CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Good morning.” Griffin hands me a cup of coffee. I fear it’s decaf. I’m a junk food junkie in love with a health nut.
“You’re showered and dressed.” I frown. “It’s Sunday. We were supposed to wake up together—naked.”
He leans over and pulls out the kitchen chair next to his, depositing a slow kiss on my lips as I ease to sitting. “I worked out. Felt a little flabby after my week away without exercise.”
I chuckle. “Flabby? Yes. I thought the same thing about you.”
“We can do naked the rest of the day if you want.” He shoots me a playful grin before sipping his green tea. Health nut.
My eyes roll as I sip my decaf. “No. That’s fine. Staying in bed is lazy. Getting back in bed feels overindulgent unless we’re on our honeymoon.”
“I see.” He nods. “Where should we go on our honeymoon?”
This guy has proposed to me on more than one occasion without actually asking me to marry him. It’s equal parts exciting and confusing. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. When the right guy asks me to marry him, I want to plan the wedding and I want him to plan the honeymoon. I want it to be a surprise.”
“The right guy?” Griffin stands, shoulders back, chest puffed out, towering over me. “Are you suggesting I’m a stand-in until you find the right guy?”
I bite my lip to keep from grinning. “Yes. A real boyfriend.”
I didn’t say that. No, no, no … I didn’t just say that. She would say that. I’m not her. Nate has told me too many stories. She’s in my head because of him. That’s all.
Griffin nudges my chair with his leg, turning me to the side and easing onto my lap, straddling me while supporting most of his weight in his solid, jean-clad legs. “Marry me.”
I laugh. “Sure. When and where?”
“I’m serious.” His eyes confirm it.
“This is it?” I chuckle. “This is your grand proposal? No ring?”
Whisky eyes search mine. I love this man with all that I am, even on the days I don’t know who that is. And he loves me. I knew it before he ever said it. It’s something I’ve felt in the way he holds my hand and smiles at the crazy things I say and do. It’s in the way he looks at me when he doesn’t know I feel his gaze on me.
“Do you need a ring?” He circles his calloused finger over my left ring finger.
I shake my head. “I need you.”
“Am I the one? The right guy?” He feathers his knuckles along my cheek.
“Yes.” I whisper, leaning into his touch.
He slides his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out a ring. “I got one just in case.”
“Oh, Jesus …” I breathe out, my tear-filled eyes flitting between the ring and the most sincere expression I have ever seen on the face of another human. “You’re really doing this …” I shake my head. “Right here, in our kitchen. Sitting on my lap. Next to the worst cup of decaf coffee ever.”
He grins. “Right here. Right now. Because we’ve never been conventional. And you owe me for your groceries.”
I laugh. “I bought you lunch.”
“I think your groceries cost more than the lunch you bought me.”
I nod. “And if I agree to marry you, we’re even? My debt will be paid in full?”
“Yes.”
I fist his shirt and pull him closer. “Then, yes. I will be Mrs. Grocery Store Guy Calloway.” I brush my lips over his and trap his lower lip between my teeth.
He growls, standing and scooping me up in his arms. “I was wrong. It’s a naked day after all.” He tosses the ring on the table. On … the … table. And carries me off to the bedroom. I don’t care because he really is all I need.
*
“It’s a good idea to do reds separately, but if they’ve been washed quite a few times, it’s okay to stick them in with other darks like blues and blacks.” Griffin loads the washer as I watch him from my spot perched on the dryer.
“I like that you do laundry in just your underwear. That fascinates me.”
“Are you listening?” He squints at me.
I could not care less about his laundry sorting rules. Domestic Griffin is my porn. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. Reds on hot and washed with whites.”
Griffin starts the washer and lifts me from the dryer, tossing me over his shoulder. “Just continue working on your cock-sucking skills and leave the housework to me.” He smacks my ass.
“Ouch!” I laugh and smack his butt just as hard, blood running to my head. “I know how to do laundry, cook, and clean on a need-to basis. And there’s nothing wrong with my cock-sucking skills. I’ll be a fine wife. Just wait and see.”
He drops me on the bed. “Get dressed. Let’s go get the last few things from your apartment so you can turn in your keys.”
“When are we going to tell my mom and your family?”
“After we elope.” He pulls on a T-shirt and jeans.
“Excuse me?”
“We’re living together. Weddings are expensive. You said all you needed was me. I know all I need is you.”
How did this happen? I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
He grabs his wallet off the dresser and bends down, kissing me on the cheek. “I love the simplicity of our love. It’s almost dinnertime and you haven’t taken the ring from the kitchen table and slipped it on your finger because that’s not what matters to us.”
