Dream With Me (With Me Book 4) (16 page)

“I wasn’t so sweet to you that night.”

“Griff.” I cup his face in my hands. “It’s okay. I forgive you. In truth, I think I already forgave you when we first hooked up. I kept trying to figure out why we were having sex—why it felt so natural—and I thought that it was a one-time occurrence. And then the next day at the BBQ happened and the first date and I still couldn’t figure out
why
this was happening when I had hated you—well, I thought I hated you—for four years. It didn’t make sense, but I told myself that it didn’t have to make sense. But . . .”

“But?”

“But it does make sense.
We
make sense, I mean,” I say. “And the other thing that makes sense to me is that I’d already forgiven you—even if it was a subconscious kind of thing—for what happened. God knows, I’ve said lots of stupid and shitty things, too. I don’t want what happened to stand in our way any longer.”

“I don’t either.” Griff grabs my hands and lowers them from his face. He doesn’t let go of me; he grazes the delicate inside of both of my wrists with his thumbs. “Thank you for that, Evie. Thanks for giving me a chance. I want to tell you something else, though.”

“Okay.”

“I guess I was also scared to ask you to dance because . . . I am, or rather, I
was
a virgin.”

I could not have heard Griff right. Maybe I have water stuck in my ears. “What do you mean, you
were
a virgin?”

“You were my first.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I think of how much sex we’ve had, and how experienced Griff has been. “You didn’t act like a virgin.”

“Is a virgin supposed to act a certain way?”

I cross to the kitchen table and plop my butt in a chair. “You know what I mean. You kissed me like you knew how to kiss. You fucked like you knew how to fuck. You didn’t seem like a virgin.”

“Have you been with many virgins?” Griff takes a seat at the table, facing me. “Not a judgment kind of question, just wondering.”

“I’ve been with two. The first time I had sex was also my boyfriend at the time’s first time. And now you. Trust me when I say that the first guy did not know what he was doing. Heck, most guys who’ve been around the block don’t know what they’re doing. But you? You
definitely
knew what you were doing.”

“I’m a reader,” Griff says simply. “And I pay attention.”

That first night comes back to me. The flash of awe on his face, the way his hands trembled, the way he looked at me and touched me. The night at the bar, when he told me he’d never had a blowjob before. I remember how I thought he was like a unicorn, never realizing how close I was. A male virgin? That’s definitely unicorn status.

“You seem . . . mad,” Griff says.

“I’m not mad,” I say. “I’m shocked. Surprised. And I guess I wish I’d known—”

“I should have told you,” Griff admits. “I should have told you a lot of things.”

“It’s okay,” I say, meaning it.

“And I need to tell you something else. There’s no easy way to really say this . . . my parents died when I was thirteen and it really affected me.”

I let out a soft gasp and immediately go to him. I curl on his lap and touch him, trying to offer him comfort in any way possible. “Griff.” My throat clogs with emotion. I can’t even imagine losing my parents or my sisters. And he was only thirteen! “Griff, what happened? Do you feel like talking about it? If you don’t . . .”

“I want to tell you,” he says. “It’s still hard for me to talk about. I mean, I’ve talked about it with Jack, but it’s not something we discuss every single day. It’s difficult for us both. When my parents died in a car crash, I was thirteen and Jack was eighteen, a few months into his freshman year at Northeastern. I often walked home, but that morning, the snow started falling really bad and the roads were slicker.”

“School wasn’t cancelled?”

“This is Vermont. It’s nearly impossible to have a snow day here. So, my dad said he’d drive me to school that day, and that he and my mom would pick me up at four, no questions about it.” Griff hugs me a little closer, and I feel his heart beat furiously against my palm. “It was a normal school day. Four came and went, but I just assumed the roads were bad so it was messing with traffic. I decided to work in the library on an English paper. Around five, I started to worry more. I called the house. Nothing. I called their cells. Nothing. I went outside to see if their car was pulling in. Nothing. I went back into the high school and waited another fifteen minutes.”

“Did you think they’d forgotten to pick you up?”

