“Throwing money at MS won’t make it go away.”
“It might not make it go away, but it’ll sure as fuck help slow it down. Do you think Con and Victor aren’t already texting each other with ideas of how to fund research? Guarantee you they already have a team they’re building to start their own medical research.”
“Is this a Levi Marsh locker room pep talk?” I sneer.
“Yes,” he scowls back at me, “is this Volkov attitude to brush off the truth you aren’t ready to hear?”
I scoff and look out the window. “I didn’t realize I was signing up to be psychoanalyzed by a burnt-out athlete with his nose in my business on this drive home.”
“I didn’t realize you were as dumb as your brother when it comes to accepting help.”
We stare each other down for a minute until he breaks eye contact and pulls back onto the highway.
“You might actually out stubborn Con. At least when confronted with help, he finally accepted.”
“We’re different people, I guess,” I mutter as I turn to the window again.
The rest of the drive goes by in a somewhat tense silence. Every time I sneak glances at him out of the corner of my eye, his jaw is clenched so hard I’m surprised it isn’t broken yet. He pulls into the VI parking garage and stops in front of the elevator. He grabs my bag from the back and sets it on the ground.
“Ives and I are here for you, whenever or whatever you need. You need to lose your stupid pride though and let people who love you be there for you.” He traps me in a suffocating hug and kisses the top of my head.
“Thank you,” I say as I hug him back.
“Brat,” he says I turn to leave.
I give him my middle finger as I step onto the elevator, the doors closing on his laughter.
The confession tour continues tonight with Friday. I texted her when I got home and invited her over for a girls’ night. I’ve ordered tacos that she’s picking up, and I have three flavors of ice cream for dessert. Plus, vodka for me and tequila for her. Then we’ll kick back and watch Magic Mike. It’s not my favorite, but she loves it, and I’m going to be laying a lot on her tonight.
I really have no idea how she’ll react. I know she’ll be supportive. I just don’t know if she’ll be as hurt by me keeping everything to myself as everyone else or if she’ll understand. I’m setting everything up in the living room when she knocks on the door.
“I’ve got tacos, bitch! Open the damn door,” she yells.
“Hey,” I flip my newly added deadbolt to the side and open the door for her.
The scent of tacos fills my nostrils and makes my stomach growl. I guess I haven’t eaten since the reception last night. I haven’t even thought of food until now.
“Girl, do I have a story for you.” She starts opening the containers, handing me my order and keeping hers. “I went on a Tinder date last night. This clown wanted a standing ovation for making me come. Like, honey, I have had stronger orgasms from the seam of my jeans with a homeless man pressed against me on the J line in August. You are not special.”
“Gross,” I laugh at her disgusting anecdote.
“And, unfortunately, accurate.” She takes a bite of her taco. “How was the wedding?”
“It was beautiful. Super small and intimate. I knew most of the people there again. It was pretty close to a repeat of Con and Lilith’s wedding.”
“How about you and the ginger?”
“We’re over.”
She pauses from the bite of taco she was about to take. Her arms slowly lower. “What? Why?”
“Con found out.”
“So?” She rolls her eyes. “His grumpy ass can get over it. You were happy. You were getting good dick. Does your brother not understand how fucking rare that is in this city?”
“Griff and I weren’t ever going to be a long-term thing.”
“Why?” she asks before taking another bite.
“I have to tell you something.” I set my taco down, buying a minute. “After the Midsummer Exhibition, I’m leaving the company.”
“What. The. Fuck. Are you talking about?”
“Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.”
“Babe, no.” Her eyes fill with tears, and she drops her tacos to come wrap me up in a hug. “I’m so sorry.” She sways with me for a bit. “I haven’t noticed your physical abilities change, though. Why do you need to stop dancing?”
“It seems to be having more of an effect on my memory for the time being. It’s why I’ve been having so much trouble with remembering choreography.”
“Oh shit. I didn’t know it could cause memory problems. I thought it was just walking and stuff.” She’s quiet for a minute as the news sinks in. “This all sucks, Claire, but what does it have to do with you and Griff being a short-term thing?”
“He deserves a future with someone who can be his life-long partner.”
“Did he say that?” Her eyebrows raise. “Because my pawpaw has a cabin near a swamp down home, and we could easily feed his ass to some gators. No one would know.”
“No,” I smile at her offer. Little does she know with one phone call I could have the Bratva at his door. “He actually told Con that he was in love with me.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, this morning. Con knocked on the door before he left my room to go to his. He was still in his clothes from the night before but with just-fucked hair. It only took Con about thirty seconds to put it together and that was the first thing out of Griff’s mouth.”
“So,” she takes a sip of her drink, “you think he deserves something else, but he’s in love with you?”
I nod.
“Are you in love with him?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, bitch, it fucking matters!”
“I don’t want to explain myself again today. Can we just eat tacos and watch Channing Tatum take off his clothes?”
“Fine. Only because I love you, though. We will be talking about it later though.”
“Thank you.”
