Chapter 35
SASHA
That night, we come back with groceries as planned, along with a carton of fried rice and sweet and sour chicken we ordered for Chester at the end of our dinner. Turns out Griffin has a key.
“The animals’ll get the food if we leave it out here,” he says. He has no qualms about walking right in.
But inside, it’s not just the hallway light that’s off. The whole house is dark. The hallway and kitchen, both of which Griffin helped me tidy up after Chester fell asleep, are just as we left them hours ago.
Panic grips my chest. “I don’t think he got up again.”
But Griffin sticks his finger up against his lips, then uses it to point to a lump on the couch. The light’s dim in the living room, but I see now that Chester migrated out there at some point. A paperback lies open on the table I cleared, along with his reading glasses.
I should be relieved, but I whisper, “Can you check on him?”
Griffin squeezes my hand, then goes over to him and crouches down. A beat passes, then he gets back up again. “He’s fine. Just sleeping.”
Relief floods over me.
“It feels weird not locking it,” I say, still whispering as we walk away a few minutes later.
“It’s a small-town thing,” Griff says.
“What about your place?”
Griffin has a half-dozen locks on his front door alone.
“Occupational hazard.”
We reach the end of the yard. He points his flashlight down the path. A breeze glances over my bare legs under the marigold dress I changed into this afternoon when we went into town for dinner.
I put a hand on Griffin’s forearm, too distracted with worry to dwell on how good it feels under my fingers. I look back at Chester’s dark bungalow. “You think he’s going to be okay?”
“I think you shouldn’t worry about him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Griffin takes a moment to answer. “I’ll get the doctor to come back. And I’ll see about getting him a housekeeper. At least then there’ll be eyes on him when we’re not around.”
I can’t help but notice his use of the word we. Like this is my home too. Something soft and warm spreads through my chest.
“You know he’ll say no to all that,” I say as we walk along the darkened path.
“He won’t get the opportunity if someone just shows up. That’s how I got him doing grocery delivery.”
“Okay.” Satisfied, I lean into Griffin as we walk, enjoying the big, hard warmth of him next to me.
This time last year, if you’d told me that I’d be walking through the woods at night in the country right now, I’d have told you that you were crazy.
But with Griffin’s easy stride and absolute lack of worry, I don’t even think about it.
I’ve come a long way for a city girl.
We’re coming through the back door of the cabin when I remember to tell him about the locked room. “He doesn’t want anyone near it. Says his grandfather never wanted anyone to touch his stuff.”
Griffin opens the fridge and holds a beer up at me. I nod as I come over, and he does his sexy lid-pop-off thing before handing me one.
“You said the lock looked old?”
“It was all corroded. Like it was put on there years ago and never touched. You think there’s, like, a time capsule of a room in there?”
“Maybe.” Griff grins. “Maybe there’s a door to a secret bunker.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Only a little. You never know with a man who lived in the woods all by himself for so long.”
I lean with my butt against the counter. “Right?”
He hesitates, then runs his hand over his jaw.
I smile. “Uh-oh. You have something to say.”
He scowls and takes a swig of beer. His throat bobs, and I follow the motion down his scruff to the collar of his shirt, which stretches over his thickly muscled chest.
He looks so damn sexy I suddenly forget all about mysterious rooms and old locks.
I hook my finger in the top of his shirt and try to pull him down for a kiss.
For a moment he acts like he’s not going to give it to me. But just as I start to huff, he dips down and claims my mouth with his.
For a moment I’m lost in the sensation of his lips gliding across mine, his tongue lightly brushing against mine. His mouth has the tiniest chill from the beer, and I can taste it on him, too. Just a little.
I’m just wondering what a chilled tongue would feel like in other places when Griffin pulls away. “Hey, Sasha?”
“Yeah?” I say, still trying to press my body against his. I can feel a thickness at his crotch.
But he angles away from me and doesn’t notice me pouting about it.
“Since we’re talking about special things…” He meets my eye. “What’s that little bird about?”
I freeze, confusion drawing my brows together. “Bird?”
“The little yellow bird you brought from home,” he says softly.
My cheeks grow hot. I didn’t know he knew about that.
“I saw you holding it that first night in the diner.”
I pull away from him, not because I’m upset, but because it’s embarrassing. “It’s stupid,” I whisper, taking a swig of beer.
“Bet it’s not.”
I fidget with the hem of my jacket, suddenly feeling like the girl I was when that bird was given to me. Scared. Lonely.
