by Marie James
“Get the fuck away from her,” Griffin spits when he turns around to see us all standing on the same side of the hallway and staring at him.
“What’s going on down there?” I cringe when I turn my head and see Coach Roy heading our direction.
“Has been,” the leader spits as he turns to walk away. His posse follows him.
The boys are gone before Coach Roy makes it up to us.
“Anderson?” he questions as he looks over at Griffin who is staring at me like I created this entire mess. “What the hell is going on?”
“Don’t talk to her that way, Coach.” Griffin stands to his full height, but he’s only capable of holding the position for a few seconds before his feet skitter a little.
It’s clear he’s drunk, but Coach Roy doesn’t manhandle him or raise his voice. If anything, the older gentleman looks a little disappointed as he watches Griffin try to stand without wobbling.
“Griffin Griggs, what in the hell are you doing showing up here drunk?”
“She just left this morning. Didn’t even say goodbye.” His hand splays across his chest as he addresses a man he clearly knows from his days as a student here. “That really hurt my feelings.”
Hurt his feelings? Who is this guy?
“Jesus,” Coach mumbles before walking to Griffin and urging him to walk across the hallway into an empty room. “You can’t bring your lover’s quarrels up here, kid. You’ll get this girl fired. You already made her late this morning.”
I cringe in mortification with their conversation, clearly, one that Coach put together with Griffin’s drunken declaration and my tardiness a couple of hours ago. Nonetheless, I follow them into the classroom and close us inside.
“You have fifteen minutes until the next bell. Take care of it quickly. I won’t watch your class again today,” Coach Roy says to me after he gets Griffin into a desk. Then he turns back to his former student. “No girl appreciates a drunken declaration, especially while she’s at work. Get your shit together, Griggs.”
He’s mumbling something about the fall of society and idiocy when he leaves us alone in the classroom.
“Listen, Ivy.” Griffin reaches for me, but I’m too damn angry to listen to a word he has to say.
“Shut. Your. Mouth,” I hiss. “How did you get here?”
The high school is on the other side of town to where he’s been staying.
“Did you ride your bike?”
Just the thought of the danger he’s putting himself in makes me so angry I could pull my own hair out.
He doesn’t answer me, but it doesn’t stop me from holding my hand out. “Give me your keys.”
He chuckles, his head snapping back like I’ve lost my mind.
“Fine,” he hisses before struggling to get his keys out of his pocket. Even though he’s mad, he doesn’t slam them into my hand. When he places them in my palm, he tries to connect our fingers, but I won’t allow it.
“Why are you drinking?”
“Because you were gone.” The answer is immediate, and I know it’s the truth.
“You know I had to work.”
“You didn’t say goodbye.”
“Goodbye? I was late. I didn’t think you needed a friend to say goodbye.”
“Friend?” I swallow as he watches my face. “Right.”
“Just…” I look back at the door when the bell rings. “Just stay here. Do you understand?”
He blinks up at me. “You’re cute when you’re all authoritative.”
“Griffin,” I growl in frustration.
“Sorry.” He holds his arms up near his head in mock surrender. “I’ll stay. Promise.”
“You also promised you wouldn’t drink,” I mutter as I walk and leave him alone.
If he thinks he’s pissed right now, wait until his dad shows up. Like an angry teen, I get the only vindication I can, and that comes in the form of a very angry biker named Shadow. I’ve been supportive and insistent that he get it together, but that hasn’t worked thus far. Endangering not only his life but the lives of everyone else on the roads while driving drunk means I have no choice but to call in reinforcements. He can hate me all he wants, but at least I know he’ll be safe.
Chapter 17
Griffin
A loud bang jolts me from wherever I let my mind wander, and I’m crouched on the floor trying to get my brain online and assess the situation.
“Damn it, sorry.” I look through the legs of a student desk to see my father standing near the door of the classroom Coach Roy helped lead me into earlier.
“She called you?” I don’t bother to hide the anger in my voice as I lift the hem of my shirt to wipe drool off the side of my face.
“Do you want to talk about that reaction you just had?”
“Not a chance,” I mutter before standing. Dizziness hits me hard, so I opt to sit back in the desk rather than ending up sprawled on the floor like a fucking idiot in front of my dad. “Where’s Ivy?”
“Listen.” My dad holds his finger up, and silence fills the room. Sure enough, I can hear Ivy explaining some math equation to students in the room next door. “She’s fine.”
I don’t know how he knew I needed to be reassured, but I’m grateful for it.
“Why are you here?”
“The best way to get over that paranoia that’s crippling you is never to leave it.” His statement makes absolutely no sense to me, but that’s not even the point I focus on.
“I’m not paranoid,” I argue. Paranoid is being afraid of things that don’t exist. My demons are very real. “Besides, I got the boot remember? Going back isn’t an option.”
“Discharge or not, you still meet qualifications for Cerberus.”
“No fucking way,” I say, rejecting the offer immediately.
