Page 44 of A False Start
But sometimes, he does the opposite.
Which means he also has the power to break me completely.
15
Nadia
I may not beready to hand my heart over to a man yet, but I don’t need to waste my time with the likes of Tommy Koss either. Protecting myself doesn’t mean settling.
I realized that on my walk home, which is why I’m here pushing through the front door of Neighbor’s Pub. He’s not answering his phone, and I need to talk to him now. Suddenly, getting rid of Tommy is like an itch I justhaveto scratch.
I can’t wait. I need to clear my conscience.
Even if I can’t have anything with Griffin, I don’twantanything with Tommy. I know we’re not anything—something that is confirmed by the girl snuggled up next to him when I walk into the bar.
Color me not surprised. I knew I’d find him here.
“Hey, Tommy,” I say as I stroll up to the table where he sits with all his friends. Cheap beer and red plastic baskets from their wings litter the table.
“Hey, Nadia.” He smiles up at me and doesn’t even bother to remove his arm from the back of the blonde’s chair. Can’t say the guy doesn’t have a type.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I nod my head to somewhere behind me. I don’t need a lot of time or privacy to say what I have to say. Based on how cozy he seems with this other girl, I don’t have to say anything at all. But I feel the need all the same.
This is part of what my therapist and I discussed. I can’t control other people’s actions. But I can control my own.
And I can control my reactions. My life, my choices. I don’t live under anyone’s thumb anymore.
“Yeah.” His brow furrows. “Sure. Of course.” He stands, and the other girl gives me a wan smile, and I give her a small one back. I almost want to wish her luck with the colossal idiot.
“Just over here is good,” I say, right as I turn and smack into a solid wall of muscle.
“Easy, brother.” Tommy’s hand reaches over my shoulder and lands on the chest in front of me. The one clad in a denim button down I recognize from earlier. The pearl buttons stare back at me. “Back on the sauce, huh?”
My head snaps back to glare at Tommy, who has a downright evil smirk on his face.
“Pardon me?” I ask, feeling the heat from Griffin’s chest seeping into the front of my body.
“Ah, yeah. You didn’t grow up here. Football star turned town drunk. Guess that didn’t come up at dinner the other night, huh?”
I swear my heart almost stops beating as I turn slowly to gaze up into Griffin’s beautiful face.Drunk.He wasn’t drunk that night, was he? He didn’t taste drunk. I want to get lost in his eyes and see the truth of it, but he’s not focused on me, he’s staring right past me. At Tommy.
And my God, if looks could kill.
A muscle in his jaw jumps, and my words grace his lips. “Not all of us are normal, happy people.” I blink, hearing him in a way that no one else can.
Then his hard eyes turn down at me. A war rages in their depths. There’s so much to unpack—shame, desire, humiliation, anger. A man with eyes like that should send me running after what I’ve lived through. But if Griffin is a flame, I’m a moth, destined to dance in his flames. My sense of self-preservation goes out the window when he looks at me likethat.
If Griffin Sinclaire told me to jump off a bridge, I just might.
“Goodnight, Wildflower,” he says, his hand cupping my elbow and giving me a gentle squeeze before he turns toward the back exit. His touch is so sweet, it aches all the way up into my shoulder.
And then he’s gone, walking away. His normally broad shoulders slump under the weight of whatever he’s carrying with him.
I can control my reactions.
Spinning on Tommy, I hold up a hand to stop whatever dumb shit he’s about to say. I’m mad, spitting mad. “That was rude. That wascruel. And my life is full up on cruel men, Tommy. This? You and me?” I gesture between us. “Never going to happen. Never.”
Before he can respond, I’m gone, jogging across the bar to the darkened hallway that leads out back, letting my heart drag me out of this place without a backward glance. I need to be near him right now.
