Chapter Eight
Griffin had not thought it possible to stand in front of another one of these hotel room doors and feel more uncomfortable than he had a few hours ago, when he was standing in front of Layla Bailey’s.
But it was.
It was definitely possible.
“You good if I leave you here?” he said to Michael, who’d raised his hand to knock.
Michael dropped his hand and looked over at Griff.
No, Griff gathered. Michael was not good. He had not been good since this morning, and especially not since Emily’s latest text had come through ten minutes ago, during his and Griff’s slow walk back from the park.
Can you come? it said, when Michael showed Griffin his phone. And then, another: I love you.
He and Michael had both stood still on a narrow sidewalk next to the display window of a closed chocolate shop, staring down at the screen like two dumb American tourists who couldn’t get anywhere without a map and without also interfering with the flow of pedestrian traffic.
“What does that mean?” Michael had said, his brow furrowed.
The meaning, Griffin thought, was pretty straightforward in the abstract, but also, he knew what Michael meant. Was Can you come, I love you good news or bad news? Was Emily asking him to come so she could call it off, or so she could put it all back on?
Had Layla kept her promise, or not?
“Let’s go,” Griffin had replied, getting moving again, but he hadn’t counted on Michael taking that Let’s so literally. He hadn’t counted on Michael asking him to come up to Emily’s room with him.
“Just, you know,” Michael said nervously as they’d gotten closer to their destination. “For a few minutes.”
A vulnerable ask, Griff knew. A brave one.
Michael had never given Griffin the chance to ask a question like that. He’d always been there before Griff even had to contemplate the prospect of such naked vulnerability.
So, now, with Michael’s wounded eyes on him, he kicked himself for being so selfish again. Hadn’t he just sworn to himself that he’d be a different Griffin this week?
He said, “Never mind,” and lifted his own hand to knock on Emily’s hotel room door.
Then he squeezed Michael’s shoulder and stood slightly back, waiting. The way a best man should.
Layla Bailey opened the door.
Goddammit, Griff thought.
Hair still up, the rogue swoop by her eye, those little pearl-drop earrings.
She was not yet an idea he’d gotten used to.
Especially not when her eyes went straight to his, instead of Michael’s. As though part of her expected to see him. Dreaded to see him, probably.
Had she been crying?
Inexplicably, he took a step forward, but as he did, she snapped her eyes to the right. To Michael.
“Emily’s washing her face,” Layla said, and then she made a sort of stutter-stop move: a step back to widen the door, as if to invite them in, followed immediately by a narrowing of the space again.
The little customer-service-type smile she’d given to Michael dropped from her lips, and he could see her nibble at the inside of her cheek.
“It’s, you know—a little…” She trailed off, and Griff looked past her shoulder, the way he had this morning. He couldn’t see much of this room, either, but what he could see finished Layla’s sentence for him.
Were those tissues on the bed? A whole fucking lot of tissues?
He looked up at Layla again, narrowed his eyes.
“Is she okay?” Michael said, his voice weighted with concern. Griffin figured he’d spotted the tissues, too.
Right, it was probably Emily who was crying.
That made…a lot more sense.
“She’s doing okay,” Layla said, her voice gentle now, like it had been while she’d talked to the girl on the plane. “She was really glad you were coming.”
Her eyes flicked to Griffin’s, her lips flattening. I don’t mean you, she seemed to be adding.
There was an awkward silence where both Michael and Layla seemed to register the oddity of their respective positions: her keeping the room closed off, but now unsure about doing so; him eager to see Emily, but unwilling to show any impatience.
“You could—” she said, gesturing at the room behind her, at the same time Michael said, “I can wait out—”
To tell the truth, Griffin did not know why his being here was particularly helpful. It wasn’t like he had a talent for making situations like this less uncomfortable.
He did, apparently, have a talent for noticing that Layla’s cheeks had turned the faintest shade of pink.
“Oh,” interrupted a new voice, and Griffin had the sense of his and Michael’s and Layla’s synchronized head-turn toward the source of it.
There, a few steps down the hallway, stood a woman who was probably Emily’s age, wearing a color of shirt so unnatural that it made Griff want to close his eyes.
She had two gold hoops in one nostril, enough earrings to cover the entire curve of one ear, and also what looked like a small diamond chip in her cheek, right where a dimple would be.
“Rosie,” Michael said, and Griff connected the dots, the piercings, whatever. This was Emily’s maid of honor. Kind of an alternative type, is how Michael had described her on the drive in from the airport yesterday, which was a very Michael thing to say.
