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I shrug.

But Griffin’s not done. “Then later, you fell in love with a woman who had her head too far up her own ass to see you’re a good man. There were more in college too, right?”

“A couple,” I say.

“Well…” Griff shoves a forkful of eggs into his mouth like he hasn’t eaten in days. For all I know, he hasn’t. “You got that same dopey fuckin’ look on your face with all of them. Except it’s worse now than I’ve ever seen it. You look, brother, full-fucking gone. So who is she?”

I scoff, maybe a little too forcefully. “Just because I’m stressed doesn’t mean it’s over a woman.”

Griffin folds a full piece of bacon into his mouth where it seems to vanish with barely a couple of chews. “Who is she?” he repeats.

I lower my elbows on the table and run my fingers through my hair. “Why am I so fuckin easy to read?”

“Only to your family,” Griffin says, with surprising kindness.

The server comes back to fill my coffee, and this time, she also smiles at me.

Of course, all she makes me think about is one person.

“It’s Reese,” I say bluntly, when she leaves.

One of Griffin’s furry eyebrow lifts, but for a moment, he only eats. Then he sits back, lowering his fork on his plate and tossing half his coffee back in a single sip. “I didn’t mention her in that list,” he says after a moment. “Because she’s the only one you never talked about. I should have known she wrecked you the worst.”

I frown. “Kelly wrecked me the worst.”

“That right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

I remember, then, that Griffin was there when I ended it with Reese. He’d just come back from… I don’t even remember where, and was helping me move into the Rolling Hills staff apartments. I don’t think we said one word to each other the whole time we hauled my furniture—still with price tags on—up the stairs and into my place.

By the time we finished the job I was sweating, my head pounding as if I were hungover. I was confused and pissed off. I’d just moved back to Vermont. I was making a fresh start. But all I could think about was the girl I’d left behind. The one who was supposed to be a distraction but had shocked me by how much I’d been consumed by her.

“I don’t have any beer,” I’d said to Griffin, who looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat despite the several trips up and down the stairs with heavy objects.

“I do,” he grunted.

We went to his place, a cabin in the forest a couple miles out of town, with a view of the Quince. A beer deep on the back porch, he said, “Tell me about it, Eli.”

So I did. “I think I made the worst mistake of my life,” I told him. I went on and on about how messed up I was. How confused. How my chest fucking ached. “All I wanted to do was know her more. And more and more, like I could breathe her into my lungs. That’s so fuckin’ weird, I know. But I’ve never felt like this before. Fuck, the way she sings…”

He’d raised an eyebrow. “Kelly sings?”

It was only then I realized that whole time he thought I’d been talking about the woman I’d just divorced. I felt like shit then. Like I should have been more cut up about Kelly. Hell, I was. But in that moment, a whole broken marriage had paled compared to the intensity of three weeks with Reese.

“So what, you and Reese are together?” Griffin asks now. He remembers. Of course he fucking remembers.

“No.” I say it too fast.

But Griffin sets his meaty arms on the table and laces his fingers together. “That’s not what Cass says.”

“If you already know, why the fuck are you asking all these questions?”

I’m run through with irritation. “You know, sometimes I wish we were kids again and I could jump you.”

“You’d lose.”

That only makes me want to fight him more. Which is stupid because I think he’s trying to help me. Except he’s right. He’s not the gangly nerd he was as a kid. He’s a fucking beast, and though I’m no lightweight, he’d kick my ass.