Three Rivers (A Gateway to Love Novel)

by Barlow, Chloe T.

  "Huh?" Aubrey asked and Althea rolled her eyes. She couldn't be sure, but she suspected Aubrey's current bout of deafness was caused by her focusing all her energy on undressing Griffen with her eyes.

  "Aubrey!" Jenna shouted.

  "Oh shit, oh yeah, that thing. Of course! Right behind you." And with that, Althea was left with only the company of Griffen and the army of butterflies in her stomach.

  "Get back in here you, two. Right now!" Althea yelled helplessly after them.

  "They seem to always run off whenever I appear," Griffen said with a knowing smile.

  "Yeah, imagine that. Don't get too used to them, I'm trading them in for new friends who actually listen to me," Althea muttered, crouching down and trying to busy herself with picking up the brownies from the floor when she felt Griffen's warm breath on her hair as he crouched beside her.

  "I had a really nice time today, and last night, Althea," he purred in her ear as he picked up a brownie for her. She turned her face to him trying to look fierce but realizing she probably only came across like an irritated child. "Why are you trying to act like you're mad at me?"

  Breathe, breathe, she instructed herself. "You're unreal."

  "Thank you," he smirked.

  "I keep telling you, it's not a compliment!" She caught that she was almost yelling and turned it down a decibel or two, when she asked, "Can't you just let me deal with this alone, in peace, for maybe, I don't know, forever? Yeah, that sounds good."

  "I don't think so, sorry. The more I saw you today, the more I think it was the best thing that could have happened. In fact, I think we should do a lot more of it. For two weeks to be exact."

  "What?" There was no hope of discretion; she knew she was straight up close to shrieking now.

  "I think we should enjoy each other while I'm here."

  "And why would I want to do that?"

  "Because we had fun together, and I think you deserve to have a little fun. And, well, I want to be around you more. I also want to get to know Johnny. And if you're really going to start with some baby steps I think they should be with me."

  "Ex-cuse me?"

  "You're considering more nights of fun, right? Well, let me be the noble one here and offer you my services. While I'm here, we have hot sex, fun, friendship. I help you with Johnny and anything else you need and then I'm gone. Built-in expiration date, so no guilt about moving on before you're ready, just some baby steps, like you call them."

  "Your services? You know I was kidding when I told the girls you had a stud fee last night. I hope I wasn't actually right," she said.

  "I don't charge baby," he answered with a laugh. "Though you know I'm skilled. I'm here for only two weeks and have no interest in love either. You know I'll look after you and treat you right. And I don't do relationships or emotions — just sex — so it seems like I'm your guy, right?"

  "So we have fun, and then you go. No strings attached?"

  "That's right, gorgeous. Then I leave and you can move on with a guy that fits into the limited whatever that you decide you're looking for. A nice guy — not some jerk who picks you up in a bar," he added with a wink.

  "Let me think about it," she said, gnawing on her bottom lip with a determined focus.

  "Meet me tonight at my hotel room at seven if you’re game. And I really hope you are."

  Althea barely had a chance to catch her breath and bring her libido in check before Aubrey, Jenna and her mother stampeded into the kitchen.

  "I think it's a great idea, you should do it," Aubrey ordered.

  "Well, I guess I don't need to ask if you guys were eavesdropping or not." They had the decency to pretend to look ashamed, well, except for Aubrey of course, who just kept grinning like an idiot.

  "I agree," Vivian purred, adjusting her elaborate silk robe as she spoke. Since most of the guests had left, her mother had decided it was time to dress like she was on the set of a 1940s film noir. "You know he won't treat you like crap and there's an end date. He's only in town for a short time, so things won't get out of your comfort zone."

  "Glad you're on board, Mom. This is not weird at all. It seems you've all had plenty of time to consider this in the two seconds it took you to ambush me," Althea grumbled.

  "Oh stop being such a whiny baby. If you're worried, just blame us, say we forced you to do it. Never regret what you do..."

  "Only what you don't do, I know, Mother. But what about Johnny and my job? I know you think it’s wrong that those are all I ever focus on, but I can't exactly disappear for two weeks."