“What’s happening now!” Rosie half shrieked, and Griffin winced. Everyone would hear that. Layla needed to stop being so sensitive about the goddamned tissues and invite them into the room.
“Everything’s okay,” Layla said, in her airplane voice.
Rosie’s gaze bounced between Layla and Michael, clearly unsure. She lifted a white paper bag in one hand and a cardboard tray of small to-go cups and said, “I got hot chocolate, too. To go with the croissants.”
Craw-sawnts. Griffin wondered if he was the only guest at this wedding who’d actually practiced the language before coming here.
“That’s great,” said Layla. “I’m sure Em will want some while she and Michael talk.”
Griff felt Michael tense beside him at that ominous word—talk—but Rosie’s expression lightened, as if she knew this boded well.
“They were pretty pricey!” she said, which seemed like the wrong tone for the moment, but what did he know.
Then she shifted her gaze to him. He’d give her credit for not being shy about it, but she was a starer. Not the kind who let disgust betray on her face while she looked, but still. A starer.
He stared back.
“All this cost thirty-two euros,” she said. Pointedly.
Okay? he thought, bewildered, and then he heard it—a little noise from where Layla stood. A huff of air, but with a touch more noise behind it.
Was it…a laugh?
He turned his face toward her, but already, her face was expressionless. Still pink, but blank again.
He found it unaccountably frustrating.
“I’ll Venmo you,” she said to Rosie.
Rosie snorted and stepped past Griff and Michael, toward the door. “Well, fine. You’re a doctor, I guess.”
As she nudged her way past Layla into the room, she added, inexplicably, “But not a billionaire.”
Layla’s cheek tucked in again, a little bite she was taking from the inside. Trying not to laugh was better than crying, but he didn’t see what was funny about getting price-gouged by a person with a diamond chip stuck in their face.
A door clicked open behind Layla, and seconds later, Emily was there beside her, her puffy eyes locked on to Michael’s.
“Hi,” she whispered shakily, and Griffin watched as his best friend’s chin quivered a tiny amount, right as his arms opened.
Emily stepped straight into them, tucking her face against Michael’s chest as his head lowered toward hers, his lips pressing against her mussed hair.
Griffin did not look at Layla.
“It was the CHAMPAGNE!” Rosie shouted randomly from inside the room, but Emily and Michael didn’t seem to hear. Emily murmured something against Michael’s shirt, and he nodded, then separated from her only long enough to start guiding her away.
“Uh,” Griff said, which was not one of his finer moments, in a lifetime of not-fine moments.
“They need some time,” said Layla, because neither Michael nor Emily was bothering to look back.
He turned toward Layla again. He didn’t like the way she said that. It had none of the unbothered optimism of Rosie shoving her way into the room, yelling about champagne.
“Did you fix it?” he said.
Her jaw ticked. Better than the blank stare. “I’m going back to my—”
“Layla,” Rosie interrupted, coming up behind her and holding out the white bag, “take the rest of these croissants. I already ate a donut thingy on the way back. One of those long ones. With cream inside.”
An éclair, Griffin thought, at the same time Layla said, “An éclair.”
Fine. Her pronunciation was not terrible. Based on his little Rosetta Stone lessons.
“I felt like I was in a porno eating it,” Rosie said, and Layla practically snatched the bag out of her hands, muttering something Griffin didn’t catch.
Rosie snickered, then added, “Want one of these hot chocolates? I think it’s basically a war crime here to take them to go, so you might as well enjoy the spoils of my ruining a French barista’s morning.”
“Sure,” Layla said. Griffin thought it sounded like she was speaking through clenched teeth.
Rosie handed over the cup, and Layla managed a quick “See you later” before stepping fully into the hallway, using the hand still holding the bag to close the door behind her.
When she looked up, Griffin raised an eyebrow. He was not, generally, the lesser of two evils in any given interpersonal environment. At least Rosie made her laugh, which he would most certainly never manage to do.
It was subtle, but he saw it—the way her shoulders drooped the smallest amount.
A clear confirmation of his not-the-lesser-evil status.
Standing with that gray door behind her, no natural light in the narrow passage of the hall, she looked washed-out, tired.
The pink in her cheeks from before drained away now.
He cleared his throat, about to offer to pay for the croissants. Just so he’d have something to say.
But she spoke first, her voice as quiet as Emily’s had been. “I don’t know.”