Dirty Letters(35)

“Wow. If you can bounce back after blanking out in front of thousands of people like that, you can survive anything. Just standing there in front of them would be my biggest nightmare, let alone having to sing and remember words.” I shivered at the thought.

“Your turn, love. Two truths and a lie.”

I took a deep breath in and thought about what I was going to say.

“Okay. Two truths and a lie.” I paused. “I’ve developed an intense fear of spiders . . . I’ve never had sex with the lights on, or . . . my readers think I’m a man.”

His eyes widened. Then a look of amusement flashed across Griffin’s face. “Why do your readers think you’re a man?”

“How do you know that’s even the truth?”

“It’s so obvious the spiders thing is a lie. Anyone who lives with a pig must have a high tolerance for creatures of all kinds. Plus, there is no possible way you have arachnophobia and agoraphobia.”

I chuckled. “Okay. You’re good.”

“Yes. I am . . . in many ways.” He winked.

Feeling my body heat up, I said, “So my readers think I’m a man because my name is . . .” I braced myself. “Ryan Griffin.”

He took a moment to let that sink in. “Griffin? Ryan . . . Griffin.”

I nodded. “I never mentioned my pen name, and you never asked, but it’s our two names combined. Well, my fake last name and your real first name. My actual last name is Vinetti.”

“Vinetti. Italian like your dad. I love it.”

“Thanks.”

“So Ryan Griffin. That’s wild—and amazing that you held on to me in that way. I’m honored. Now that you know about my fake persona, I can’t wait to properly explore yours. Will you let me read your books?”

“It’s not like I could stop you if you really wanted to, now that you know my pen name.”

“You’re wrong about that. If you didn’t want me to read them, I absolutely wouldn’t violate your trust.”

I sighed. “You can read them. You might think I’m even more screwed up than you already do . . . but you can read them.”

“Nah. Not possible,” he teased. “Seriously, though, I wanna binge them all, find out what my Luca’s intricate mind can conjure up. I can’t fucking wait, really.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Great.” As much as his reading my novels made me nervous, I was also kind of curious as to what he’d think about them. I wanted to make him as proud as he made me.

“So you’ve never fucked with the lights on. That’s easy enough to change. Any particular reason why, though?”

“Well, my first time was in a dark car, and the other times, I made them shut off the lights. Just never felt like letting those guys see me. Not even really sure why that came to mind. I guess I couldn’t think of anything else on the fly.”

“You thought about it because being around me makes you think of sex.” He wriggled his brows. “You imagined us both naked in broad daylight fucking against that wall over there. Am I right?”

I gulped.

Well, I wasn’t before. But now I certainly am imagining that!

“Jesus, Luca. You’re turning red. Did that turn you on, babe?”

“A little.”

“Just a little?”

“Maybe more than a little.”

“You’re so fucking adorable.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear. The heat of his breath gave me goosebumps when he said, “That reminds me. I need to collect my prize, don’t I?”

I got chills. “Where are you going to kiss me?”

“Well, there really is no wrong choice here. I’d love to kiss any part of you that you’d let me. But given that you’ve made it clear we won’t be taking things too far tonight, I should probably ask you what my options are first.”

I wanted him to kiss me everywhere, but I knew opening up the “options” could lead to things I wasn’t ready for. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course. And if you don’t want me to kiss you again tonight, you can just tell me. I can take a rain check for my prize—because I do really hope to see you again. I wish to God you could stay longer than just one day.”

I thought about that. Honestly, if I could have stayed longer . . . how much would I even be able to blend in to his life here? Pretty sure the answer was: not at all.

He must have noticed the look of worry on my face. “What’s wrong, Luca? Talk to me. I’m still the guy you can tell anything to, despite all this ostentatious crap you see around you right now. Ignore all that, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

After a few seconds of silence, I looked into his eyes. “How could this ever possibly work, Griffin?”

He took my hand in his. “Crazier things have happened. For one, I’ve been in a relationship with pieces of fucking paper and words for the past several weeks. They were my only window into your soul. And you know what? They made me happier than I have been in a very long time, even with just the letters and nothing more.”

“But now, we can’t ever go back to that, can’t ever go back to what we had. You deserve more than some woman who can hardly leave her house except to go food shopping in the middle of the night. It’s only a matter of time before you figure out that there is no way for this to realistically work. You don’t realize how limited I am.”