  "No, but you just settled that big pharmaceutical liability case, you told me yourself work has been light since then," Jenna countered.

  "Damn you for listening to me and my boring work talk," Althea said through a smile. "Besides, I've got other stuff going on. I don't really have time for distractions."

  "Oh, sorry, I'm sure this 'distraction' would interfere with you making it through your instant queue on Netflix, I mean those Psych and 30 Rock reruns aren’t gonna just watch themselves, right?" Aubrey challenged. Althea petulantly swatted at her hands that were still doing rabbit ears for the word "distraction."

  "Tina Fey's funny," Althea muttered.

  "I'm on board, too," Jenna chimed in. "Not about Tina Fey, well, yeah, she's funny, but I mean about Griffen's idea. What more perfect person to ease back into a love life with than someone known for avoiding any commitment and intimately understanding your loss and how it's affected you? Plus, he's super hot," she added with a smirk.

  "Et tu, Jenna?"

  "I know, I can't believe it either," Jenna laughed. "Honestly, I'm not sure why you're even hesitating," Jenna scoffed. "This offer is tailor-made for you. Especially because Griffen wants to spend time with Johnny, too, while he's here. How great is that?"

  "And when you two need some privacy for grown-up sexy times, well, Jenna and I can help," Aubrey added doing an elaborate dance with her eyebrows.

  "Yep, and I can help tonight. If you need me more than that, I can try to come up again." Althea resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That is so much her mother — she couldn't visit regularly but promise of her daughter getting laid regularly for two weeks and she was on it. "That way Carol doesn't need to know about your little arrangement."

  "Oh God, Carol. She can't know about this! She still views me as Jack's wife, this would kill her. Especially with Griffen of all people!"

  "You know how I feel about Carol and her little comments about you. What she did today was outrageous. You need to stop obsessing about protecting that woman's feelings. It's not fair to you for her to treat you like you are biding your sexual time until you can meet Jack in heaven. You have your own grief to deal with." Vivian was getting worked up, like she often did when she got to talking about Carol's view of Althea as Jack's forever wife.

  "Mom, don't start again about Carol. Please."

  "You realize you are simply enabling that woman's never-ending denial that Jack's gone. At some point, she will accept that you have to move on..."

  "Mother..."

  "Fine. I'll drop it. For now," Vivian assured her. "As for Griffen, just don't tell her anything about it."

  "Well, I guess we've thought of everything. I'll call him tomorrow."

  "What? No way. He asked you to go by at seven."

  "How nice of you to pay such careful attention to my conversation."

  "You're welcome." Aubrey shuffled her out of the room. "And put on some slutty lingerie, that's assuming the moths haven't eaten all your old relics."

  "Gross, okay, leave me to it guys. I guess I'm doing this." Althea took a deep breath and slowly walked to her bedroom to get ready.

  Griffen had been waiting outside five minutes when he heard female voices calling his name. He turned to see Althea's two girlfriends rushing his way.

  "Hey, wait up. Let us give you a ride. You're on our way," the blonde, Jenna, said.

  "Oh thanks, but
I already called a cab. I'm good," he said.

  They laughed at him. "You have been gone from Pittsburgh for a while. This ain't New York, pretty boy. You could wait in Tea's yard all night for it to show up. Get in. You can cancel the cab from the car."

  This from the willowy brunette. He knew he wouldn't get out of this peacefully, so he just sucked it up and walked toward what he could only assume was a repurposed clown car.

  "Which one of you claim this, uh, special piece of machinery?"

  "It's a Mini," the brunette chirped, "and I love it, so shut up and get in."

  "Sorry," Jenna said in an appeasing tone. "Aubrey likes you, really, I promise. She can be a little gruff with strangers and she's very protective of her little baby. I agree, though, the car's ridiculous, I don't even know how she fits her giraffe legs in it."

  "Jenna!" Aubrey huffed and blew her wayward bangs off her forehead.

  "It’s true. Now stop being so mean to him and let's go. Griffen, you can sit shotgun where there's more room."

