Page 19 of Griffin
I wasn't fooling myself. I was out of shape and clumsy and my trusty slippers would probably be groaning in shame and protest by the time I finished dancing, but that was fine. There was no one to watch or judge or tell me that I looked like a clumsy octopus. No one to tell me that ballet was a waste of time and money. Tate had told me exactly that just days after the wedding when I told him I was going to continue dancing. He told me there was no way he was financing something as stupid as dance. It was like having my heart ripped straight from my chest—something that happened at least once a week in my marriage.
Our furniture was scarce. Nice new sofas and chairs were never in our budget. It took some grunting and growling, but I managed to pull the couch back from the center of the room. I moved aside the coffee table. The old wood floor was just smooth enough for a few good dance moves.
I sat down on the couch and pulled off my sneakers and socks. I picked up the satin slippers. Pink ribbons hung loosely around my wrist. I hugged the slippers to me and held them a moment. That all too familiar tightening of the throat caused me to slump back and close my eyes. This wasn't a panic attack. This was something else. It was me trying to reconnect with the person I lost, the person who used to fly through the dance studio on pink slippers as if she had wings. "Okay, Pinki, let's get moving." My mom came up with the nickname because after I got my first pair of slippers, I only wanted to wear pink.
The slippers felt foreign at first, but as I tied up the ribbons, memories of sitting on the bench in Miss Augustin's dance studio, tying up the same ribbons, came back to me. I was so happy back then. Not a care in the world. I badly just wanted to take off into a series of pirouettes and arabesques, but I needed to stretch first. I moved around to the back of the couch for some hamstring and quad stretches and a few warm-up moves. It was all coming back to me. I hadn't lost it. That part of my life hadn't been erased, only put away in storage. I grabbed my phone off the coffee table, turned on some music and, in seconds, I was Pinki again. My slippers barely grazed the floor as I danced and twirled and flew. I'd forgotten the freedom dance had given me but I'd found it again. Ballet was now going to become a permanent part of my half-life.
It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and the dancing had made me hungry and sore. It would take a while to get the muscle back. After a satisfying lunch of grilled cheese and freshly squeezed lemonade, I baked some pumpkin spice muffins. I wasn't in charge of anyone's dinner but my own, and a few warm muffins sounded way better than anything. I'd managed to get in a bath to soak my sore muscles, then I spent thirty minutes painting my toenails, a task that I always found hard but satisfying. I could never open a nail polish bottle when Tate was in the house. He'd yell about the smell and stomp around as if I'd greatly offended him by trying to put a little color on my nails. All in all, it had been a fabulous start to my latest half-life.
Tate had mumbled something about being on the road for two weeks. It was entirely possible he'd spend half that time with other women. They could have him. I'd been avoiding sex with Tate for a year and had been quite successful. The few times he'd caught me at a vulnerable time or managed to ply me with enough alcohol to submit to him, I lay there like an emotionless robot, his AI wife, and he complained and called me a frigid bitch. I was fine with that title. More than fine. I'd earned it. I occasionally worried that I would never enjoy sex again, but I decided as long as I had my half-life where I could dance, paint my nails freely, soak in a tub for an hour undisturbed and eat sugary muffins for dinner, I was fine without physical contact.
The sun had started to set. Days were getting shorter and shorter. I pulled on a sweater and carried a muffin outside to the back stoop. Down the street, someone had started playing music, and the steady stream of cars turning the corner signaled they were having a party. I'd thought about Griffin's invite to the party more than once but quickly talked myself out of even considering it. It would be a group of strangers, and my social skills had fallen down to just the basics, hello and good morning and the occasional nice to see you. My few chats with Griffin had been the most social contact I'd had in months. I had to admit, I'd enjoyed those chats immensely. I'd felt instantly comfortable with Griffin.
The music and voices grew louder. I went back inside, my belly full with pumpkin spice.
I sat on the couch and had to move because I could smell Tate's sweat left behind on the cushion. It was my half-life, and I wanted no reminders of the other bitter half. I flipped through a few million possibilities on streaming, but nothing caught my attention. I turned off the television and stared at the dark screen. I could see my reflection in the gray contours. I looked happy, relaxed … and bored. Griffin's invite popped back into my head. What if I went for just an hour? Mostly to see him, of course. Then it occurred to me that a man like Griffin would be surrounded by women at a party. What if I showed up, and he had no time for me at all? I supposed I could handle that. If nothing else, my rotten marriage had trained me in the art of never being disappointed because disappointment was a permanent fixture in my life.
Before I could talk myself out of the party and into another muffin, I got up and headed into the bedroom. A cute autumn outfit might give me the courage to head to a party with a group of strangers. The bottoms were easy. Jeans. They were all I had for cool temperatures. I tried on a few sweaters and settled on a dark green turtleneck. I pulled on my boots and stared at myself in the mirror. Trying on multiple sweaters had sent my short hair into a static electricity frenzy. I raked my fingers through my hair to tamp down the static and propped up some of the spikes.
