What If (If Only.... #2)(54)

Elaina blinks her tear-soaked eyes, and they widen. “Did you just use testicles in our engagement toast?”

Duncan laughs and continues. “Elaina.” He clears his throat. “A year and a half ago, when the four of us traveled Europe for the summer—you, me, Jordan, and Noah—we flew to Greece when the Americans went home.”

“Yes, I know this,” she says. “But you still said testicles in our engagement toast.”

“I told you I didn’t know any Greek, but I lied.” Elaina’s mock annoyance fades as her eyes lock on his. “I was happy your dad spoke some English, but I wanted to do it properly. And one night when your mum and you were having a coffee with a neighbor, I asked him, ‘Boróona pantrépsei tin kóri sas?’ I said I didn’t know when but that someday I was going to ask you, and I had to ask him in person. So I did, a full six months before.”

Elaina’s tears flow freely now, and she stands on her toes, meeting her lips with his. Then she turns to us to translate. “He asked my papa for my hand eighteen months ago!” Her eyes go back to Duncan. “Okay then. My turn,” she says. “Jordan and Griffin never had to talk me into it, not that I would have admitted to that. I was always going to kiss you on your birthday…and every night after that.”

Duncan gasps, the first I’ve seen him lose his composure tonight, and the two kiss again to the applause of the four of us and quite a few patrons nearby.

“Don’t mind us,” Duncan says between kisses.

Jordan holds up her glass next, keeping the toasts going, a look of hesitation in her eyes I know is for Griffin’s sake, but when I look at him, he smiles at her without holding back. His hand finds mine in my lap, and he squeezes it softly.

“I love you, Noah. I know I’ve said it a thousand times before. But what I’ve never said is thank you. I am grateful for your patience, for always putting us first even with your teaching, and when this master’s program kicks my ass and I feel like the most selfish person in the world. Thank you for loving me through my self-doubt as a writer, through my crazy weekends of too much coffee, not enough sleep, and probably one shower too few. There’s no one I’d rather navigate the crazy with than you.”

Noah cups her cheeks in his hands. “You’re welcome, Brooks.” He kisses her. “I plan to navigate the crazy with you for a long time to come. I know it’s not our time yet, but I am going to marry you.”

Jordan nods and whispers almost too soft for me to hear, “As you wish.”

As much as my heart is filled by watching these couples express their love for one another, I’m starting to feel less like I fit and more like an intruder, not on their lives but on Griffin’s. We don’t have these things to say to each other, at least not that I can admit. Not until he knows what it would really mean to be with me. I look at Jordan and measure myself against what seems an unattainable sort of perfection. Of course Griffin fell for her. I don’t expect he’d have words like that for me. But with less than a beat, he turns to me, glass raised.

“I’m sensing a theme here, Pippi, so I want to tell you something.” A sweet but nervous smile takes over his features. “I’ve barely known you for a month, but a part of me swears it’s been years. I know what we said, what we agreed. But I want more than a WILD card. I want new ground rules.”

My breath catches at his words, at both of us thinking we could avoid complication yet neither of us being able to do it. Because I want what he wants, too. I want to give to him what he’s asking. So that’s what I choose to tell him.

“Rule number one,” I say. “You can have the whole deck.”

The apprehension doesn’t leave his smile, but it’s joined by something fierce, a determination that makes me believe maybe I’m not fooling myself. That I can believe Miles and his trust in my readiness to take something for myself.

“Oh will you two snog already so we can drink?”

So we follow Duncan’s orders, my lips rushing to meet Griffin’s as we collide in a kiss that is the start of something.

“Sláinte!” Duncan yells, and Griffin and I separate.

Everyone holds a glass up high, and we repeat the word, one of the few in Gaelic I actually know.

Then we drink, the bubbles of the liquid popping on my tongue, down my throat—my first sip in two years. My eyes drift shut as I hold on to the taste, the memories that go with it.

“Hey, slow down there, Speed Racer.”

When I open my eyes, Griffin raises a brow at my glass. Without realizing it, I drained three quarters of it on my first swig. A different kind of heat floods my cheeks now, one filled with bubbles that rise and pop at the top of my glass as Duncan tops me off.

“I’m good,” I tell him. “I feel…good.”

Duncan and Elaina fall into conversation with Jordan and Noah, but Griffin keeps his eyes on me.

“Did you really mean it?” he asks. “The whole deck?”

I nod and take another sip, my inhibitions crumbling with each one—and along with it the wall I’ve kept between us.

“Well, that depends,” I say, threading my fingers through his free hand. “Does it mean no more phone numbers on your palm?”

I expect him to laugh or maybe look surprised at the forwardness of my question and what his answer would mean. Instead his brows knit together. Then he shakes his head like he’s pushing away his thoughts.