Page 137 of Play With Me

He doesn’t. He catches my fist in his hand, easily, though his hand goes back a little. My arm is reliably strong. Another man would have fallen over. But Griff just hangs onto my fist. “Stop, Jude. For the first time in my life, I’m asking you to fucking talk. So just talk, okay?”

It’s that word,okay, that has my arm dropping finally, my shoulders sagging. I look around to see we’re right next to the park half a block down from Dad’s place. Eli used to play t-ball here.

I sigh, nodding.

Griff leads me over to the little dugout, one of two built on the side of the ball field. We sit down in the concrete and chain-link bunker, looking out over the snowy field.

It takes a few minutes, but finally I speak. “We had the best week, Griff. It was just like old times. Only there was…well, we were having sex, too.”

Griff still says nothing. So I keep talking.

“We probably shouldn’t have done that, but when I first saw her again, it was different. I think I was always attracted to her, but I just stayed away from that stuff. This time, there was this…I don’t know. Anedgebetween us. I was pissed. So was she. You remember me last Christmas right, where I was so fucking miserable because she just told me she was leaving?”

“Yeah, I remember. I thought you looked like a sad sack then.”

“But now it’s worse, right? It’s a thousand times worse.”

I lean back with a clink against the chain link behind us. “When we saw each other, it was like that whole year never happened. We just hung onto the weird feelings, and things were off. But then we talked about it a little. Then some more. I guess we both kind of knew things weren’t the same anymore, and it suddenly became so obvious that we were…you know, we had a little chemistry.

“A little?” Griff scoffs. “I saw you two at the restaurant.”

“Okay, a lot.”

Griff raises a brow.

“The most I’ve ever felt. The sex was incredible. And it fixed whatever was between us, at least at the time, because wedidgo back to the way we were. Best friends again, on the Eleanor Cleary case. It was fucking heaven, actually.”

“So you liked how it was between you?”

I look at him like he’s insane. “If things could have stayed exactly the way they were, everything would have been perfect. Me, Nor, Cap. Full stop.” I lean forward like Griff is doing, resting my elbows on my knees. But my old injury twinges with the angle of my elbow and I sit up again.

“I think…” I swallow, because this is the part I haven’t admitted even to myself. “She wanted to talk about a future, even with us being so far apart.”

“And you didn’t?”

“I want her in my life. But she doesn’t want it to go back the way it was. So she left. She wasn’t pissed or anything, which was the weirdest part. She looked… Fuck. She looked beautiful. Like she’d finally seen how perfect she was. How she deserves the fucking world. But she left me, and it feels like it’s for good.”

“Do you blame her?”

That heat comes back. “She knows I don’t know how to handle that shit. She knows I have no idea how to love someone.”

“Who told you that was true?”

“I did. I know it. I was always too much for everyone. Too enthusiastic. Too distractible. Too many dumb ideas. Things only work when I focus on one thing at a time.”

“So you can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.”

I know how stupid it sounds. “You know what I mean. It’s the only way I got to where I did with tennis, and tennis is the only thing that I was ever proud of. That and Cap. When I take my eye off the ball, I lose.”

Griff is quiet so long I say, “What? I know you’re thinking something.”

Griff nods. “You stuck to your old shit on this one and you look like a fuckin’ loser to me, anyway, Jude.”

That heat flares to anger again. “You’re really good at pep talks, you know that?” I say sarcastically. “No wonder you dole them out so often.” A beat passes. “Besides, you’re wrong. I let myself get distracted with Nora, that’s why everything went to shit.”

Griff sits up, leaning his head back. “Is it? Or is it because you were too chickenshit to tell her you loved her?”

I balk. “I’m not in love, Griff.”

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