Unwanted.
“Hey,” Griff says when I stay quiet. “You don’t need to tell me. It just seems special to you. And you’re special to me, so. You know.”
Finally I look up, meeting Griffin’s eyes.
He’s looking at me so intently my stomach swirls.
“You know what I like about you, Griffin?” I whisper.
He frowns.
“Besides that frown.” I press my thumb gently between his brows.
I rest my hand on his cheek, and he reaches up and eclipses it with his. “What, Angel?”
I swallow. “You care. You don’t just ask questions for the sake of conversation or even just because it’s interesting to you. When you ask questions, it’s because you care about the answer. What it means to me.”
He lowers my hand but doesn’t let it go. Just rests it against his collar like he doesn’t want to break contact. Then he looks away, taking another swig of beer.
“I know you don’t like compliments. Or you don’t know how to take them. But you’re a good listener, Griff. The best I’ve ever met, actually. And take it from me. I’ve known a lot of people who don’t listen.”
Griffin looks down, but he squeezes my hand still resting on him. He looks the way he does when he rubs a hand over his jaw, except both of his are occupied.
“What is it, Griffin?” I ask softly, teasingly. “You going to say something self-deprecating?”
“No,” he says, meeting my eyes again. His voice is a low rasp.
“Then wha—”
“I love you.”
I pause, whatever words I was going to say dying on my lips as my pulse leaps in my throat. “What?” I whisper.
Some part of me thinks he’s joking, because Griffin Kelly doesn’t do feelings. And if he does, he doesn’t say them out loud.
But Griffin Kelly meets my eye. “I’m in love with you, Sasha. Hopelessly fucking ass-over-feet in love with you.”
He drops his eyes, and it’s then I notice his hand has stopped moving against mine. That it’s trembling slightly.
“Griffin,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he says. “In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t. I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with it. I don’t know if you do, but it’s out there now, so—”
I interrupt him by pressing my lips to his.
I’m flooded with so many intense endorphins that for a moment, I’m fairly certain I’m going to faint.
He’s in love with me.
No one’s ever said that to me before. Well, men have said it, but they didn’t mean it.
Not the way Griffin does. Those men, they were in love with the idea of me.
The girl they wanted to look at and touch, but none who actually looked at me the way Griffin does when I opened my mouth. None of them cared what I had to say.
They didn’t love me.
Griffin pulls away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put that on you.”
“Never be sorry, Griffin. Not for that.”
He lowers his beer, cupping his hand around the back of my neck, his rough thumb scraping a curve across the sensitive flesh behind my ear.
But even knowing he means it, some part of me still doesn’t want to believe it. That part of me that clung to that little bird—the one who needed to hear the reasons why.
“Tell me,” I whisper, as he presses his forehead against mine. “Tell me what it is about me.”
He knows I’m not fishing for compliments. He can hear the pain in my voice. I can tell just by looking at him.
Griffin laughs softly, but his face is instantly serious again. “Where do I start, Sasha?”
He brushes his thumb along my ear. “I love the way you look when you have a new idea. Your face lights up, like the sun’s shining on you.”
He kisses me, soft and gentle.
“I love how your mind can’t rest until you’ve figured out the best way to help someone.” His thumb moves to my cheek. “I love how you somehow got my old coot of a neighbor to spill his life story to you the first day you met him, when it took him five years to tell me a single thing.”
He swallows. “Then there’s the fact that everyone I love has fallen in love with you, too, Sasha.”
My eyes are already wet, but at that, the tears spill over. I cup a hand over my mouth, because I’ve never had that before. Not even close.
“Your family loves you,” I whisper through my fingers. “They want you to be happy.”
“It’s not just that. They see what I see. They see a woman who’s more beautiful on the inside than outside, and that’s saying a fucking lot because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
I laugh, but it comes out a half sob. “Griffin…” But the words lodge in my throat. “I—”
He shakes his head. “Don’t.”
“But—”
“Sasha, don’t. Please.” His hands cup my jaw, his eyes meeting mine. “I don’t need you to do or say anything. I just couldn’t hold that inside anymore. That’s all. I don’t need anything back from you.”
I want to give him something back. So badly. But the last dregs of that old, hard-etched fear cling to me. But then Griffin kisses me, and I don’t need to push it away. A warmth spreads over me at his touch, one that flames to heat in the stroke of his tongue against mine.
I pull my face back, catching my breath.
“Griffin?”