My Favorite Mistake (A Love Like That #4) - R.L. Kenderson Page 0,4
up hungover at work.
I spotted the evening bartender, Mitch, coming in from the back, and I was about to ask Griffin if he wanted to grab something to eat while I waited for my buzz to wear off when our friend Troy showed up.
“Hey, Madeline. What are you doing here?” he said. “If I had known, I would have brought Christina with me.”
“Isn’t she doing some wedding planning stuff tonight with her sister?” I asked.
“Yeah, but they could have done that another night.”
“It’s okay. Coming here was a last-minute thing.”
I saw Griffin reach for his coat, and I knew he wasn’t going upstairs to his apartment over the bar since he didn’t need to go outside to get there.
“I didn’t realize you had plans,” I said.
Griffin shrugged his arms into his jacket. “Nothing fancy. We’re going to grab some food and go shopping for a computer. I promised him I’d help him look.”
“I get it, and I don’t expect you to cancel your plans because of me. But I don’t think I can drive home yet. Do you mind if I head up to your place and order takeout?”
He smiled at me like my question was ridiculous.
“Thanks, Griff.” I looked over his shoulder at the chalkboard on the wall as I slipped off my stool. “Oh, and my favorite color is teal.”
When Griffin had begun making plans to open his bar, I’d jokingly told him to call it My Favorite Place. We lived in a suburb of Minneapolis, where it was close enough to go downtown to do things but far enough away that it had a small-town feel. I thought it would be funny for people to tell their friends they were going to their favorite place to drink when it was really the name of the bar.
He’d liked it so much that he actually named it that. And so, now, every day, he wrote a question on the wall, asking someone what their favorite fill-in-the-blank was. Sometimes, it was a more in-depth one, like: What is your favorite quote? Today, it was an easy one: What is your favorite color?
“I already knew that,” he told me. “And you’re welcome to my place anytime, babe. But you already know that too.” He looked over at Mitch, who was walking from the back of the building. “Everyone’s being taken care of right now. But keep an eye on Albert.”
Albert looked over at Griffin upon hearing his name.
“He likes loose women,” my best friend added loudly.
Everyone in the bar cracked up, and I headed upstairs to Griff’s apartment.
I had my own key, so I let myself in, and I immediately ordered delivery from the Chinese food place close by.
I then turned on Griffin’s TV and pulled up Netflix. I’d forgotten how much I liked hanging out at his place, and I hadn’t realized until now how much I’d kept myself away because Harris didn’t like him.
Such a shame that I’d let a man do that to me. It’d happened so gradually that it snuck up on me. I hadn’t made it past the bar in at least a month. Before that, I thought I had come upstairs for all of five minutes.
I knew that it was hard for men I dated to understand that Griffin and I were best friends, but some accepted it easier than others. It always helped when my best friend and my boyfriend got along with each other.
In the future, if the guy I dated didn’t like my best friend, I wasn’t going to keep him around. If Griffin were a female, it wouldn’t be a problem, and I really hated double standards.
As I kicked off my shoes and rested my feet on the coffee table, I thanked myself once again for calling my relationship with Harris quits.
Fifteen minutes later, my food arrived. I ate way too much and almost fell asleep on the couch. With my last bit of energy, I went into Griffin’s room and pulled out some sweatpants and a T-shirt from his dresser. I brushed my teeth with the spare toothbrush I kept at his place, and then I slid into his king-size bed and sent him a text.
Me: I’m sleeping over. Don’t bring any women home.
He had two bedrooms but only one bed. The other room was filled with workout equipment. And there was always the couch, but we’d been sharing each other’s beds for sleeping for as long as I could remember. I knew he wouldn’t care if I stayed over.