Page 46 of No Way Home
Situateda hundred feet off the main road, Theo and James’s farmhouse looked like a base camp for someone ready to survive the zombie apocalypse with duct tape, chewing tobacco, and a rusty shotgun. My brother and my cousin had some serious work to do on the fixer-upper they’d bought together.
I watched from my Land Cruiser as Griff and Magnolia walked inside holding hands.
Then I turned off the engine, flipped the visor down, and opened my mirror. My vertical brow piercing was… “Sick.” I grinned at my reflection. Zero regrets.
Okay, zero regrets, but I did have a couple of worries.
Mostly about how my dad was going to blow a gasket. Or what Granny Dupree might say. Not my other grandma though. My mom’s mom, Grandma Lisa, was cool like that. Secretly had a thing for tattooed bad boys—on TV from the safety of her recliner, of course. I could always move in with her if I got disowned by my parents.
The real question was, what would Magnolia say?
Hopefully, she’d say it was hot. Okay, she’d never say that.But hopefully she’d think it. And maybe she’d understand the deeper meaning behind the metal.
You are treading a thin line. She belongs to someone else.
“Shut it,” I muttered. The way Griff had behaved lately, he didn’t deserve her, and though I’d never admit it, his d-bag behavior was what pushed me to get the piercing.
I swiped up on our text thread to remind myself of my why.
Griffin
I don’t want you training with her anymore. You’re getting too close. Her eyes are doing this stupid glowy thing when she talks about you. THIS is why I didn’t want you to be friends with her. I swear, you emit some pheromone-laced love gas. There are four billion women in the world. Go get your own.
Some of those women are babies, already married, and/or way too old for me.
I’d been trying to ease the tension. Unfortunately, he didn’t take the bait.
Griffin
Google says that still leaves at least a couple hundred million women in your available age range. So again, go find your own.
Maggie is crazy about YOU. Also, her eyes aren’t doing anything different around me than they ever have.
I would’ve noticed.
You’re imagining crap. Chill.
Griffin
No.
So, I’m just not supposed to show up for training tomorrow?
Griffin
I’ll train with her. You’ve done enough. She’ll see you on race day.
I think she can make up her own mind.
Also, if you keep being an overbearing, jealous douche, she’s going to want less and less to do with you.
I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it was the truth. Obviously, it struck a nerve because he texted back with a clown emoji. Meaning, he was calling me a clown. O-kay.
Girls don’t like clingy men. Just sayin’. They want a confident guy and they want to be trusted.
He shot back with another clown emoji. I would give myself TMJ if I couldn’t find a better way to deal with him.
Griffin