No. No fucking way. I slide off the bed and throw on my clothes, yanking and pulling them like they did me wrong.
“Ready?” he asks as I stomp toward the back door, hands balled, jaw clenched.
“I’ll get the rest of my stuff later. I’m going to my mom’s … alone.”
“Whoa … what’s going on?” He grabs my arm as I shove my feet into my sneakers.
“Nothing’s going on.” I attempt to jerk out of his grip.
“Look at me.” He grabs my other arm, forcing me to face him.
I glare at his chest.
Silence settles between us as he refuses to let me go and I refuse to look at him.
“You want a wedding?”
I don’t respond.
“Swayz?”
Nope. I’m not going to move. Not one blink. How dare he be so presumptuous? Now the truth will make me sound greedy, selfish, and materialistic.
“Would you look at me?”
Biting my tongue and holding my breath, my gaze works its way up to meet his.
“Is that what you want? If so, then that’s what we’ll do. I don’t care.”
“No.” This time he lets me wriggle out of his hold. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to completely dismiss my dreams—crush them—and then take it all back with a simple I don’t care. You don’t get to own a truck, a motorcycle, and a house then make me feel like wanting a wedding is impractical and excessive.”
My voice continues to escalate as I cross my arms over my chest. “And the only reason that ring…” I glance over at the table and then back to him “…is still sitting on the table is because you should have the fucking decency to get down on your goddamn knees and put it on my finger like the right guy would do. And the right guy would care. He would want to see me in a stunning white gown walking down a long aisle toward him. He would want to dance with me to a song that meant something special to us. He would want to take off that stunning white gown like unwrapping the best gift he’d ever received.”
Griffin doesn’t move, not even the expression on his face. “Fine.” He nods after a few seconds of silence and grabs the ring from the table.
“Hell no.” I shake my head as he starts to get down on one knee.
He stops halfway to the ground.
“You cannot make this right. Not now. It’s too late. Now I have to decide if this is it … do I marry the man I love in spite of the botched-up proposal or do I hold out for something better so I don’t spend the rest of my life envying epic proposal stories of other couples?”
He stands slowly and bites his lips together.
“I’ll call you or maybe see you later. I don’t know.” I open the back door and head toward my car parked on the street.
A strong arm hooks my waist before I make it to the end of the driveway. Griffin backs me up against the door of his truck.
“Let go of me.”
“No.” He clenches his jaw while grabbing my hand.
I try but fail to pull it away. He shoves the ring onto my finger.
“You said yes. That was the deal. You owe me for wine, chips, chocolate, and tampons.” He holds my arms to my sides, keeping me from going anywhere as he kneels in front of me. “Will you please marry me?”
I glare at him through squinted eyes.
After a few seconds he swears under his breath and stands. “You said yes earlier. There’s no taking it back now.” He interlaces our fingers and presses my hands to the window of his truck next to my head. “There will be a wedding and a white dress. You will take my fucking breath away a million times before we make it to the reception. We’ll dance to the sappiest love song ever composed. You’ll pitch the bouquet to a group of jealous women. Then I will stand in the middle of a ridiculously expensive hotel suite like an idiot in awe of the fact that the kindest, most beautiful woman ever said ‘yes’ to me.”
He loosens his grip on my hands, but I don’t move them.
“Then I’ll unwrap you like the gift you are and always have been to me. I’ll thank the food gods every day for bringing us to checkout lane number three a little past five on a sunny Thursday afternoon in March.”
I blink, releasing a single tear. He kisses it away.
“But this is it … this is the epic proposal that you’ll tell our kids and grandkids. You pinned against my truck, in tears and pissed off at me. And me refusing to let you go. I will never let you go.”
I swallow back as much emotion as I possibly can. The rest stays lodged in my throat. “I can’t believe you remember the time of day and checkout lane number,” I whisper.
“I remember all life-changing moments.”
Like this one … this is a life-changing moment. I will remember it forever. But I hate that I’m sharing it with Nate. Griffin resides in my heart and the forefront of my mind. My desire to spend the rest of my life with him is indisputable.
What I fear is Nate. What if he lives in my soul? Even worse … what if she lives in my soul?
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, completely releasing my hands.
I wrap my arms around his neck and he hugs me to him.
“Let’s go to my apartment.”
*
“What’s going on?” I say as Griffin parks his truck up the street from my apartment building. A swarm of emergency vehicles blocks the road, along with crime scene tape.
We worm our way through the small crowd of onlookers.
