Page 74 of Under One Roof

He grunts too, and I don’t want to think about the mess he made in his pants. Not when his big hands are stroking down my back and butt, and when he cups the back of my head, kissing my mouth and chin and forehead.

As we catch our breath, my phone buzzes again. And again. The persistent sound cuts through the haze, a rude interruption that neither of us can avoid any longer. Griffin pulls back slightly, and I clear my throat, feeling overheated and damp in places I cannot easily ignore. “I should get that.”

He nods and carefully helps me stand before turning his chair around, grabbing a few tissues while I retrieve my purse. I loop it across my body before looking at my cell phone screen, finding two missed calls from Dahlia and a text in all caps.CALL ME.

“Everything okay?” Griffin asks, in front of me once again.

“Yeah. It’s Dahlia. I gotta call her.”

He tucks a few strands of my hair behind my ear then opens his office door and takes my hand to walk me back to my car. “I’ll try to be home as soon as I can.”

“You better,” I say, hitting the button on the key fob to unlock it. “I’ll be waiting.”

He watches me open the car door and lifts his hand with an almost accidental, “Love you.”

He stops, and so I do. His eyes widen, mirroring my own surprise. But neither of us says anything. We merely stand there, frozen. Staring at each other.

“I mean…” He finally drops his hand to his side. “See you later.”

“Yeah, totally. See you later,” I stammer and start up my car as quickly as possible, driving away from the curb with Griffin’s stiff form in my rearview mirror.

I’m positive he didn’t mean to say it. From his reaction, I’m not even sure he meant it.

But…

I sort of hope he did.Does.

Because I love him. I love Griffin Stone.

I dial Dahlia, putting the call on speaker, and she picks up after one ring. “There you are!”

“Dahl, oh my god, I was just at the firehouse with?—”

“You have to come to LA.”

I pause my giddy blathering. “What?”

“I need you to come back to LA. They want me to record our songs.”

I blink, taken aback. “What? Who?”

“The record label,” she says. “They love our songs. I was in a meeting with them this morning and played them our songs, and they love them. I told them you’re my partner, that I want you to be on my album, and they agreed.”

“Oh shit,” I mumble, my mind stumbling over what this all means. I’m stunned to the point of being unable to do anything, and I pull over, parking on the side of the road. Almost in the exact same spot where I met Griffin.

“Tell me again,” I say, my head on the steering wheel.

“It’s always been you and me, And. We’re a team. I need you to come to LA to help with the recording. Write some more songs with me.”

This is it. The dream. What I’ve always wanted.

And yet…

I swallow, staring out through the windshield, seeing Griffin walking toward me that first time, and I have to close my eyes to it. To the memories.

Shaking his hand in the cab of his truck.

Him tugging on the strings of his zip-up.

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