  "Much obliged, ma'am," Griffen said with a smile and a tip of an imaginary cowboy hat as he folded his muscular 6 foot 2 inch frame into Aubrey's portable tin can. He managed to buckle his seat belt moments before Aubrey peeled out of Althea's driveway with a squeal.

  The city was opening up to them over the steep incline of Mt. Washington as Aubrey barreled toward downtown on P.J. McArdle Roadway — a curvy and narrow street with dizzyingly beautiful views of the city and river below.

  Well, they would have been lovely if Griffen weren't so busy clutching his armrest and trying to avoid looking out at what he figured would be his fiery death off the side of the mountain.

  Griffen was getting his heart rate back down below 100 beats per minute when Aubrey looked over at him. He silently begged for her to put her eyes back on the road as she said, "So, we heard you in there with Tea."

  "Oh?" So that was the reason for their generous offer of a ride. He felt self-conscious all of a sudden. These two beautiful women were as intimidating as any Mexican drug lord.

  "Yup, and we already told her to do it."

  "What?" he asked, apparently only able to provide these women monosyllabic responses.

  "We think it would be good for her, but we need to know — why did you make the offer? Are you just that hot for her?" Jenna said, popping her blond head between the two tiny front seats.

  "Um, well."

  "Gotta do better than that, pretty boy," Aubrey prodded and he regained his ability to speak.

  "Of course I think she's hot, but it's way more than that. She wants someone to show her a good time and not demand a commitment, I can definitely do that. And I think she deserves to enjoy herself. I know I can help her with that." Aubrey rolled her eyes at him. "Look, I can't offer an awesome woman like her much, but I can give her a great couple weeks and keep her from getting hurt by someone else while she's in this...what are you guys calling it? Baby steps phase?"

  "Good," Jenna answered. "That's what we were hoping you'd say. She really needs this. It's weird. Her whole life revolves around losing Jack but she does everything she can to avoid thinking or talking about him. At least not the good stuff, you know, the happy memories."

  "Yeah," Aubrey added. "And she still feels guilty about how he died."

  "Why would she feel guilty about that?" Griffen asked.

  "Why does anybody feel anything?" Aubrey said flippantly. "Point is she does. She thinks she has her reasons and so she's never moved on, at all, really."

  "That's why we have our reasons for supporting this," Jenna said.

  "But we know your reputation," Aubrey said.

  "Google can be misleading," Griffen warned. "I'm not nearly as exciting as I seem on the Internet. I promise."

  "I hope that's true, because believe me, you hurt her or use her and we pull the plug on this, no hesitation," Aubrey assured him.

  Griffen felt almost like laughing. He twisted in his seat to look at them both. They were definitely not kidding. "Seriously? You guys act like you run her life. Last I checked she's an adult woman."

  "Watch it buddy. We had your back with her before, but you're still on probation in our book." Aubrey was clearly trying for her tough girl act, so he let her go with it. "Yes, of course we know she's an adult, but Christ, she met Jack when she was nineteen. He died when she was twenty-four, and honestly, she really hadn't lived too much of a life before then. She's brilliant, yes. A genius. But she's younger than her years, believe me."

  "It's true," Jenna added. "She's innocent. Her dad ran off when she was in high school to a new family with this really young woman, and you know, her mom's kind of into her own thing..."

  "Viv's awesome!" Aubrey protested.

  "Yeah Brey, she is, but you know Tea's the serious one there. By the time we met Tea at school, all she'd ever done was study hard. Then she met Jack and he was insanely protective of her. He looked after her, never let anything bad happen to her. And ever since he died, she's got this crazy idea she can't love again. That you only get one chance at happiness and she screwed hers up. She thinks if she were to get serious with someone emotionally, that's cheating," Jenna said seriously.

  "So, she's never been really young. Never had fun. That's where you come in. She can spend a couple weeks with you, but you won't do anything stupid like fall in love with her because you're leaving soon and that's clearly not your thing. So she can tell herself you're safe," Aubrey said.

