by A. J. Pine
“Thank you, Fancy Pants.”
Griffin stirred, apparently having dozed—lulled by her breathing and the crash from the adrenaline rush of the letter and Maggie’s entrance.
“Look who’s back,” he teased, and then kissed the top of her head.
“Don’t let your lips go any farther than that,” she said as she maneuvered out of his arms and stood. “I need to brush my teeth, do the whole post-migraine cleanup.”
She smiled weakly, and Griffin joined her where she stood.
“You need to lie down,” he said. That was the drill. Migraine, meds, nap. Then she would be good as new.
“I need to shower,” she insisted.
He raised a brow. “I can help you with that.” The corners of his mouth turned up. But he was only teasing, expecting her to say no regardless of how much he’d love to be with her. Griffin always felt the need to reassure her in these moments, to show her that her health—any small setbacks—didn’t scare him.
Maggie turned on the sink and splashed cold water on her face. Then she loaded her toothbrush with a decent helping of paste, and then pointed the toothbrush at him.
“Start the water, and make it hot, please. I want to burn away this day.”
Griffin obliged while Maggie started to brush.
“That bad, huh?” he asked.
She held up a finger as she finished her routine, which always ended with a minute-long mouthwash finale.
“The school stuff was okay,” she said. “Just draining. I mean, I couldn’t have studied more for that final, you know? But the coffee house was nuts. And Miles took the night off to work on his dissertation, and…” She let out a long breath and looped her arms around Griffin’s waist. “And I’m just glad to be home with you, where everything is quiet, and normal, and I can finally breathe.”
Griffin swallowed hard, feeling the folded piece of paper burning a hole in his pocket—singeing Maggie’s need for normal. Tonight was not the night to shake up her world. Instead he dipped his head toward hers, letting his lips brush her minty fresh mouth. She responded, her lips parting and inviting his tongue to mingle with hers.
Maggie’s hands left his waist, making their way to the button of his jeans. Maybe he was thinking about this shaking-up-her-world thing all wrong.
“Are you sure?” he asked, not able to mask the hoarseness of his voice.
She unfastened the button and tugged down his zipper, resting her palm on his erection. He hissed, bracing himself against the shower door as steam enveloped them.
She kissed him hard, hand gripping him with the same intensity.
“After today?” She kissed him again. “There’s nothing I want more.” She laughed quietly. “This and then sleep. Lots of sleep.”
She helped him out of his jeans, her eyes darting to the floor as she saw the letter tumble from his pocket as the pants fell from his hips.
“What’s that?” she asked, and Griffin’s eyes met hers. He lifted her Royal Grounds T-shirt over her head, loving the way she raised her arms to let him do it.
“God, you’re beautiful. Do you know that?”
She bit her lip as she smiled.
He drank in the vision before him, ginger waves resting against her freckle-dotted alabaster skin. The weariness in her eyes did nothing to mask the soul-deep beauty they always held when they looked at him. She was really his, and Griffin still couldn’t believe it. He would do nothing to fuck this up, even if it meant closing the door on Washington. He didn’t need the fellowship, hadn’t even thought he’d get it. But he needed Maggie. That went without question.
He kicked his jeans and the letter out of the way.
“It’s nothing,” he told her, almost believing the lie as he unclasped her bra and covered her breasts with his hands. “But you, Pippi? You’re everything.”
Chapter Three
Miles
“This was a mistake.” Miles paced as he watched Jordan and Noah approach the gate. “I have never felt like a third wheel with you guys, but I’m a fifth wheel now. Why did I let you talk me into this?”
He was on his way to Europe for a wedding, which had sounded great when Maggie made him the offer. He was long overdue for a vacation, and he certainly didn’t want to shirk his best-friend duties, but now he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t even know Duncan and Elaina. Had never met them. And now here he was, off to what would be a romantic weekend for the happy couple, for Maggie and Griffin, and for their friends Jordan and Noah—two more people he’d never met, by the way. Romantic weekends away really weren’t Miles’s thing, especially when he was flying solo.
