Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Oh, what the fuck, thought Griffin, and what he assumed was that Jamie was about to say some bullshit about Griffin’s best man performance so far. He’d have to bite his tongue hard for that, keep things fine for Michael—
“I saw you and Layla,” Jamie said.
Griffin blinked. He had his right hand resting on the edge of the counter, and he curled his fingers inward.
“I was in the hotel lobby when you”—he paused, cleared his throat—“when you and she came back last night.”
Griffin had been touching her in the hotel lobby.
His hand low on her back, his pinky and his ring finger along the upper curve of her ass.
In front of the elevators, she’d leaned into him, a lot like she had that night on the boat cruise, but this time, she meant it. He’d pressed his face into her hair.
“And?” Griffin said, but he did not like this one fucking bit.
He did not like that neither he nor Layla had noticed anyone in that lobby, and they’d looked, too—right as they crossed through the glass doors, him staying a few steps behind her then, both of them scanning the expanse of it.
He did not like to think of this guy, her fucking ex-husband, her ex-husband who brought a date to this thing, skulking behind one of those weird lobby columns, seeing him and Layla at the end of their perfect, private Paris day.
“And you looked…You were touching her.”
You have no idea, he thought. You have no idea, and you never will.
But Griffin said nothing. It was the only keeping-things-fine version of It is none of your fucking business he could think of.
Despite the silence, Jamie held up both of his hands, as though he was surrendering to something, a real I’m just saying, bro!
posture if Griff ever saw one. The thing was, he had known guys like Jamie.
Nice guys, guys from good, loving families who were tall and golden-boy good-looking but also not complete assholes about it.
In school, Jamie would probably invite someone eating alone to join his table, introduce them around to his buddies, earnestly say, “That’s cool” when the kid admitted, sheepishly, to being in Math Club.
At work, Jamie would bring in a box of donuts, one for everyone, even a couple of the weird vegan and gluten-free ones, because he didn’t want anyone to feel left out.
On the way home, he’d have no problem pulling over to help someone change a tire, unless, Griff guessed, that someone was also throwing up.
So, by and large, Jamie was, probably, a nice guy. A guy more like Michael than Griffin. A guy nice enough that Layla Bailey had once—possibly still—loved him, and as far as Griffin was concerned, that should be a point in any man’s favor.
But Griffin still hated him.
“Okay,” Griffin said blandly. Quietly. “You saw what you saw.”
Jamie shifted, leaned his own hand on the counter, so now he was mimicking Griffin’s posture. Griffin immediately, desperately wanted to move, but didn’t want to give Jamie the satisfaction.
“I haven’t said anything to anyone,” he said, as though basic discretion was deserving of praise.
This was sometimes the thing about nice guys. The way they wanted praise.
“It’s only that I’m concerned. About Layla.”
Well. Griffin hated that, the way the man said her name. The way he said he was concerned.
“This is a difficult week for her,” Jamie continued. “We all can see that. And I’m worried that she’s not herself, you know? Layla’s not really the type to—”
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence,” Griffin said, through clenched teeth.
Jamie’s eyes widened, but Griff was too busy dealing with his own surprise at the gall of every single thing this guy just said, and what he was obviously getting ready to say before Griff stopped him.
This is a difficult week for her because you all invited her, when anyone with good sense and a brand-new girlfriend wouldn’t have.
You all can see it because you watch her like she’s a glued-together glass, and you’re waiting for her to crack.
She only seems not like herself because she’s not doing your weird MacKenzie Paris gauntlet anymore.
Layla’s not the type of anything.
Layla Bailey is herself.
Jamie cleared his throat nervously. The man could still not fully settle his eyes on Griffin’s face, which was probably a good thing, because now, in addition to the scars, there was likely a full-on murderous expression there.
But if Griffin could give this guy anything, it was that he didn’t quit.
At least at this.
“I don’t mean to offend you,” Jamie said, so, naturally, Griffin braced himself to be offended. “But it isn’t as though your behavior over the last couple of days…” He trailed off, shifted on his feet again. “Look. Layla deserves someone good. Someone reliable.”
Unfortunately, Griffin could not call himself offended.
Someone good. Someone reliable.
He was neither of those things.
And he knew that.
He’d known that for years.