  "Not sure I ever thought of myself as safe, but, you're right, definitely no love or relationship for me. Ever."

  "Just what I thought," Aubrey responded. "I know your type."

  "Oh really?"

  "Yep. Arrogant, refuses any commitment. Only in love with himself."

  "Well, shit, if you have so little faith why did you even support it?"

  "Seriously, don't hold back Aubrey. Jeez," Jenna said. She looked to Griffen. "Sorry. We're a little worried about all this, but we know if we didn't get behind it one-hundred percent Tea would latch onto that as an excuse not to do it," Jenna said softly. "So don't let Brey get to you. I'm sure you're not really an asshole or anything."

  "Wow, thanks. Look it's okay. You can think what you want. What I will say is, I know my limitations and Althea deserves to end up with a nice guy, someone like..." His voice caught.

  "Jack?" Jenna said.

  "Right. And I know I'm no Jack."

  Jenna placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thing is, we know you were Jack's friend, and that gets you a lot of points in our book. But we don't know much else about you. We love Tea and we want to do whatever we can to help her move on but we're going to be here with her after you're gone. We need to be sure what you do for her is a positive, not a negative. Understand?" Griffen could see why this pretty blonde was such a successful surgeon. Her calm logical manner almost made him offer up his own shoulder for a quick slice and dice.

  "Got it," he said with a smile, swallowing any further comments that may piss them off. It was crazy what he was suggesting to his dead friend’s former wife. He figured he should probably question the merit of any friend who didn't warn him not to be a prick.

  "Excellent," Aubrey said with a smile. "Now that we have this understanding, we can go through Althea's schedule, likes, dislikes, etc."

  "Should I take notes?" he joked.

  "Don't be a smart-ass. We want this done right. We want her to get the most out of it," Aubrey said sternly.

  "She's right," Jenna said with her calm tones. "We want these two weeks to be perfect for her in, and out, of bed, so yeah, maybe you should take notes." And with that, Griffen's Althea education began.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Griffen looked out the back window of his suite, still not quite sure what had come over him when he proposed this crazy idea to Althea. He'd been overwhelmed by everything — the hot night with her, the desire to touch her again, the need to connect with Jack's son — making him terrified
of letting this opportunity pass him by. So, he'd grabbed at whatever straws he could think of to see her again and that straw ended up being the offer of two weeks with him.

  He heard a knock at the door and became so excited at the thought of seeing her again that he reminded himself to get it together or what he hoped would be the inauguration of their arrangement would be as embarrassing as his first time under the bleachers with Candace Johnson freshman year.

  When he opened the door the sight of her blew all control out the window. He pulled her inside and placed his hands on each side of her face. He kissed her gently at first, just brushing her lips with his but when he heard her gasp he had to taste her. Swiping his tongue across her lips, he stroked her mouth and groaned when she met him with her own tongue. She nibbled his lower lip and he thought he would go insane. He leaned back and looked in her eyes, almost entirely green now and full of desire.

  Griffen leaned his forehead against hers and whispered with a half smile, "Hi."

  "Hi," she said on a soft breath.

  "I'm so glad you came. Does that mean you're willing to do this with me?"

  "Maybe you should have asked that before you attacked me," she teased.

  "Hell no, if you came to turn me down, I had to make sure to get a kiss in first."

  She smiled and then her face turned serious again. She backed up out of his arms and walked into the suite, stopping in front of the wall of windows that looked out onto the Monongahela River side of the city.

  Althea turned to look at him. "So, let me make sure I have this right. Your plan is we spend time together having fun and lots of sex and then you go back to New York in two weeks and we're done?"

  "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds kind of..."

  "Perfect."

  "Huh?"

  "I'm in. But, if we do this no one can know. I mean the girls know of course, but no one else, especially not Carol."

  "Why not Carol? She's one of my biggest fans." Griffen bristled.

  "I know you think of yourself as very lovable, but whether she likes you or not is irrelevant. You aren't Jack. That's all that matters to her. She can't accept me being with anyone else and I'm not ready to push her on that."