Griff shakes his head. “No. Not once. It wasn’t even like them to run late like that. Ten or fifteen minutes late? Sure. But not a half-hour, and definitely not an hour. So then I called Jack, who was just about to head to dinner with some friends. Maybe there was something in my voice or Jack had some sixth sense something bad had happened, but he told me that he’d be leaving right then. He told me to call one of our relatives and ask them for a ride. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before I called Jack, except that whenever something went right or wrong, I always went to Jack before anyone else.”

“That’s totally understandable.”

“The roads were bad, so I didn’t call Mimi, our grandmother, but went to dial Uncle Theo. But before I could complete the call, my name was called over the loudspeaker and I headed to the main office. Finally, I thought, they’re here. I hurried down to the main office, expecting to see my mom or dad—and yeah, I realized later that they wouldn’t have tried to call me over the loudspeaker or gone into the office to pick me up after school hours. It wasn’t my mom or dad. It was a cop, my guidance counselor, and the principal. I was brought into the principal’s office, and at that point, I had a feeling that something bad had happened.”

“One of your gut feelings,” I say, remembering our conversation about this on our first date, the one where he mentioned it was a bad one and he didn’t want to ruin the date because of it.

“Yeah. One of those,” Griff says. “Anyway, I sat down, and the cop told me, as gently as he could, that my parents had been killed in a car crash. I sat there, thinking that I hadn’t heard him right, because there was this loud buzzing in my head. And it got too hot, and I couldn’t breathe, because my parents couldn’t be dead. I’d talked to them both that morning. My mom had asked me what I wanted for Hanukkah. My dad talked about his auto-shop and how it’d be fun for me to start working there that weekend. It didn’t make sense. And then it went all dark.”

“Oh, Griff.” I wrap my arms around his neck and press a kiss against his neck. “Oh, Griff.”

“I fainted. When I came to, Uncle Theo had arrived with Mimi. They took me back to Mimi’s and my other aunts and uncles were already there. Pappy, my granddad, and Aunt Deanna weren’t, but I later learned they’d gone to the . . .” Griff swallows hard, not being able to finish the sentence. “I couldn’t speak. They tried to get me to eat, but I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t even thirsty. I just sat there, hearing them talk but not really hearing them. Seeing them move around, but not really seeing. Time passed, but for me? Time moved in incremental measures, a slow ooze of molasses. Each second felt like a century. Painful. Eventually, it got to be too much and I escaped to a spare bedroom. I realized too late it used to be my father’s childhood room, but I couldn’t leave it. I just sank onto the bed, in the dark, and stared at nothing.”

My heart breaks just thinking about Griff all alone in the dark. How scared and sad he must have been. What can I say that would offer him comfort? What can I do?

“And then Jack showed up, and he—” Griff takes a deep breath, staring off into the distance, no doubt remembering that night. “And he made everything better.”

I smooth my fingers over jaw. “How?”

Griff doesn’t answer for a long time—long enough that I start to think he’s not going to answer. I start to get up, but Griff tightens his grip on my hands.

“How did he make everything better?” Griff looks at me then, pain shattering dark shadows in his eyes. “He gave up college to raise me. My relatives offered, but Jack was the named guardian in our parents’ will. And even if he hadn’t been named, Jack would have fought tooth and nail to take care of me. He was there when I finally broke down and held me as I cried. He told me it wasn’t my fault, after I confessed that I thought it was.”

“It isn’t your fault!” I lean toward him. “It was never your fault.”

Griff nods his head. “I know that now, but I blamed myself for a long time. Jack got me help with that, though. Jack dropped everything so that he could be there for me. And when we had to sell the house and move into a smaller place, he told me that it sucked but that our home wasn’t defined by four walls and a roof overhead. Being together was home. He took on my father’s auto-shop and has kept it going and growing. But more than that, he was there for me whenever I needed him. He’s always been there for me.”

“And you were there for him,” I say.

“I was a kid,” Griff says. “I couldn’t do much, but I tried to be better than what I had been. I’d do anything for my brother.
Anything.
”

It’s obvious their bond is strong. “Griff . . .”

“But I mean, afterward, it was still hard socially. I tried harder. I tried to fit in, be like everyone else, and be liked. I did. But it didn’t seem to matter. I had some friends, yes, but I was never popular. And I never approached any girls I thought were cute or liked. I didn’t want to be rejected, so I didn’t put myself in a position where I could get rejected.”