We spend the next few hours brainlessly watching movies and binging on ice cream. By the end of the night, we’re both sporting tiny food babies sprawled out on my couch. She turns to me as she gathers her things to leave.
“I want you to know on a serious note, that I support you completely in whatever way you choose to handle your life. I mean, let’s be honest, every man is easily replaced by three things.”
“What are those?” I ask bracing for something ridiculous to come out her mouth.
“A weighted blanket, vibrator, and good book.” She says while she hugs me at the door.
I laugh and wave goodbye once she gets on the elevator. I’m just about to close my door when a hand wraps around it and pushes it open. I look up into the stormy green eyes of my older brother.
“We need to talk.” He brushes past me.
“I don’t have it in me to talk more about this tonight.”
He pats his pockets and looks around. “I’m all out of fucks to give. We’re talking about it.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Guilty as charged, ice princess. And you are a liar.”
“I never lied to you.”
“Deceit is deceit. Lies of omission are still lies.” He leans against my kitchen counter while I clean up. “It hurts that you didn’t come to me first. We’ve always told each other everything.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I needed time to absorb it.”
“So, you ran straight to Griff,” he says accusingly.
“No,” I slam the cupboard closed, “I knew about it for a couple months before I went to him. I needed a favor. One that he was uniquely qualified to help me with.” I lift my chin defiantly because he needs to understand I’m not backing down. “If I had told you everything, you would have called him up and asked for the same thing. All I did was cut out the middleman.”
He looks at me like I slapped him. “
The middleman? I’m your fucking brother. Protecting you is my job.”
“I’m not five anymore,” I say with a softened tone. “I love you so much, but what you just said is why I didn’t go to you. I knew Griff would have my back. Aren’t you glad I went to someone you trust?”
“Trusted,” he says with a clenched jaw.
“Stop.” I wrap my arms around him in a hug. His muscles are all but vibrating with tension, but he hugs me back and rests his cheek on the top of my head. “You’re mad, and it’s understandable.”
“Was it really casual because you two seem to be in disagreement about how serious it is?”
“Does it matter now? It’s over.”
He kisses the top of my head after a big sigh and drops his arms. “I was talking to Dad, and we have a plan for your MS.”
I can’t stop the laugh from escaping my lips. When he looks at me quizzically, I tell him, “Levi called that in the car on the way back.”
“What else did you talk about?”
“Basically, the same thing you and I are talking about.” I direct him toward the door, exhausted from a long and emotional day. “I need you to go home.”
“One last thing,” he points at the new deadbolt, “how did you get that installed so quickly?”
“I paid the locksmith triple. Griff told me about your midnight snooping through my apartment, you fucking psycho.”
“Wouldn’t have had to do that if you had just come clean.”
“Out,” I say as I open the door. He and I could go around and around about this. “Tell Lilith I said goodnight and kiss the girls for me.”
18
GRIFF
“Jesus.” Gwen stops short when she sees me. “When Mom called and said you were staying here at the house for the week, I didn’t realize she actually meant you weren’t moving from your spot on the couch. When was the last time you showered?”
I shrug. I haven’t felt like doing much other than sitting on the couch in the pool house and playing video games for the past five days. There are empty soda cans and food containers piled up around me. My phone died four days ago, and I haven’t bothered charging it.
“Basic personal hygiene is not optional.”
“Why are you here?”
“Oooo,” she rips the blanket off my lap, “he’s cranky too. Get up.”
“I’m good here.”
“We have a media conglomerate to run. I need you to snap out of this.”
“I’ll be back Monday. I’m taking a mental health week.”
“We have a board meeting tomorrow afternoon. You have to be there.”
Fuck.
It goes to show how messed up I am that I completely forgot about our end of the quarter meeting. My body aches as I stand up from the couch. Chip crumbs falling from my chest to the floor. Gwen hands me a bottle of water and shoos me to the bathroom saying she’ll clean up my mess.
After a long hot shower of self-loathing, I emerge to see the pool house living room back to normal. All traces of my comatose state are gone. I’m wearing a pair of my brother-in-law’s khaki shorts and an old t-shirt from high school I found in the closet of my old bedroom. I don’t have a razor here, so I have the beginnings of a decently thick beard growing in.
“Did you take the chopper or drive up here?” I ask.
“I took the chopper, figured you might want company on the drive down to the city. Maybe talk about stuff.”
I nod in agreement. It would be good to talk through everything with Gwen. I grab my phone, seeing that Gwen plugged it in while I was in the shower. I have over eleven hundred emails, four hundred texts, and seventy-eight missed calls. I slide it in my pocket without looking at any of them. I have a feeling a majority of the texts and calls are from Lilith and Levi.
We go say goodbye to Mom and Dad. Mom makes us sandwiches for the road because Gwen has a bunch of food allergies, and there are no restaurants that can meet her dietary needs between Founder’s Ridge and New York City.
An hour later we’re on the highway, heading back to the city. Gwen keeps looking at me out the corner of her eye. After she finishes her sandwich, she turns to me.