“You have more experience in the field than two of our other guys. Hell, just the time you spent in Syria alone—”
I slam my hands down on the desk to get his attention and shut him up. “I’m not talking about Syria.”
“What are your plans then?”
Silence fills the room, and I stare at the wall separating us from Ivy’s classroom until I hear her speak again.
“What’s going on with her?” He hitches his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the woman on the other side of the wall. My jaw snaps closed. “Why are you up here drunk making a scene?”
My hands suddenly become extremely interesting as I avoid his questions. If I wanted to have this conversation, I would’ve come to him. I don’t care that I’ve made an ass of myself in a place that once filled me with pride; I won’t be forced into a discussion with him.
“Your mother and I will help you in any way you need.”
“I don’t need your help,” I tell him. I do my best to keep the anger out of my voice. He doesn’t deserve anything but my respect.
“I understand being an asshole, son.” I huff at his words. He may have been a little tough on Cannon and me, but he would’ve never acted the way I have in the last six months. “Just ask your mother.”
His chuckle draws my eyes back up to him.
“Story for another time,” he says with a wave of his hand when I wait for him to explain. “The point is, if you need counseling, medication, treatment for alcoholism, whatever it is, we can help you. I know you’re a man and asking for help would be hard even if you did have veterans’ benefits, but I want you to know the offer is always there.”
I nearly crumble. I’m almost to my breaking point, and the little boy, the son in me, wants my dad to fix the things I’ve broken, but wishing for that is just a child’s idea of protection. The things I did in Syria are actionable. Those murders are serious war crimes, illegal according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and there’s nothing that my father can do to protect me from the fallout of that, no matter how much he’d like to. Hell, he’d probably disown me if he ever found out. Cerberus would never look at me the same, and he’s dodging a bullet by me turning do
wn the offer to work for that organization.
“Why aren’t you asking me about the drugs?”
My father gives me a sad smile. “Because I know you’ll talk about that when you’re ready. Just like I know you’ll tell me what‘s really going on eventually. I just pray that it doesn’t eat you from the inside out before you realize that no matter what the issue is, we can face it together.”
God, how I wish that was true.
“In the meantime,” he claps his hands together, “I will not tolerate you behaving this way in public. Ivy doesn’t deserve to be chased down and embarrassed by a drunk guy. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you have to keep some things private. Your mother would be beyond embarrassed if she found out how you acted at the school today.”
“You’re not going to tell her?”
“Not if I can help it,” he mutters. “You can’t go to Jake’s and act an ass either.”
He takes a step closer, and just the imposing nature of his body makes me look him in the eye like a man about to get his ass handed to him.
“And if I ever hear about you riding that fucking bike after you’ve been drinking, I’ll wring your damn neck myself.”
“Yes, sir,” I mutter. I don’t bother trying to explain why I thought something bad had happened to Ivy, or why even after seeing her car in the parking lot, that I knew I couldn’t believe she was okay until I saw her with my very own eyes. Just the memory of coming into the school and seeing that group of guys surrounding her sets my blood to boiling again.
“We have built too much trust in this community for you to ruin all of that by plowing down some family on their way to youth group. Do you understand me?” He’s referring to Cerberus and everything they’ve done to help make the community better. Some still don’t trust them simply because they’re bikers.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now let’s get out of here.”
“What now?” I ask as I follow him out of the classroom.
He pauses outside of Ivy’s classroom like he knows I have to set eyes on her before I walk out. She doesn’t see me standing there, but I watch her bend over a desk to help a student. My fist clenches when he turns his head and then angles it, trying to look down the front of her shirt. I jolt when my dad places his hand on my shoulder.
“Let’s go. I’m already going to have to send Coach Roy a box of cigars for keeping the administration from finding out what you did today. The last thing I need is you trying to fight some teenage boy off of your girlfriend.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, instead of correcting his statement.
“I’m taking you home. Cannon has already grabbed your bike.”
“I’m not going to Cerberus,” I tell him when we step outside.
“That’s where your bike is going, Griffin. If you want to go back to the Franklin property that’s fine.”
“Why can’t he take the bike back to my house?”
“Can you be trusted not to ride it while intoxicated?”
“I agreed that I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
My dad stops in his tracks at the hood of his SUV and turns back to look at me. The warning is clear in his eyes, and I know that stoic, no-shit look has earned him a great amount of respect, both while he was in the Marines and while he has served under Kincaid as the Cerberus VP. It also leaves no room for argument, and thinking of countering his warning would no doubt lead to more than just the loss of riding privileges.
“I know you’re a grown man,” he says when we both settle inside the SUV. “I know you’ve seen things, experienced things that lots of people should never have to deal with, but the disrespect ends today. I’m not just talking about that look in your eye a minute ago. You have got to stop disrespecting your own body, the people in the community, and most importantly, you have to stop disrespecting Ivy. She deserves better than what you’re offering her right now.”
I bite my tongue until I taste blood, and I don’t know if it’s the new me and my insubordinate demeanor, or the fact that the little nap in the classroom wasn’t nearly enough time to sleep off the alcohol, but I refuse to let him speak of things he knows nothing about with me not saying anything about it.
