Page 79 of A False Start
My parents heads both shoot up, like she’s said something blasphemous, and I cover my mouth with a fist to keep from laughing.
“Are you telling me you don’t like football?” My dad sounds more alarmed than offended as he pauses the game and bathes the room in awkward silence.
Nadia just rolls with the punches. “Well, I wouldn’t take it that far. I’m sure I’d like it. I just don’t really know anything about it.”
“So,” my mother pipes up, “when you met Griffin, you didn’t know who he was?”
I don’t know how I stop my body from shaking under the strain of keeping myself from laughing. Know who I was? That sounds so lame.
I think of the girl in the bathroom that night, all big dick energy and sultry smiles. Calling me out on being the prick that I often am. Nah, that girl had no fucking clue who I was—or who I’d been. Not that she’d have cared.
“I knew he was a total asshole,” Nadia deadpans.
And the dam breaks.
The laugh comes out of me in a painful sounding wheeze as I double over, just after seeing Nadia’s lips twitch and eyes flit to me.
My dad barks a loud laugh, and within moments, I hear my mom join in, too.
Nadia chuckles, watching us as she throws her hands up and adds, “What? It’s true!”
It makes me laugh harder. Only Nadia Dalca would sit here in my parents’ living room and tell them their beloved only child was atotal asshole.
“I like you, Nadia,” my mother says from where she’s still standing at the kitchen island, shaking her head with a twinkle in her eye. “Griffin needs more people like you around him.”
“What kind of people would those be, Mom?”
She turns, pinning me with a pointed index finger. “The kind who don’t put up with your shit.”
“Ha!” Nadia points at me, looking triumphant. “See? She knows what I’m talking about.”
I grin and shake my head. The mood is so fun and light, I just want to soak it up. Nadia feels right here, too, with me and my family.
“Okay then, Nadia.” My dad moves to the other end of the couch to sit closer and starts in on her, explaining the game as it plays across the huge flatscreen again.
I sit and watch her, entranced by the sloped line of her nose, the bright twinkle in her eyes, her soft lips, and all that flaxen hair. She scoops it behind her ear and peeks across at me as she listens to my dad go on about a sport she clearly has no interest in. We exchange a look so sweet my heart twists in my chest.
“Griffin. Come help me with the coffees.” My mom’s face is completely unreadable as she beckons me forward with a folded hand.
I can barely tear my eyes off Nadia. We opened the floodgates last night, and now I’m feeling a little obsessed. Uncomfortably so, like it hurts to put space between us.
“Yeah. Of course.” I slap my knees and unfold myself, moving into the kitchen, where my mother clearly doesn’t need any help.
“What’s up, Ma?” I flatten my palms against the marble countertop and take in all the contraptions before her, still not entirely sure why she wouldn’t just grind her coffee, fill the coffeemaker, and then press a button.
“The first time was a coincidence.” She’s weighing ground coffee on an honest to God scale, not even looking at me as she talks. “But a second time? I’ve got questions, Griff.” She says it quietly enough that she can’t be heard over the announcers blaring in from the living room.
I run my tongue over my teeth. “Kinda figured you would.”
“So, she’s Stefan’s sister?”
“Yup.”
“How old is she?”
Too fucking young.
“Twenty-one.”