“Okay, you’re going to have to spill everything. Leave no detail unspoken. I have talked more to Levi this week than I have cumulatively over the course of my lifetime. He’s insanely worried about you. Lilith showed up at the office yesterday.”
I tell her the story, holding nothing back now that I know Claire has told her family about her diagnosis and Gwen would never say anything to anyone either. I tell her about the memory Mom shared. She sits with all the information for a few minutes before offering her thoughts.
“So, what’s your plan going forward? I know you aren’t just going to let her walk out of your life, right?”
“I don’t really have a plan, to be honest. I’m just going to go home, keep to myself. I’ll obviously have to work through shit with Con.”
“Yeah, the fact that he let you walk away unscathed is a good sign.”
“You think I should get her back? I noticed none of my missed calls or texts were from her.”
“Griffin.” She gives me her condescending big sister look. “You still have her. I know it hurt to hear her say what she said, but I think she was trying to save you.”
“Save me from what?”
“I don’t know. Connor’s wrath? Having to deal with her illness? Especially when it seems like she’s yet to come to terms with it herself.”
She’s making a good point, one that I hadn’t thought of. Claire does handle things like Connor, and he spent a long time hiding his dark past from everyone. Could she be trying to hold everything back to shield us from her truth?
“You might actually be onto something there.”
“Obviously,” she scoffs. “All that said, while I want you to be happy, and if she’s what gets you there, that’s great, but,” she waits until I look at her, “make her work for it. Make her sweat for it.”
I smirk at her, a plan already forming in my mind. Is it petty to make her sweat a bit? Probably. The thing is I’ve never loved anyone like I love her and watching her so casually throw that love away was painful. She’s not going to get away with it, and she’s not going to get away from me.
“Griff?” Lilith calls as she lets herself into my apartment.
She’s standing in the living room with the babies as I come down the stairs. She looks equal amounts pissed and worried when I get down to her. Her hair is piled up on top of her head in a messy bun, and her eyes have circles under them.
“If you ever,” she stalks toward me, “leave upset and then disappear for days with no contact again, I will break every bone in your body. We have been worried sick.”
“We who?” I ask, knowing she doesn’t mean Con.
“All of us. Levi. Ivy. Connor.”
“Connor wasn’t worried.”
“He might not have said the words, but I know my husband, and he was concerned.”
I scoff and start to turn toward the kitchen when she catches me by surprise, launching herself at me with a sob. I wrap my arms around her and run my hands up and down her back as she cries. It’s very out of character for her to cry like this, I’ve only seen it happen a handful of times.
“Seriously, Griff. If Levi hadn’t called your sister and told me you were okay, I was about to start a search party. Don’t do that again, okay?” She shudders against me as one more sob escapes. “I love you, you fucking asshole. I can’t deal with Levi and Con on my own.” She puts her middle finger, where her ring from Connor, Levi, and me sits, in my face. “You are my family.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t come back here Sunday after I dropped Ivy off. Claire still has a bunch of stuff here, all over my room and bathroom. I wasn’t ready, so I went to my parents’ house. Then my phone died, and I just decided to disconnect for a while.”
“Ahhh,” she swipes the tears away. “Makes sense, but never do that again.” Elle starts cry
ing, so Lilith takes her out of her car seat carrier. She sits down on the couch and unsnaps her tank top. It happened so fast I couldn’t look away in time, so I stand there awkwardly frozen in shock. “Stop. You’ve walked in on Con railing me countless times, but I pop a boob out to feed my child, and you act like a moron. Sit down and talk to me.”
“Have you talked to Claire? What did she say after I left?”
“She explained about the MS and how she went to you for help. How it started as you just being a shoulder for her to lean on and then developed into more.”
So, she didn’t tell them the full story.
“It started the night you and Con got engaged.”
“What?” Her eyes widen.
“Yeah, we stayed up after everyone went to sleep just lying on the top deck and chatting. That night we kissed but were interrupted, so nothing else ever happened. Then we slept together the night of your wedding.”
“Oh, she definitely left that part out of the story.” She switches Elle to the other side.
“Yeah. I can’t say that I blame her. Telling you guys about the MS was probably really challenging for her. I’ve been telling her for weeks to say something, but she didn’t want to until the ballet exhibition was over.”
“She mentioned that. I feel awful for her. It makes sense why she’s been so standoffish lately, too.”
“Yeah, she got the infertility news the week you had the girls.” I know as soon as I look up at her from where I had been watching Nora sleep that I made a big mistake.
“What infertility news?” Lilith’s mouth is hanging open in shock.
“Fuck.” I take my glasses off and pinch the bridge of my nose, irritated with myself for saying anything. “Apparently it’s somewhat common in women diagnosed early with MS to have fertility struggles. Her doctor basically said it wasn’t impossible but highly unlikely for her to get pregnant.”
Surrender (The Titans of Founder's Ridge Book 3) Page 14
