4. Maren #3
“About you.” He dropped into the chair across from my desk with the weight of genuine suffering.
“Cole has been unbearable since you started. Sutter—Sutter, who says maybe twelve words a day—told me at breakfast that my sister was ‘very impressive.’ Two of the rookies asked if you were coming to The Rusty Nail on Friday. They have all asked your relationship status. There are rules.” He held my gaze. “It’s a lot, Maren.”
I put my pen down. “Griffin.”
“I know.”
“I am a professional colleague who works with the team in a medical capacity.”
“I know that. And you’re good at your job.”
“Thanks. I guess? Look. This is your issue to manage, not mine.”
“I know that too.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I just want to go on record that this is not what I pictured when I imagined us working together.”
“What did you picture?”
“I don’t know. You being invisible, maybe. Just here for me.”
“Very helpful. Thank you.” I gestured at the door. “Go be rude someplace else.”
He went, still aggrieved. I stared at the ceiling for a moment and went back to my notes.
I was gathering my things to leave when I heard Cole and Theo laughing in the corridor, loud and delighted, and Griffin’s voice behind it tight with disagreement. I took the back exit.
The afternoon heat was a wall I walked into.
I was almost to my car when the bag shifted on my shoulder.
I’d overstuffed it; I always overstuffed it.
My water bottle worked free from the side pocket.
I grabbed for it. Missed completely. The bottle hit the asphalt, bounced with what felt like personal intention, and rolled in a long, smooth arc under the car parked next to mine.
I stood and studied it.
Fuck. Oh, come on.
I crouched down. The bottle had come to rest in the exact center, equidistant from every edge, as though it had been placed there by someone with a personal grievance against me.
“That’s impressively far.”
I raised my head. Ryan was standing a few feet away in a T-shirt and gym shorts, bag over his shoulder, watching the situation with an expression arranged carefully into neutrality that was not even slightly neutral.
“I’ve got it,” I said.
“I can see that.”
I reached under the car. My fingers cleared the bumper by a wide margin and fell at least six inches short of the bottle. I shifted, stretched further, and my knee met the asphalt with a pointed lack of cushioning.
A beat passed.
“Still got it?” Ryan asked.
“I’m reassessing the situation.” I closed my eyes and willed the bottle to roll toward me so I could get off the ground and maintain the faintest bit of dignity I had left. If I had magic, this would be the time to use it. If only.
He crouched down beside me, close enough I was suddenly, acutely aware of how much space he took up even when he was trying not to, reached under the car without effort, and retrieved the bottle. He held it out.
I took it. Our fingers touched in the handoff, warm from the sun, and neither of us moved for the half-second longer than necessary it took for me to take the bottle from him.
We stood. He was close. The parking lot had emptied around us, the facility noise faint and far away, and the afternoon sun was making everything feel slightly more significant than it probably was. His eyes were very steady. They always were.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Sure.” He was smiling. And there was me, dumbstruck by his impossibly good looks. He must have noticed something was off, because then he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, of course, why do you ask?” I worked to school my expression.
“You seem like something is bothering you.” He tilted his head as if that would help him get a better look at me.
“Griffin’s inside,” I said quickly, pivoting from my dumb crush forming, “having feelings about the team’s behavior.”
He fixed his gaze on the facility doors and his jaw did the thing where it wasn’t quite a smile but his eyes gave him away. “Cole got relocated to the other side of the locker room.”
“Did that help?”
“Made him louder, so no.” He turned back to me. “For what it’s worth, they do this with everyone they actually respect. It’s a good sign.”
“That is a very generous interpretation of the situation.”
“Griffin doesn’t see it that way.”
“Griffin doesn’t see anything involving me clearly.” I resettled my bag, the water bottle now secured properly. “He’ll survive.” I rolled my eyes.
“He will.” A pause that was one beat longer than casual. The heat sat on both of us. “Sunday dinner. You going?”
“It’s my family’s house.” My answer came out sharper than I had intended. I was having an off day.
“Right.” He smiled. Brief, real, the kind that made me want to do something inadvisable. “See you there, then.”
He headed across the lot, gym bag shifting on his shoulder. I got in my car and sat in the heat without starting the engine for longer than I needed.
My phone buzzed.
Paige: How was work today?
Maren: Professional and uneventful
Paige: You’re the worst liar I know
I started the car and told myself the warmth in my cheeks had everything to do with the hundred-and-four degree parking lot, which was the most reasonable explanation available and also completely untrue.