Chapter 53
Fifty-Three
Griffin
The site wakes before the sun does.
By the time I pull in, steel is already ringing against steel, generators humming like something alive beneath the ground.
The smell hits first—dust, diesel, fresh timber, and coffee strong enough to strip paint.
It’s loud, as construction usually is, but underneath the noise, there’s a rhythm.
Controlled chaos. My kind of environment.
I step out of the truck, hard hat already in hand, and do what I always do first—walk the perimeter, check the scaffolding lines, make sure the temporary fencing hasn’t shifted overnight. A loader rolls past me, the operator lifting two fingers in greeting. I return the greeting with a nod.
Six months.
Six months of this. Of longer hours than necessary, of projects taken back-to-back, of saying yes to every contract that crossed my desk because idle time was dangerous. Idle time meant thinking. Thinking meant her.
So I worked.
I worked until my shoulders burned, until the days blurred into each other, until my crew started joking that I’d forgotten how to take a day off.
They weren’t wrong. Work was easier than wondering whether she was okay, whether she missed me, whether the silence between us was healing her or slowly cutting us both open.
I round the corner of the temporary office trailers when something out of place catches my eye.
Rodriguez, one of the younger guys on the crew, calls out, “Miss? Hey! Miss, are you lost?”
I almost keep walking. It happens all the time. Delivery drivers, inspectors, someone’s girlfriend looking for the wrong site.
I look up from my clipboard and see… her.
My heart leaps into my throat.
Piper is standing at the edge of the gravel lot in a yellow dress. That specific yellow dress.
Christ, she’s a beauty.
The world goes quiet in a way that makes no sense when jackhammers are going ten feet away.
She stands just inside the entrance, sunlight catching the edges of her hair, and for a second, my brain can’t process what I’m looking at.
Her hair is shorter now, brushing just past her shoulders, the color softer in the morning light, falling in natural waves that curl slightly at the ends.
It frames her face and moves when she shifts or when the breeze touches it.
Her smile is small, nervous, fucking beautiful, and it hits me square in the chest. I wasn’t braced for it.
Something breathtaking in the middle of all this concrete and noise.
When she smiles at Rodriguez, I want to punch the fucker in the throat for smiling back.
“Um, I’m looking for…” She looks past him and finds me.
My boots slow. Rodriguez glances between us, clearly realizing this woman isn’t lost at all, and mutters something about getting back to work before disappearing.
I see the moment recognition lands. Her fingers tangle briefly in the strap of her bag, knuckles going white for a second before she forces herself to relax them. She chews her bottom lip, eyes flicking everywhere except directly at me.
God, I’ve missed her.
I hand my schedule to someone and head down the walkway. We meet at the boundary line.
I stop a few feet away, close enough to smell the faint hint of whatever shampoo she’s using now, and for a moment neither of us speaks.
“Hi,” she breathes, tucking her hair behind her ear.
I can feel the tension I’ve been holding for six months ease just a little. “Hi, Pipes.”
“I got your flowers,” she says. “Thank you… for being there.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it. You were incredible.”
The blush hits fast, climbing her cheeks, and she looks down again like she doesn’t quite know where to put the compliment. That was always her—brave on a stage, fearless when it mattered, but shy when someone praised her for it.
Every instinct in me is screaming to close the distance. To cup her face, to press my mouth to hers, to pull her into my arms and feel her breathe against my neck like I used to. But I don’t move.
It’s on her time.
It always was.
The last six months taught me that better than anything. Loving her meant stepping back when she needed space, even when every cell in my body wanted to fight for the opposite. I stayed away and buried myself in work so I wouldn’t be tempted to show up at her door.
She swallows hard, looking like she’s fighting a battle behind her eyes. “Well,” she says, her voice a little thin. “I just wanted to say thank you. Properly. So… thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Fuck. All I want to do is pull her into my arms.
I feel like a man who’s been starved for six months, and seeing her this close is testing my restraint. It’s testing the promise I made to her.
“You’re obviously busy, Griff. I just wanted to… I guess…” She swallows before taking a breath. “Thank you. That’s all.” She nods and looks at me for one more beat, then she turns around.
I watch her take four steps away. I tell myself this is what space looks like. I tell myself I can handle another six months if that is what it takes to let her be sure.
I turn back toward the trailers, telling myself to breathe, telling myself that seeing her at all is more than I expected.
“Griff?”
I stop, heart beating out of my chest.
Her voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through every other sound on the site. I turn back, and she’s standing there, hands trembling slightly as she drags one down her face, then laughs softly like she can’t quite believe herself.
“How long did you wait?” She looks at me with those bright, searching eyes, and for a second, the only sound on the whole site is the river hitting the pylon bases.
I scrub a hand down my face, my palm rough against the stubble on my jaw.
I think about the keychain in my pocket.
I think about the three hundred miles of road between here and Mira Cove and the six months of silence I forced myself to keep.
I think about how every single morning since she left has just been a countdown to right now.
I don’t even have to think about the answer. “I’m still waiting, baby. I never stopped.”
Her eyes widen, tears clinging to her lashes before she glances around like she suddenly remembers we’re standing in the middle of a construction site.
“I’m so tired,” she says. “I keep giving myself more time, like it will make me want you less. It doesn’t. I’ve missed you every single day. I missed your voice and your face and the way you make coffee.”
My heart is already pounding, already pushing me forward before I consciously decide to move. She keeps talking, words rushing now, like she’s afraid she’ll lose the nerve if she pauses.
“I’ve missed you so damn much. I know I said I needed time, and I did. But I’m who I wanted to be now. I don’t want to wait anymore. I want—”
“Piper.” I’m standing right in front of her. “Just come here.”
She breathes out a jagged “Thank God” and closes the distance.
I catch her face in my hands and kiss her.
It tastes like patience and six months of holding my breath.
I get my arms around her and lift her off the gravel.
She laughs against my mouth as her legs lock around my waist. I feel that laugh deep in my chest.
Behind us, a wolf whistle cuts through the air. Then another. Then the whole crew starts making enough noise to wake the county. I don’t put her down. She stays in my arms with her hands gripping my shoulders.
“Your crew is watching,” she whispers.
“I know.”
When she smiles at me like that, the way she did for those two weeks on the road, it feels like something inside me finally settles back into place.
I’ve heard the question asked before: How do you know when someone is the one?
I can’t answer that for everyone. I don’t think there’s one rule that fits. But I know this much: Six months ago, I went on a road trip with a runaway bride. I didn’t realize how jumbled my life was until she climbed into the passenger seat and everything inside me went quiet.
In those two weeks I spent with her, I felt something I’d never felt before: Peace.
I spent the months after convincing myself I could live without that feeling. That I could work harder, stay busier, fill the space she left behind.
I was wrong.
Because now she’s back in my arms, her legs wrapped around my waist, her mouth soft and familiar against mine, and everything goes quiet again. The noise. The questions. The ache I’ve been carrying since the day she left.
This is how I know.
For the first time in six months, I’m holding her again, and nothing feels out of place anymore.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
I keep her right where she is with her weight solid against me.
“What are you doing for the rest of the day?” I ask.
She shrugs. “My rehearsals for the new show don’t start for another two weeks.”
I arch a brow. “Two weeks?”
She just smiles wider.
I turn my head toward the pylons and shout back to the guys. “I’m taking the rest of the day off! Possibly the rest of the week!”
The crew roars again.
I look back at Piper. “Two weeks, huh?”
“Two weeks,” she agrees.
I don’t let her go. I just walk back toward my truck. The bridge can wait. I’m done waiting for the only thing that matters.