Commitment. The thought gave him the shakes. And now he’d be surrounded by it for three days. Seventy-two hours of people oohing and ahhing and blotting their tears because the happy couple was just so damned…happy
Maggie hooked her arm in his as his pacing brought him back in her direction, walking with him now toward the Hudson News across from the gate’s seating area. “Because, sweetie. Technically, I need a plus-one. Griffin’s doing all that best-man stuff, and with Jordan and Noah in the wedding, too, who’s going to hang with little ol’ me?”
Miles stopped to face her just as they entered the shop, his whole demeanor softening when he looked at his best friend. Maggie’s smile was tentative, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin this trip for her. She was nervous enough as it was, this trip putting a twist into her carefully constructed schedule.
He smiled back and watched her shoulders relax.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You know I would do anything for you, and I’m happy to do this. It’s just—”
Maggie interrupted. “You miss Paige.”
Miles sighed. She was half right. Although things had gotten more serious with his most recent ex than he’d ever expected—and while it did kind of suck that she moved to California—he was more relieved than anything else. Miles missed having someone to talk to at the end of a long shift. He missed the regularity of someone in his bed. But he’d never been one to set down roots, so yeah, Paige planting hers across the country saved him from having to deal with that.
“Sure, I miss her,” he said, thumbing through the paperbacks on an endcap.
“Mi-iles…”
Shit. He knew Maggie was onto him when she did that two-syllable thing with his name.
“Mags?” He kept his eyes on the half-naked couple posing on the cover of a book.
“Spill it, darlin’. Something’s up, or else we wouldn’t be hiding out in the gift shop when I’m dying to introduce you to Jordan and Noah.”
She pulled the book from his hands and placed it firmly back on the shelf. He groaned and faced her.
“I don’t do weddings, Mags. I mean, I’m happy to do anything for you, but as a general rule I’ve got a pretty firm negative on the whole watching-two-people-pledge-their-lives-to-each-other thing.”
She rolled her eyes. “God, Miles. I thought this thing with Paige was going to suck some of that cynicism out of you, but I guess I was wrong.”
He cupped her face in his palms.
“Sorry, honey. Still filled to the brim.”
She backed away, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What if…what if when you and I…” She pointed back and forth between them. “Wow. I’m glad we didn’t work out. I’d have just been another notch on your bedpost.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. How did letting a little bit of honesty through turn into Maggie being pissed at him? Miles crossed his arms right back at her, narrowing his eyes.
“You didn’t,” he started and waited for her to object, but she said nothing. “You didn’t fall for me, Mags, because you knew you wouldn’t, just like I knew I wouldn’t fall for you.”
“But…”
He didn’t let her finish.
“But nothing. It was safe—for both of us. That’s why we let it happen, and that’s why we never let it go any further. We love each other too much to mess with a good thing.”
Maggie’s shoulders sagged, and he knew he’d won, but that didn’t stop the twist of guilt in his gut. He didn’t want to deflate her spirit just to prove a point, but he also knew he played by different rules than she did. Maggie was a hopeless romantic at heart. It just took meeting Griffin to get her to step out of her safe zone. Miles had stepped out of the safe zone years ago, and all it did was teach him that loving someone wasn’t enough, not in his experience. He hoped it worked for Maggie. He’d never seen her happier, and he actually liked Griffin, who got how special Maggie was. He wasn’t against kicking the former rich boy’s ass if he hurt his best friend, but if there was one couple Miles was rooting for, it was them.
“You know what?” she asked, grabbing his hand and squeezing it in hers. “Playing it safe? It wasn’t living. You’re the one who told me that.” She rested a hand on his chest, the left side, just over his heart. “I know everything about you, Miles. Everything except for who messed you up so much in here.”
