Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 115763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“No.”
That’s it. One word. I get that silent and grunty works for some girls. I’m not one of them. I snort a humorless laugh and deadpan right back, “Yes.”
Griffin takes three steps across the room until he’s standing directly in front of me, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him. He takes my upper arms in his hands, his touch gentle despite the pain on his face. “You asked me if I hate you as much as I act like I do. No, the answer’s no. And no, I don’t want to go back to acting like I do. No, I don’t want to act like I never tasted you, like I was never inside you, like I never heard my name on your lips when you came.”
Stay strong, Penny.
“That’s great and all, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve hurt me. And I don’t want to pretend that a couple of weeks of being nice fixes years of you treating me like I’m either invisible or annoying. I don’t want to act like a good fuck negates how cruel you were after being inside me, because that shit hurt. I refuse to accept that a half-assed apology with no explanation changes everything.”
“Goddamn it, Penny,” he spits out harshly. He releases me, spinning away to cross the room like he needs space from me. But I think what he really needs is distance from the truth. “I’m fucking trying here.”
“Try harder. What’s going on in your head? Today, last weekend, for the last five years,” I challenge. “What do you think about me? Feel about me? Want from me?”
I’m not playing games. I never was, and I’m not going to start now. I might be a living, breathing disaster, and have enough flaws of my own to write a War and Peace–size novel, but he’s fucked up too. And while I might be able to withstand whatever he’s got lurking in his depths, I shouldn’t have to do it without an explanation. I refuse to.
He turns back to face me, his eyes full of fire. “I love you. Is that what you want to hear? I’ve always loved you.”
I did not expect that. Not in a single one of those eleventy-three-bajillion possible scenarios did Griffin Mahoney confessing his love for me come up as an option. Except it’s not a sweet-nothings type of admission. It’s an accusation, like his feelings are somehow my fault. As if I’m flying around in a diaper and wings like baby Cupid, shooting arrows at him to make him fall in love with me no matter how hard he doesn’t want to be. News flash: I haven’t done a damn thing but live my life.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I accuse right back.
“I know!” he roars. His eyes are jumping left and right, like he’s seeing something, but it’s damn sure not my living room’s wood flooring. Maybe the past? Or whatever inner monologue is running in his head?
As for me, my brain’s singing “Tubthumping,” à la getting knocked down, but getting up again. This whole thing with Griffin is one more dramatic moment in an otherwise drama-filled life for me, and I’ll get through it the same way I have everything else—one breath at a time until it’s a funny story I relate during a family game of Never Have I Ever. Dominic will be pissed when I win with a blindside of slept with my brother’s best friend.
Then, shaking his head, Griffin quietly confesses, “I don’t know how to do any of this. I’ve never loved anyone. Hell, I’ve never been loved by anyone.”
Those few words change everything. I think I might be seeing the real him for the first time, because I think that might be the most real thing he’s ever said. All my weird thoughts stop, and the desire to angrily lash out abruptly evaporates, replaced with genuine concern. Gently, I ask, “What do you mean you’ve never loved anyone? Never been loved by anyone?”
He scrubs his hand over his mouth like he doesn’t want to say any more, but after a few seconds in which the air in the room feels heavy with history, he lowers himself to the couch, his elbows on his spread knees and hands hanging between his legs. “What has Dominic told you?”
Not a lot, to be honest. But even if he’d told me everything there was to know about Griffin Mahoney, it wouldn’t matter. I sit down beside him, my crisscrossed legs between us so I can look at him directly. “I want to hear it from you.”
He swallows thickly, and for a moment, I think he’s going to clam up again, or throw out angry words instead of being real. But he doesn’t. Instead, he slowly begins to speak. “My parents weren’t like yours. There were no loving hugs or encouraging words in my house. My parents just didn’t love me. As an adult, I can see that maybe they weren’t capable of it? But as a kid . . .” He shrugs forlornly, sighing. “I don’t know, I always assumed it was because something was wrong with me. That I was born unlovable. I quickly learned that it was safest for me to stay out of sight and out of mind.” He cocks his head a bit so he can see me in his periphery. “I wasn’t always smart enough to be safe. Sometimes I needed attention, and it didn’t matter if it was good or bad, or how much it hurt in the end. I just wanted to be seen for a change.”