and Art. Why are these books exactly what I’d expect you to have? You ever read for pleasure?”
“Those books please me.”
Sasha rolls her lips between her teeth. I can tell she’s trying not to laugh.
I scowl, heading for the closet, where I pull out two sets of clean sheets.
While Sasha’s exploring, I change my bed, giving the bedside table a swipe for dust and making room for her in one of the drawers.
She doesn’t have anything to put in there, but I’ll go out and get her a change of clothes tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll call one of my sisters to help.
Although the fewer people who know she’s here, the better. I don’t need to decide now.
Back in the living room, I toss the second set of sheets on the couch, then pause. She’s got a framed photo in her hand. Shit. “Hey, uh, that’s—”
“Adorable?”
Awkward nerves I haven’t felt in years crunch around in my belly as I come up behind her. The photo is of the five of us siblings with Mom and Dad when we were kids. Even though it’s probably sat in that spot for a decade, I haven’t looked at it closely since Cassandra gave it to me.
“How old are you here?”
I calculate. “Thirteen.” In the photo, my eyebrows are bunched together, my teeth bared.
Sasha looks at me and grins. “Are you trying to smile?”
I frown. “I am smiling.”
She presses her lips together. “Mm-hmm”
“Mom told the photographer not to let us go until we were all smiling.”
“Not an easy feat to coordinate seven people’s facial expressions, I bet. Though your brothers seem to have nailed it.”
Eli, who would have been around fifteen, is giving Blue Steel, while Jude, I guess eleven, has his hands on his hips and his chin up like Superman, his sparkling fucking grin lighting up his face as usual.
“Cassandra seems to know what she’s doing, too.”
Eli’s twin Cassandra has a perfect, polished smile on her face.
“She always did exactly what everyone expected of her.”
“Sounds exhausting,” she says, her voice sympathetic.
I’d never really thought of it that way.
Sasha points to the only other person besides me who looks like she’s not happy about smiling—our baby sister, Chelsea. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I didn’t get a chance to meet your younger sister at the wedding.”
I study her a moment. “You’d like her. She smiles more these days.”
Sasha throws me a curious look. I guess I don’t know Sasha well enough to know if she’d like Chelsea. But I know my sister would love her. Both my sisters would.
But Sasha smiles. “I’d love to meet her. Maybe this weekend?”
I shake my head, moving for the kitchen, which is open to the living room. “Nope. You’re not leaving this cabin.”
“What?” Her tone is kind of bristly. She doesn’t like that. But she doesn’t have to. All she needs to do is stay in my sight. Safe.
“You need to keep a low profile,” I say.
“You said Quince Valley was safe. No one knows me here.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I inspect the fridge. Empty shelves and condiments; I’m going to have to grab a few things tomorrow. “I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Griffin, do you really think Creelman’s going to come up here looking for me?” Her tone isn’t fearful. It’s searching. Verifying facts.
The chances of Creelman showing up here, knowing Sasha has a connection to Quince Valley—or me—are slim to none. But I need to walk that thin line again. I shift to the cupboards. “No. I don’t. But we don’t know anything right now. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Sasha sets the photo down. Not hard enough to break it, but enough that I know she’s upset. “Listen, I know you’re very good at your job—whatever that is. Bodyguard? You never said.”
“I’m in Tech.” My standard answer.
“Sure.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you’re a good…
tech. But I don’t want to live my life scared if I don’t have to be.
” She walks over to me. “Griffin, when that man showed up at my apartment, I’ve never been more scared.
Vincent Creelman would be thrilled to know that.
But I’m not going to let him dictate how my life is going to go. ”
Clearly I’ve swung too far into the easygoing side of things.
I run my hand over my face. What would have happened if she hadn’t called me?
I imagine her taken, her hands bound, gagged.
Fury at the assholes who put her in harm’s way rises like an animal inside me.
“Listen, Sasha, you’re safe here. I mean that.
But we’re still in hiding. If Creelman finds out where you are—and he’s going to try his fucking hardest—you’re in serious danger. ”
“I know the stakes,” she says, her voice steady.
“Do you? I’m not sure you know what a man like that is capable of.”
Sasha swallows.
Fuck me.
But she’s not falling back into fear. If anything, she looks more resolved.
“Griffin, I’ll be grateful for what you’ve done for me ’til the day I die. I am, right this second. But this is my life. I need to still live. If I’m safe, I can’t stay locked up. I spent too long trapped in a cage to let that man put me back in there.”
I see it suddenly, the childhood she must have had. The daughter of the beauty queen mistress who needed to fit into a judgmental, moneyed world she was accused of sleeping her way into. She sure as hell would have made sure her daughter fit into that world, whether she wanted it or not.
But this isn’t the same. And right now, I’m suddenly too tired to think of how to get through to her. “We should get some sleep.”
She blinks, anger flushing her cheeks. But I can see the weariness in her, too. “Fine,” she relents. “We’ll both think more clearly with some sleep.”
If she thinks I’m going to change my mind, I’m not. Her staying put in this cabin is nonnegotiable. But I just grunt. It’s the best I can do.
Sasha strides back to the living room and picks the sheet off the couch, shaking it out.
“What are you doing?”
“Setting up my bed.”
“You’re not sleeping there.”
Her nostrils flare. “I’m not taking your bed.”
“Of course you are.”
She shoots daggers at me. “I don’t like being told what to do, Griffin.”