Griff's Place (Havenwood #4) - Riley Hart Page 0,29
and the hard set of his shoulders. And as much as I loved Kellan, I didn’t need him.
This was a secret not even Kell knew.
“No. I… Fuck.” I fell into one of the wooden chairs by the fire, elbows on my knees, leaning forward with my forehead resting in the palms of my hands.
Griff took the chair beside me, and then his hand was rubbing my back in slow circles. Somehow, that loosened up some of the tension inside me, set it free gradually, unlike the explosion I felt earlier.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you this week,” I said with a humorless chuckle.
It took a moment for him to answer, but finally, “You have been,” slipped past Griff’s lips, making me suck in a breath. Christ, this was weird, what was happening so incredibly fucked, if I could even figure out what was happening, but I knew it was something.
“Sorry I freaked out on you.”
“It’s okay. Can I ask why you did?”
It was so Griff not to just do so, to word it as a question and give me an out. I knew if I took it, he wouldn’t ask again. Griff would respect my decision because that was the way he was, but for the first time in twelve years, the truth sat on my tongue, waiting to roll free.
“I, um… Fuck, this is hard.”
“Take your time.”
“Goddamn it, Griff.” Even that made me want to open up to him more, like he knew just what to say to pry things out of me that I’d kept locked up.
“What did I do?”
“Nothing. It’s just…I don’t talk about this. The only person who knew about it was my grandma.”
“And Kell?” he asked, and when I looked at him, I knew the truth showed in my eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“I think I do.” Because I wanted him. Because already I worried he would be different for me, but I didn’t think I could let that kind of different in, and Griff deserved the truth. “When I was a kid, there was this guy—Doug. Our families were close, and he was…he was my best friend. He was everything to me.”
“You loved him?” Griff asked.
Yeah, I had. “My whole damn life. Even before I realized it, I know I did.”
Griff’s hand slid up my back, rested on my shoulder. He gave it a squeeze, massaged the aching muscles there. “What happened?”
“We happened. It wasn’t planned. One day we were friends, the next we were more. We were young, just fucking babies. Sixteen when it started, but I knew what I felt.”
“I would never think otherwise.”
His words settled in my chest. He didn’t doubt what I said, didn’t doubt I could have been in love at sixteen. Goddamn, he was special. “We hid it. No one knew but my grandma here. You would have loved her.” I wished Griff could have met her. She was the best person I knew. She and my dad hadn’t been close. Once he graduated college and started making money, he liked it too much for the simple life Grandma had always lived and loved. “Anyway, we used to sneak out to this old, abandoned hunting cabin to be alone. We played it off like we were just best friends when we were around other people, but Doug had been my whole damn world. Made me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. I think I said that already.”
I couldn’t even remember. Not at this point.
“Even though neither of us was out, I was basically in the closet for him. My family didn’t give a shit; they were too busy to care. His dad would have, though, and he would have wondered about Doug because of me. There’s no way he would have accepted it, and because his dad wouldn’t, his mom wouldn’t have either.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll never understand it. How does someone hate love?”
Turning my head slightly, I looked at him. “Sometimes I don’t understand you. You have so much to give.” Griff shouldn’t be alone. Griffin deserved better, he deserved more.
“What happened with Doug?” he asked rather than replying to that.
I looked away again. “Me,” I said simply. “We had a plan. We were going to go to California together for school. They’d think we were going as friends, but we’d get to be together, ya know? I had a photo of us together. It wasn’t anything big, but I was kissing him on the cheek and Doug was smiling. We were eighteen,