Epoch (Transcend Duet #2)(50)

“It’s nearly ten o’clock.”

She grabs a wad of paper towels and dries her hands, lifting her shoulders. “My mind won’t shut off yet, so I find listening to music I hate mixed with chores I hate to be both physically and mentally taxing. Do you need to use the bathroom? I’m cleaning it next. Maybe that will be the tipping point for my exhaustion.”

“When did you start having trouble sleeping?”

“Since I decided to do whatever it takes to keep my fiancé from leaving me.”

I rub the back of my neck. “Swayz, I don’t want to leave you. I want to take you.”

“This makes no sense!” She balls her fists. “We’re planning a wedding and you want to up and move? How’s that going to work? Are we sneaking back in town to tie the knot? Is our family going to come to us instead? Are-are-are—”

“Stop!”

She winces.

With my hands planted on my hips, I lean forward. “I found a picture of a half-naked guy in the pocket of your jeans.”

She bites her lips together. Even from this distance, I know it’s to keep her emotions in check. It doesn’t hide the slight quiver of her chin. “That’s just it. I forgot your birthday and you locked me out of your house. You found a photo of Nate in my pocket … but I’m still here. I don’t understand.”

“I overreacted with my birthday.”

“Why?”

Rubbing my forehead, I chuckle. “Because I was excited about asking you to move in with me. Because you caught me completely off guard. Because I was having a moment.” I hold my hands out. “I don’t know, Swayz, because I’m fucking human. You put me on this pedestal, and I’m never going to live up to what’s in your head. Sometimes I’m going to be short-tempered and unreasonable. But I’m not going to carry around some fucking picture of another girl!”

She flinches.

Again, I’m showing her my imperfections. I’m showing her my love disguised as jealousy and my pain disguised as anger.

She rubs her lips together, focusing on the floor between us. “I’m sorry.”

I know she is. But it’s not what I need to hear.

“Do you want to know the places Jett can find me a new job?”

Her head shakes, but she doesn’t look at me. Grabbing the bucket of cleaning supplies, she keeps her gaze on her feet all the way to the bathroom.

The door clicks.

“Fuck you, Morgan Daisy Gallagher,” I whisper.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE





“You’re still here.” I rub my eyes and yawn as I pour a cup of coffee that my non-coffee drinker fiancé made for me.

I don’t deserve him. But I want him.

“It’s snowing pretty good out today. I’ll drive you to work and pick you up.” He rinses out his smoothie glass in the sink.

I don’t deserve him. But I want him.

“Thank you.” I take a sip of coffee, eyeing him over the steam. I missed those arms around me last night. As much as we want to believe that beneath the sheets our physical connection can right all wrongs in the world, it can’t.

My heart waited half the night in my throat, desperate for his touch. It didn’t have to be sex. A kiss. A brush of his hand against mine. Anything to give me the tiniest bit of reassurance that we would be okay.

Nothing.

Griffin turns, catching me gazing at him longingly. I take one more sip of coffee and set it on the counter. “I’ll grab my socks so we can go. I don’t want you to be late to work.”

His lips pull into a smile. A barely-detectable one. It’s the kind of smile a stranger on the street might give me if we happened to make brief eye contact.

Is that what we are now? Strangers?

Does Griffin look at me and wonder who I am? The girl he met in the grocery store would follow him absolutely anywhere. That girl would never carry a photo of some other guy in her pocket.

I don’t deserve him. But I want him.

He glances at his watch.

I take the hint and hustle to grab my socks. Griff looks like all kinds of sexy waiting for me at the door with his jacket on and a black beanie on his head.

“Okay.” I sling my bag over my shoulder.

He takes my hand and it nearly stops my heart. “I shoveled the drive, but it’s still slick.”

We step outside and I squeeze his hand, not because it’s slick. I squeeze it because I don’t want to let go. Because I’m dying inside. Because it’s how my heart feels.

Suffocated.

Strangled.

Desperate.

There’s nothing I can do to make this pain go away—to make her go away. So I watch the snow fall as cars creep along the white streets and listen to the radio, filling the awkward space between us. He pulls into Nate’s driveway that’s been cleared as well.

I unfasten my seatbelt. “Thanks for the ride.”

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets out, comes around, and opens my door. And I fall in love with him even more than I thought was possible. Griffin doesn’t send me a dozen roses on my birthday. He hands me a single petal every day. Sometimes it’s a look. Sometimes it’s a whisper. And sometimes it’s opening my door, helping me out, and holding my hand all the way to the top of the steps.