Staring at me, she looked like she’d had the wind knocked out of her, which made no sense to me because, although I’d been firm, I hadn’t been an ass. She took a minute, and then said, “Okay, I’ve got you. Message understood, loud and clear. But one question – why does she call you Michael?”
You can run but you can never escape your past.
“It’s my name. Griff’s a nickname – one I prefer to be called so please call me that.”
When she raised her hands in a defensive type gesture, I realised I’d probably been more forceful than I’d meant to be. “By the looks of it, we probably won’t cross each other’s path too often for me to fuck that up, but I’ll do my best to get it right,” she snapped, and then turned and stalked back inside Josie’s house.
I watched her go, feeling something I hadn’t felt for fuck knew how long.
Regret.
And that confused me.
And for some reason, it also hurt.
7
Sophia
As my hand flew over the page, adding lines here and shading there, my drawing came to life. I’d been sitting in my art room listening to Kelly Clarkson on repeat for the last hour, doodling with no plan to sketch anything, when my hand began moving of its own accord. My sketches often took shape that way.
When I realised who I was sketching, my hand stilled, and I sucked in a breath. I dropped the sketchpad onto the desk.
Damn.
I stood and stretched. It’d been another long day at work, with a break in the middle to go and help Josie. A break to go and hear Griff tell me he was far from interested in me. A shitty day all round, really. Who had I been kidding even thinking a man as good-looking as Griff would be interested in me? Better to hear straight from his lips now how uninterested he was than to kid myself and keep flirting with him, hoping he might feel the same way.
I padded into the kitchen in search of wine. Opening the fridge, I came to the sad realisation I was out. Bugger. I pulled the diet coke out instead, and then r
eached up into the cupboard where I stored my bourbon. A few moments later, I lifted a glass of bourbon and coke to my lips and enjoyed the taste of it going down.
Walking to the kitchen table, I placed the glass down and walked back to my art room to grab my sketchpad. Turned out I did want to finish that sketch.
Two hours later, after a few more glasses of bourbon, I’d finished my sketch, painted my toenails bright red, baked some shortbread, surfed Facebook for a while and now sat on my couch with a mask on my face.
Christmas Eve.
Not only had today been long, shitty and disappointing, it was also Christmas Eve – a day I always struggled with. A person could have all the friends under the sun, but when they didn’t have a family to call their own, there were some days that just sucked. Birthdays and Christmas tended to be the worst. I’d called Magan earlier, hoping she might have wanted to come over, but her phone had gone straight to message bank, and she hadn’t called me back.
I sat on the couch and finished another glass of bourbon before deciding it was time to take my mask off. As I stood to head into the bathroom, a knock on the front door surprised me. A spark of hope flared in my heart – perhaps Magan had decided to come over. After all, it was just after ten; who else would knock on my door at that time of night?
When I peered through the front window to make sure I did in fact know the person, my heart skipped a beat when I saw Griff standing on the other side of the door. And then I remembered his words from today and I pushed that feeling deep down. She knows I’m not interested so she’s trying her hand at getting me to change my mind. Yeah, he’d made himself clear. However, I figured he visited his aunt often enough that we’d see each other around, and just because he wasn’t interested in me didn’t mean we couldn’t be friendly to each other.
I opened the door and greeted him with a smile. “This is late. Everything okay?”
He stared at me for a moment, as if I’d surprised him, before saying, “Yeah, everything’s okay. Can I come in for a moment?”
Stepping aside, I waved him in. “Sure.”
I closed the door and followed him into my kitchen. The bourbon buzzed through my body, causing my tongue to loosen. “If you’ve come to tell me again how uninterested in me you are, you don’t need to; I understood it the first time.”
His brows pulled together as he frowned at me. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me like I was a freak with three heads. And suddenly, I remembered I had a facemask on.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Can you give me a moment? I’ll just take my mask off and then I’ll be back.” Without waiting for his reply, I scurried into the bathroom and quickly removed the mask.
When I returned to the kitchen, he stood at the table with my sketchpad in his hands. Mortification flooded me as I realised what he was looking at. The sketch of him I’d done earlier.
Can this day get any worse?