Page 7 of A False Start
Double fuck.
“Griff! You’re here.” Billie claps her hands together. “Excellent.”
He’s got a duffel bag in hand and even though Billie is talking to him, he’s watching me.
Griff Sinclaire. The man who kissed me stupid in a dirty bar bathroom and left me feeling irretrievably childish when he walked out. I thought that would be the last of him. But the joke was on me when a few days later he walked into this very clinic to drop off some samples and refused to talk to me.
Not. A. Single. Fucking. Word.
Which should have been infuriating enough. But imagine my surprise when I walked downstairs one morning shortly before starting school to find him hanging out with my brother. Not sure how I didn’t put it together, butGriffisGriffin—my brother’s best friend, who I hadn’t met since moving here from Romania.
My stomach bottoms out, like it always does around him, and the weight of his gaze presses down on me. The disapproval in his stare is front and center. The dismissal.
The grown-up version of me knows Griffin should not have kissed me in the men’s room that night, that he made the right choice to walk away. But the childish part of me hates him for being such a dick about it. The immature part of me has blown that night up in my mind to be something that it wasn’t.
The man hasn’t said a single word to me since that night. And I know he can talk. I can still feel the low rumble of his gravel-worn voice against my skin.
No matter how hard I try to forget it.
He’s too old for me anyway. He’s got to be in his mid-thirties by now. Not to mention, I think Stefan would crucify him if he found out. He’s probably avoiding talking to me because he values his life.Smart.The worst part is… he just heard that exchange.
“Right.” Billie rounds the desk toward him. “A man of few words. Forgot that part. No problem. I’ll talk, and you can just listen. Except to that virgin bit. Ignore Naughty Nadia over there. Let me show you around.”
My stomach lurches as I close the journal and let my eyes drop. I wish I could fold myself in between the pages and just hide there. I knew I was going to run into him again eventually but wearing faded blue scrubs with my hair in a lopsided ponytail while exclaiming that I am not a virgin is not what I envisioned. I planned to look so hot that he’d be drooling.
And kicking himself for being such a dismissive prick.
“Where did you park? Let’s get you settled first. Then I’ll give you the grand tour,” Billie prattles on, completely oblivious to the tension between us. Maybe there isn’t tension between us. Maybe I’m the only one who feels it. Maybe I’m the only one whose world turned on its axis that night.
Maybe he doesn’t even think about it.
That’s probably what an adult does after he accidentally kisses a teenager. He compartmentalizes her into thedo not touchcategory. He doesn’t think about her, just like I don’t think about my dad—because it’s wrong.
I suck in a deep, centering breath and glance up just in time to see Billie leading him back out to the landing, hands flailing around in front of her. Major hand talker that one. “Later ladies!” she calls as they step out onto the wraparound deck.
Agitation coils in my gut. The guy is such a dick. He doesn’t deserve my embarrassment. So right here and now I resolve not to be embarrassed. It was one innocent kiss two years ago.It meant nothing.
Mira flicks through a folder on the desk, reading a file while nibbling at her bottom lip. Not a care in the world. Completely oblivious. It’s like both are so happily married that they miss this guy’s incredible ass. He doesn’t wear the jeans.Theywearhim.
“Why is Griffin here?” My hands are slick, the cool metal of the rings on the journal digging into my palm.
She doesn’t even look up at me. That’s how inconsequential this is for Mira. “Didn’t Stefan tell you?”
Obviously not.“Tell me what?”
The folder flicks shut, and she reaches for another one. “He’s moving into Vaughn and Billie’s old guesthouse for the summer to break the young horses because obviously Billie can’t. Something about a compromise that her and Vaughn came to. She keeps riding, but only DD. So, she hired Griff.”
“Thewholesummer?”
Mira’s finger traces the line before her, lips moving as she reads to herself—something she often does. “Yup,” she responds.
My eyes shoot to the front porch, through the big windows that overlook it. Billie is still talking at Griffin.
But Griffin is looking at me.
4
Griffin