He cleared his throat, plastered on one of his patented grins, and pulled her out of the shop.
“I’m the psych PhD candidate, honey. Not you. Not everyone has some big story of heartbreak to psychoanalyze. Some of us simply like all play and no work. How about you let me be that guy?”
He led her toward the gate, the taste of the lie sour on his tongue. Safe meant never again having to explain away his partner’s unfounded jealousy in relation to his bisexuality. Safe meant enjoying another’s company without fear of attachment. Safe meant never giving your heart to another just so that person could use it up, suck the soul from it, and return nothing but the shell of what it used to be.
Maybe safe wasn’t truly living, but Miles had been doing it for so long he’d forgotten what living felt like anyway.
They crossed the short distance back to the gate where Griffin now sat with two gorgeous brunettes—one female and one male—both smiling at his and Maggie’s approach.
Maggie squeezed his hand again.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll let you be that guy…for now. For this trip. Because that’s what the next few days are all about. Fun. Play. But this conversation isn’t over.”
“Noted,” he said quietly as they came into earshot of their traveling companions. He’d take this short reprieve, and maybe when they got back, he’d tell her about Cole, the only secret he’d ever kept from her. Right now he plastered that grin in place and continued with the Miles Show everyone seemed to adore.
He dropped Maggie’s hand and held it out toward the new members of the group who, along with Griffin, stood on their approach.
“You must be Noah,” he said, and Noah nodded as he shook Miles’s hand.
“Guess that makes you Miles,” he said.
Miles turned toward the woman to Noah’s right and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “The lovely Jordan Brooks I’ve heard so much about.”
Jordan’s cheeks flushed pink, and he watched the slight twitch of muscle in Noah’s jaw as Griffin’s eyes darted to the floor.
That, he thought. That’s what I’ll never have to worry about again. Jealousy. Trust. Miles had his heart broken once because of both, and once was enough to know he wasn’t putting himself out there again. Here was the proof, two happy couples who still let that shit get in the way. It was poison. He knew how much Griffin loved Maggie and was certain Noah felt the same for Jordan. But three years hadn’t erased the tension between the two guys who once loved the same girl. And three years certainly hadn’t erased Miles’s memory of how it felt to constantly reassure Cole that he loved only him, that he didn’t want to fuck every beautiful man or woman who he passed on the street. Gay, straight, bi—none of that shit ever mattered to Miles. He didn’t do labels. He had just always followed his heart. But Cole didn’t get it. He thought being true to his heart meant Miles could never truly be faithful. Miles never cheated, but the one man he loved assumed he would. Miles had always been proud of who he was. Only now he was proud with a dash of bitter and a pinch of fear. He hated Cole for doing that to him. But at least it protected him from getting hurt again. That was the trade-off.
He’d smile for Maggie…and for the rest of the crew, but inside he was bah-humbugging the shit out of his current situation.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, just as the announcement came that boarding for Thessaloniki was about to begin. “Shall we get this party started?”
Chapter Four
Elaina
Elaina McAllister.
The first time she’d kissed Duncan—on his birthday more than three years ago—Elaina Tripoli had said the name to herself. Silently, of course, because admitting to such a thought would have meant betraying her trademark Greek stoicism, and lovesick puppy she was not. At least not in public.
Never mind that the boy in the skirt, the Scotsman who never hid how he felt, probably didn’t remember that first kiss, thanks to enough whisky and pints to sedate a highland bull.
But Elaina hadn’t forgotten, not the kiss nor the sound of her future name echoing between her ears, the name that would be hers before tomorrow was done.
“Elaina, eísai xýpnios?”
The door swung open before Elaina had a chance to reveal that she was, in fact, awake.
She rolled her eyes. “Eláte se, Theodora.”
Come in.
Thea waved a hand in her cousin’s face and pushed her down in the chair in front of the vanity.
“Look at you, exádelfos. You didn’t sleep last night?”