“Griff, I’m so sorry about your parents. I really am.”

Griff’s silent for a long moment. “Evie, you say I’m the sweet one, but
you’re
the sweet one.”

I blush.

“Also, I guess there’s actually one more thing I need to confess.”

I glance at him. “What’s that?”

Griff presses his mouth together, then lets out a big sigh. “I can’t dance.”

“Can’t, as in you’re a bad dancer?”

“Can’t, as in I don’t know how to. I never learned, and—”

“Well,” I say, “I might not know the right words to say to you. Or what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I feel kind of useless right now. I don’t want to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing here. What you told me . . .” I cup his jaw, feel the slight stubble. “Griff, what you told me . . . you opened yourself up to me in a way I didn’t expect. You trusted me with something completely vulnerable, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

“You’re not messing anything up. You’re here. You’re you. That’s all I need.”

“Well.” I have to take a moment to swallow, to blink away the tears swimming in my eyes. To give myself a chance to catch my falling heart. Yeah. No such luck there. I’m falling for Griff. And not just
falling
in the
like
sense, but . . . love.

Love.

I am headed toward love. I might already be there. And I hated him a week ago. This makes no sense. None whatsoever. But did love ever make any sense?

Regardless, I know it’s too soon to mention the L word. Because maybe I’m wrong.

And maybe—no, most definitely—I’m also scared of laying my heart out on the line and being rejected, too.

I clear my throat. “But you know, you can ask me to dance now.”

“I don’t know—”

“I do. Did I ever tell you that I used to dance?” I get up from his lap and hold my hand out to him. “Just ask me, and let me show you how. Dance with me, Griff.”

He looks at my outstretched hand, then slowly stands. He takes my hand and pulls me slowly to him. “Show me how.”

“First,” I say, “we need some music.”

Griff doesn’t let go of my hand, but leads the way to the kitchen counter. Next to the fridge is a small radio. “Jack keeps this in case of emergencies. What kind of music?”

“Something slow. Something soft.”

“Something romantic,” Griff finishes. He scrolls through the channels until he comes across one that is in the middle of playing Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me.” Then he looks at me. “I never asked.”

“You can ask me now.”

“We’ve got to do this right.” Griff lets go of my hand. “Stay there.” He goes to the open doorway and turns back to face me. “You were talking to your friends. I was with the guys. I looked over your way and saw you. I couldn’t stop looking at you. You were wearing a yellow dress and your hair was in loose curls—”

“You remember what I wore?”

“I remember everything.”

My hair isn’t dry but I take it out from its topknot to let the wet, already curling strands, hang loose. I had on a yellow dress tonight, but not the same one I wore for the Freshmen Mixer. “I’m not wearing yellow right now—the dress is in the dryer—and my hair is . . .”

“You’re more beautiful now than you were that night.”

I feel beautiful, especially with how Griff looks at me, and I feel like I need to confess something to him. To give him a small piece of my heart. “I also remember what you wore that night. You had a navy-blue shirt and dark jeans. And when I looked at you, everything else fell away. In a blink of an eye, I wanted you.”

“I should have asked you to dance that night,” he says. “Even if I made an ass out of myself on the dance floor in front of everyone.”

“Perhaps I should have asked you to dance,” I say. “But neither one of us made that move.”

“And then I said what I did. I don’t even know how you—”

Because I’m falling for you.

“I forgive you,” I say instead. “You’re sorry. I’m sorry. We wasted four years. Let’s not waste one more second. Let’s—”

“Let me ask you,” Griff says. “Let me make a new memory, and hopefully, despite my two left feet, it’ll be a good one.”

It’ll be the best one.

I don’t say anything. Don’t move a muscle. I stand there, in the middle of the kitchen, as “Come Away With Me” ends and the sound of rain fills the silence.

“I think we need to dim the lights,” Griff says, as he turns the switch off to the kitchen and main living area. Momentarily, we’re shrouded in dark shadows, and then muted amber backlights him. He must have dimmed the setting in the other room. The kitchen is not as dark as before, but still makes the room seem . . .
intimate
.