I blew out a frustrated puff of air. Who was I kidding? A party, a friggin' party? What would I say? Would people look at me and somehow know about my other life? One advantage of moving to a new town was leaving behind the sympathetic frowns and looks of pity. Griffin had figured it out fast but then he'd had a big clue handed to him when Tate barged into the office like the world's meanest testosterone-amped bull.
I reached for the bottom of the sweater, ready to take it off and switch over to comfy pajamas, but something stopped me. I wanted to see Griffin. If my earlier fret came true and he didn't have time for me because he was surrounded by other women, then at least I'd get this urge to be near him out of my system. It was probably exactly what I needed given the fact that I'd been thinking about the boss's son far too much.
It was a stupid and convoluted string of reasoning, but that was how I left it in my mind. I was going to show up so I could see Griffin in his natural element, with all his friends and, no doubt, a bevy of pretty admirers and then I'd stop having romantic and, admittedly, erotic daydreams about the man.
THIRTEEN
GRIFFIN
It was only seven but the party was already cranking as Theo and I pulled up to Stella's beach house. Although, to call it a house was a stretch. It was a century-old, three-bedroom cottage that had hardly been touched in all those years. At the moment, Stella's roommates were two women who played rugby in their spare time. Lonny was a woman with an impressive shoulder span and a mess of tattoos on her neck and chest. Her partner, Rina, was half her size, and her only tattoo was a peach tree on her shoulder. She'd grown up on a peach farm in the south. She was also an incredible skateboarder. She'd set up a nice course of rails and ramps on a patch of cement next to the cottage. I could hear skaters already taking advantage of it, and I was sure Crusoe and Cormac were there with their boards.
"Whooee, I think I just saw Candy. I thought she was still in Hawaii." Theo clapped once. "This night just got way better." Theo flew out of the truck and hurried inside to find Candy. They'd dated on and off for a year and eventually became sex buddies when Candy said she was too busy with her modeling career to commit. Theo liked that plan just fine since he was not exactly a commitment kind of person either. None of us were. Or at least that was what we thought until Jaxon met his match—Bridget Walsh. The two of them pulled up behind us on Jaxon's motorcycle.
"Fin!" Bridget waved, tossed the helmet to Jaxon and ran toward me for a hug. "So good to see you," she said loudly, then leaned in for a second hug and whispered into my ear. "No fucking way I'm letting him put that roof on." She pulled back and was smiling again. "How have you been?" She glanced around. "Did you come alone?"
"If he showed up with a date there'd be a lot of sad faces sitting around the firepit." Jaxon tapped my shoulder a lot harder than necessary. "Did you give that roof some thought?"
My eyes darted over to Bridget. She winked at me and waved toward Stella. "Oh, there's LaLa. I'll see if she needs help with the snacks."
"I think that if Bridget is going to pay someone to fix that roof, then you should take her up on that. Honestly, Jax, I don't want to do it."
Jaxon huffed. It meant he was going to be grumpy, at least to me, the rest of the night. I could live with that. He walked ahead, his shoulders tense, so I took a turn toward the skaters. A group of six people, my two cousins included, had their own loud music playing as they took turns on the ramps. Cormac was just grinding across a rail as I reached them.
"Fin, come sit here." Tawny and Robyn were sitting on the short wall between the skaters and the beach. They were both wearing scarves and drinking red, fruity cocktails. Jaxon and I had gone to school with them, and they were inseparable as friends. That hadn't changed. I took a seat next to them.
Tawny had pale amber eyes that always reminded me of a cat. She leaned down and peered over at me. "And what has the town heartthrob been up to? Breaking hearts, I assume."
"Nope. I've mellowed out a lot in the breaking hearts routine. Just working and trying to save money to get my own place."
"Aw, you gonna leave us like Jax?" Crusoe came up and sat down next to me. "Theo and I will have to get more roommates. We can't afford that place on our own. Maybe Mac will finally cut the apron strings and move out." We all stopped to watch Cormac hit the quarter pipe. He landed and the board squirted out from under him. He hit the cement with a thud.
"Or maybe we should leave him tied to the apron," Crusoe added. We all laughed.
Cormac pushed to his feet and rubbed his tailbone. "Real nice," he said to us.
"Actually, we weren't laughing at you epically eating shit," Crusoe said. "But it did have to do with you epically eating shit."
"Ahh, don't make fun of him," Tawny said. She'd always had a soft spot for Theo's little brother. "He's so damn cute. Do you need some ice, honey? Or how about just some all-around nurse attention?"