“Sorry, you’ll have to stay behind the tape,” a police officer says.
“I live here. What’s going on?”
“I’m not at liberty to share any information. I’ll need to see some identification before I can let you in the building.”
Griffin rests his hand on my lower back as I dig my wallet out of my purse.
The officer inspects my driver’s license. “Barnes?” he calls.
A shorter man in uniform turns and walks toward us.
“Swayze Samuels. 2B.” The first officer hands me back my driver’s license.
“I’m Detective Barnes. I’ll escort you to your apartment, and then I need to ask you a few questions.”
“What’s going on?”
He doesn’t answer. He just turns and heads toward the entrance surrounded by police officers and a few other tenants I recognize. One of the ladies wipes her red, tear-stained eyes, giving me a grievous look as I pass her.
Griffin’s hand goes from my back to interlacing his fingers with mine as we make our way up the stairs. When we reach the top by my door, I twist around toward the voices above me.
“No …” The air explodes from my lungs, leaving me gasping for my next breath.
There’s a few more officers outside of Erica’s apartment, which is blocked off with crime scene tape.
I tear my hand out of Griffin’s and run up the stairs.
No. No. NO!
“Ma’am—”
I charge my way past the officers, catching them off guard, past the tape, and into the apartment filled with more police and a few other people in suits, including a guy standing in her hallway taking photos, his lens directed into the bathroom.
“Miss, you can’t be in here.”
I move faster than the officer trying to get my attention. I need to know what’s in Erica’s bathroom.
“Swayz …” Griffin’s voice is nothing but an echo as I see it—her.
I can’t fucking breathe.
“No …” I pant, gasping for air. Desperate to make sense of what I’m seeing.
The photographer says something to me, pointing me away from the bathroom door. It’s all echoes. Every voice.
My vision blurs.
A hand wraps around my arm and another around my waist, ushering me out of the apartment.
Echoes everywhere.
The room spins but it doesn’t erase what I saw. Erica’s naked body in a bathtub of water. No blood.
It’s Griffin. He’s guiding me to the stairs. I think he’s saying my name. I’m not sure. The door to Dougly Mann’s apartment is open. He’s sitting on his sofa talking to an officer in the chair next to him, jotting down notes.
Scar-faced, clown-haired, creepy neighbor glances up as I pass his door. He winks.
The. World. Stops.
“Come on, Swayze.” Griffin’s voice sounds like it’s underwater.
I don’t move. I can’t move.
Dougly winked at me. I’ve seen that wink before. His nose twitched when he did it. He’s not that good at it. But the last time I saw him wink, the scar on his face was not pink and pearly-edged. It wasn’t a scar at all. It was a bleeding wound. Blood running down his neck. Blood pooling at the corner of his mouth, and when he grinned there was blood covering his teeth. But he winked and his nose did that weird, unmistakable twitch.
“You killed her,” I whisper.
He keeps his eyes on me.
“You killed her,” I say louder, pulling away from Griffin.
“Swayze …”
The officer in his apartment turns and looks at me.
“You killed her!” I run toward him and the officer stands and blocks my way, holding out his hand.
“Can we get some help in here?” He looks over my shoulder.
“Swayze?” Griffin grabs my arms and pulls me back. “Erica? You think he killed Erica?”
I shake my head while fighting Griffin’s grip so I can reach my phone.
“Miss Samuels, we need you to come with us.” Detective Barnes jerks his head toward the stairs as I fight to hold my ground in the hall outside of the murderer’s apartment.
“Swayze, let’s go to your apartment.”
I shake my head, swinging my elbows as Griffin tries to pull me toward the stairs.
“It’s here,” I mumble, my shaky hands move over the screen of my phone. “Here.” I hold up my phone toward the door to Doug’s apartment.
“You. Killed. Her!”
Doug squints his beady eyes and slowly stands, moving past the officer, keeping his gaze on the screen of my phone.
I try to move closer to him, but Griffin doesn’t let me budge.
Doug stops, blinking slowly several times at the screen of my phone. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. It’s him. He knows I know it. I see the recognition in his face as he looks at the photo.
“Let’s go.” Griffin loses his patience, grabs my phone, and pulls me down the stairs.
I keep my head turned as Doug stares at me until the door to my apartment closes. Even now. I stare at the door, unblinking.
“Miss Samuels. We need to ask you some questions.”
“Swayz?”
I slowly turn toward Griffin and Detective Barnes.
Griffin holds up my phone. “Who is this?”
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
“It’s Morgan Daisy Gallagher.”
End of Book One