“There is absolutely nothing going on between Ivy and me,” I spit.
“If you honestly believe that, Griffin, you have a much further way to go than I thought.”
The rest of the ride back to the tiny cottage in the woods is spent in silence.
Chapter 18
Ivy
I’m hit with déjà vu when I drive up to the cottage. Griffin’s bike isn’t in the driveway, but that’s expected. Cannon sent a text shortly after I left Griffin in the empty classroom to let me know he was instructed to drive it back to the clubhouse. His text was a warning about how ‘growly’—his word not mine—his brother was going to be when he found out that he had to come home if he wanted his bike.
Honestly, I don’t care how growly Griffin is. It will have nothing on the anger that’s rushing through my veins. He has a lot of dang nerve showing up at the school. Top it off with the fact that he was drunk, and I’m glad to know he’s got a shotgun. He’s going to need it.
“Griffin!” I holler as I pound my fist on the door. I only wait a few seconds with no answer before I turn the doorknob and enter the house. “Griffin!”
Once again the living room is empty, only the TV isn’t on this time. My bravado falters when I see the door to the bedroom he was in yesterday is closed. What if he has a woman in there with him? What right do I even have to be here or to get angry for imagining him with someone else?
I’m reminded that my anger is from the way he acted today, not what he has done in his spare time. It’s encroaching on me and risking my job that angers me so much.
She just left this morning. Didn’t even say goodbye. That really hurt my feelings.
“I bet,” I huff as I push open the bedroom door.
Relief I won’t acknowledge right now rushes over me so fast my hands begin to tremble.
He’s once again face down on the bed, but he’s alone and wearing clothes this time. A quick look around the floor doesn’t reveal any used condoms. I almost smile. Almost.
The empty bottle of whiskey on the floor just below his dangling hand makes me see red, reminding me of the way he acted earlier.
With silent footsteps, I grab the bottle and leave the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I make quick work of finding the full bottles of alcohol and head to the sink with an armful. One by one, I pour them all down the drain. He doesn’t have a bike, but I’d be a fool to think it will be impossible for him to get a ride to get more. What I’m doing is simply making it more difficult for him, and trying to prove a point. Maybe if he has to exert effort to find more alcohol that will give him the few moments he needs to make a different choice. Neither one of us was raised around people who got black-out drunk. Even the Cerberus guys either reeled it in or behaved that way in private.
While I’m at it, I head to the living room, finding the pizza box from last night still sitting on the table. I grumble to myself and complain about Griffin’s messiness, but deep down I hope that a cleaner house will be close to a fresh start for him.
With plans to wake him and force him to go grocery shopping with me after finding the fridge empty, I fill another glass of water and carry it back to the bedroom.
Griffin hasn’t moved an inch. It’s been close to five hours since his outburst at the school, and he would be sober now if he didn’t come home and keep drinking. I don’t bother with kicking the bed and trying to rouse him that way this time. I simply turn the cup over right on top of his head.
He doesn’t bolt out of bed like he did the other day. He grumbles, rolling over to look up at me. The twitch of his top lip looks like a vicious dog getting ready to attack, but I stand my ground.
“I’m getting really sick of your shit,” he spits as he lifts his hand to wipe away the water running down his
face.
“Same,” I hiss back.
He blinks up at me as if he’s shocked that I’d return his aggression. I run with it.
“Acting this way, getting drunk out of your mind and coming to my place of employment is ridiculous.”
“You left!” he screams as he climbs off the bed to get a better advantage. It doesn’t take much. I’m just a hair over five feet tall, and he’s several inches over six feet.
“I had to go to work,” I repeat my explanation from earlier at the school. I’ve lost most of my bluster with him so close and towering over me. “Plus, I don’t freaking answer to you!”
He blinks down at me, and I can’t help but watch the slow and methodical flutter of his eyelashes. His perfect lips part, a ragged breath draws in, and something changes in the air, or maybe I’m just imagining—
His lips crash against mine, his tongue demanding entrance, which is granted when I gasp in shock at his brazenness and aggression. I stand there for seconds or a lifetime; I can’t be too sure which before he pulls me to his chest and lowers me to the bed. He’s hard everywhere, the plains of his stomach, his thighs as he parts my legs, even the thickness in his jeans.
Oh, God.
Once again it’s the wetness at my back that snaps me out of the moment he’s somehow managed to make me get lost in.
“Griffin,” I pant when he allows me to come up for air, “nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed,” he counters before angling his mouth back over mine. His hips roll, and that tiny amount of friction fries my brain for a second.
It’s heaven and hell all wrapped into one, the warm brush of his talented tongue versus the awful hint of alcohol still clinging to his breath.
“Get up,” I urge with my palms against his chest.
Pulling my mouth from his only makes him relocate his lips. Goosebumps race down my arms when he nips at the delicate flesh below my ear. Who knew that little spot had a direct connection to the area behind my belly button?