Thea swiped a thumb under Elaina’s eye, proving the purple tint to her skin had nothing to do with smudged makeup.
Elaina huffed. “Everyone is supposed to speak English today…tomorrow. The McAllister family does not know Greek.”
Again with the waving, as if Elaina were an annoying mosquito Thea merely had to swat out of the way rather than a bride-to-be who didn’t need reminding about the bags under her eyes.
“Exádelfos. Cousin. Why does this matter when the McAllisters aren’t in the room?”
Elaina’s face broke into a smile that surprised even her.
Thea looked her up and down. “You have gone soft, Elaina.”
On instinct, Elaina’s hand wrapped around her torso, and her stomach muscles contracted. It was her father’s fault, really. His and his assistant chef’s. They always made too much food, but that was what happened when your father owned a restaurant. And when they left her all the extras in the refrigerator, well? A belly was bound to go a little soft.
You need to sample, Elaina. Taste before the guests do. Make sure everything is nóstima.
“Not soft there,” Thea said, pointing to Elaina’s belly. “Here.” Thea’s finger rested above Elaina’s heart, and the bride-to-be couldn’t contain her grin.
Elaina sighed. “You are right. But if you tell him, I will hunt you down and kill you.”
Her cousin laughed. “Your secret is safe with me. All the world will still fear you; only I will know you have a marshmallow heart.”
Elaina’s eyes narrowed at Thea, but she had lost the battle—if there ever was one. Duncan was so much more than she’d ever expected. He was everything she never knew she wanted, and now he was on his way to Greece. To marry her. And leave his home for hers.
As Thea opened her makeup bag to begin work on her cousin’s almost-married face, something caught in Elaina’s throat, and she tried to swallow it back down.
“What?” Thea asked, makeup brush poised to sweep powder across Elaina’s nose.
“It is nothing,” Elaina said, with all the conviction of a child swallowing a spoonful of medicine.
Thea dropped to the bed next to her chair and let the powder brush fall to her lap.
“What?” she asked again, making it clear that she was not going to help Elaina get ready for the pre-wedding celebration until she spilled her always-guarded thoughts.
Elaina looked down, an attempt to hide the first tear that fell. Thea’s hand covered hers, an
d she decided it was time to let it all out.
“He’s giving up so much,” Elaina said.
“Your papa gave him a good job managing the restaurant,” Thea countered.
“He is leaving his home.”
“For a new one with you.” This time Thea squeezed Elaina’s hand, eliciting a weak smile from her. “Come. Let’s get you ready. Papa already left to pick up the McAllisters. He does not want them eating hotel food, so he has galatopita waiting downstairs in the restaurant’s private room. When does Duncan’s plane land?”
Elaina swiped a finger under each eye, collecting herself to greet her guests—her new family. This might be the room she grew up in, part of the apartment over the restaurant she shared with her parents and grandmother, but today it felt foreign. New. Tonight would be the last night she slept in the bed on which Thea sat, the one meant only for her. Tomorrow would be the hotel suite, and after the honeymoon, the new apartment she’d share with Duncan. Her husband.
Elaina’s phone sat on the table in front of her, and she woke the screen and saw she’d missed a text message.
Her eyes grew wide, and she beamed as she held the phone up for Thea to see. No need to worry about travel plans when she had all of Duncan’s information at her fingertips.
Thea shook her head and pursed her lips. “Please explain this text,” she said, squinting at the screen. “Flight 2342 from Athens to Thessaloniki: Landed. Seat 17D: Vacant.”
Elaina rolled her eyes. Did she have to spell it out for her cousin?
“It is an app for the phone.” Thea raised a brow. “Yes, I know how to use my phone. It is an app with Duncan’s flight information, and it gives me all the updates on his trip. See? It says his plane has landed and that his seat is…”
Elaina looked at the phone again. She scrolled through earlier notifications from Duncan’s flight from England to Athens.