But maybe he had forgotten it for a few hours.
At some point, he’d moved his right hand again, a full fist, set upright on the counter. He did not like the way he could feel the flour on his skin now, gritty and dry.
He knew he had gone still—too still, too quiet, half of his brain running Someone good and Someone reliable on a drumming, crushing, repetitive loop, the other half retreating into a familiar scan of his body.
He looked at Jamie MacKenzie’s nice-guy face and felt every fucking step to the Metro, every steep street incline.
He thought, I bet you don’t feel a thing.
Jamie was clearly not the sort of man to be comfortable with silence, because he spoke again, quieter now, and the worst thing about it was the pity Griffin could hear as soon as the man opened his mouth.
“I can see that you’ve had a diffic—”
Griffin could not let him finish that sentence. He could not.
“Layla isn’t your concern anymore,” he said, leaving himself out of it.
Now, Jamie went quiet. Stunned and blinking, as though he could not conceive of what Griffin said. When he finally gathered himself, he stood straighter, the first sign that he had some real fight in him.
“She’s family,” he said.
Griffin forgot all about Someone good and Someone reliable. He even forgot the pity, the fact that golden boy Jamie MacKenzie was going to say that Griffin had a difficult time, life, whatever the fuck.
He only remembered Layla on the Paris streets, talking about her life.
About her mother gone, her father useless, her half brother distant.
He remembered how much the MacKenzies meant to her, how they were the family she’d always wanted, and right now, this fucking guy was nothing to Griffin besides the guy who’d taken it away.
“You’re not her family,” he said.
That shocked look again, more indignant this time. “I am. I was mar—”
“If you were her family, you wouldn’t have left her.”
He could see he’d done it now—the nice guy gone, and that was good for Griff. He wanted that guy gone. He wanted an excuse; he was waiting for one. Jamie’s face flushed, his stance going more rigid, his jaw tightening.
Griffin wondered whether the flour on his hands would make throwing a punch feel more or less weird.
What he expected was Jamie to go after him again: to say, You hardly know her, which was, on the face of it, true.
He knew now that Jamie and Layla met at freshman orientation at college, knew they’d been together for years before they got married, while Griffin hadn’t even known her name for a full week.
But he felt ready for that; he somehow felt confident about that. I do know her. I may not be good or reliable, but I know her.
He did not feel ready for what Jamie actually said, though. A snappish, spontaneous response. The man practically bit it out.
“If Layla wanted family, she wouldn’t have left me.”
It wasn’t that Griffin didn’t believe it. He could believe it. He knew she might have had any number of reasons for walking away from a marriage, and she would have.
But in all the times she’d gotten close to speaking about the end of her marriage to this guy—all her It was amicable bullshit—Griffin had always, always had the feeling that it hadn’t been up to her.
That amicable is what she settled for in a situation not of her choosing.
That she had come to this wedding as an exile, missing this family she’d desperately wanted to keep, that she would’ve done anything to keep.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Griffin said, but as soon as he did, he knew it was the wrong question, or at least he knew he didn’t want the answer to it from this guy.
He also knew he’d said it too loud.
“Griff,” said Michael, rushing up behind Jamie, setting his hand on his almost-brother’s shoulder, and Griffin hated that. In his periphery, he could see Fitz, turned toward them, and everything in him clenched.
This was not good for Michael.
He was fucking this up for Michael.
He held up his hands, a ridiculous mirror of Jamie from only a minute ago, knowing the posture didn’t look natural on him, knowing it showed off his gnarled left hand.
“Sorry,” he said. “We were talking about…” He trailed off. He could not come up with any meaningful lie related to pastry dough that would’ve gotten him—let alone Jamie—this mad.
Jamie did not supply an alternative, and the three of them lapsed into strained silence until Michael squeezed Jamie’s shoulder and said, “All right?”
“I’m good,” Jamie said, stepping away. “Gonna go check on my croissants.”
Michael looked at Griffin. Long and disappointed.
Then he tipped his head toward the door, and turned to walk away.
Griffin wordlessly followed.
* * *
Outside, Michael stopped—arrested on the street, one look up the hill, one look down, his face setting into an even deeper expression of frustration: the endless, exhausting awareness of knowing Griffin so well.