Page 12 of Griffin (Stone Brothers #5)

TWELVE

SHAY

I doubted that cell phone and social media inventors realized what a great service they'd done for women in my unfortunate position.

Like so many people, Tate had a cell phone addiction.

He spent most of his free time scrolling through social media and porn and whatever else he had saved on his phone.

When he wasn't being a vicious pig to me, watching television or driving his truck, he was staring at that thing as if looking away might turn him to stone.

I'd gotten home from work Friday evening and found him asleep with his phone in his hand.

It was paused on some beautiful influencer who was standing in front of a waterfall in a wet T-shirt.

Another wife might have been mad, but I wanted nothing more than for him to get lost in his social media world of fake boobs and plumped up lips.

When he was focused on that world, I faded seamlessly into the background.

I was an invisible entity, and you couldn't shout or throw a cup at an invisible entity.

Tate woke long enough to down six beers and two fast-food burritos before falling asleep on the couch.

I stood there and watched him, slack-jawed and snoring and wondered how the hell I ever fell for the man in the first place.

Everything about him repelled me. Fretting about him waking and climbing into bed caused me a rough night of sleep.

But the morning light came. His phone alarm went off out in the front room, and I knew the day was going to be just fine.

He bellowed for me to start coffee and breakfast, which I obediently did as he took a long shower.

I was so thrilled he was leaving, I hummed show tunes while I put together two sandwiches for him to take along.

An hour later, he rolled down the street in his noisy rig.

I was sure I'd be hearing from the neighbors or the landlord soon, but for today, I put those worries aside.

He was gone, and I was back in my other life.

Colt paid every other Friday, and my first week happened to end on the second Friday.

It was so nice to see money deposited in my otherwise drought-ridden account.

Tate gave me enough to pay bills and buy food, but there was never extra.

There'd be enough today to buy a few plants at the nursery and a new coral pink lipstick I'd been eyeing at the store.

But first, I had something to do, something I hadn't done for a long time and something that I missed so badly just thinking about it made me ache.

Up until now, I hadn't bothered because all it did was remind me of my days before Tate, but I had two new people in my life, Griffin and Annie, and meeting them had made me realize that I'd let far too much of myself disappear.

Tate had spent the last few years erasing me, and it was time to bring back Shay.

I did a quick pirouette on the way down the hallway, but my sneakers and the narrow passage made it less than perfect.

My ballet teacher, Miss Augustin, would have clucked her tongue loudly and told me I looked like a clumsy octopus.

I walked across the small, creaky floor to the dresser and opened the top drawer.

I reached to the back, and my fingers landed on the soft satin.

The bright pink slippers popped out from their dark corner and seemed to be saying, "where the heck have you been?

" They'd been my favorite practice slippers.

I had a pair of pointe shoes too, the special ones I wore for recitals, the ones that allowed me to hop up on the tips of my toes, a feat that took me a good six months and lots of turned ankles and sore toes to learn.

I wasn't fooling myself. I was out of shape and clumsy and my trusty slippers would probably be groaning in shame and protest by the time I finished dancing, but that was fine.

There was no one to watch or judge or tell me that I looked like a clumsy octopus.

No one to tell me that ballet was a waste of time and money.

Tate had told me exactly that just days after the wedding when I told him I was going to continue dancing.

He told me there was no way he was financing something as stupid as dance.

It was like having my heart ripped straight from my chest—something that happened at least once a week in my marriage.

Our furniture was scarce. Nice new sofas and chairs were never in our budget. It took some grunting and growling, but I managed to pull the couch back from the center of the room. I moved aside the coffee table. The old wood floor was just smooth enough for a few good dance moves.

I sat down on the couch and pulled off my sneakers and socks.

I picked up the satin slippers. Pink ribbons hung loosely around my wrist. I hugged the slippers to me and held them a moment.

That all too familiar tightening of the throat caused me to slump back and close my eyes.

This wasn't a panic attack. This was something else.

It was me trying to reconnect with the person I lost, the person who used to fly through the dance studio on pink slippers as if she had wings.

"Okay, Pinki, let's get moving." My mom came up with the nickname because after I got my first pair of slippers, I only wanted to wear pink.

The slippers felt foreign at first, but as I tied up the ribbons, memories of sitting on the bench in Miss Augustin's dance studio, tying up the same ribbons, came back to me.

I was so happy back then. Not a care in the world.

I badly just wanted to take off into a series of pirouettes and arabesques, but I needed to stretch first. I moved around to the back of the couch for some hamstring and quad stretches and a few warm-up moves.

It was all coming back to me. I hadn't lost it.

That part of my life hadn't been erased, only put away in storage.

I grabbed my phone off the coffee table, turned on some music and, in seconds, I was Pinki again.

My slippers barely grazed the floor as I danced and twirled and flew.

I'd forgotten the freedom dance had given me but I'd found it again.

Ballet was now going to become a permanent part of my half-life.

* * *

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and the dancing had made me hungry and sore.

It would take a while to get the muscle back.

After a satisfying lunch of grilled cheese and freshly squeezed lemonade, I baked some pumpkin spice muffins.

I wasn't in charge of anyone's dinner but my own, and a few warm muffins sounded way better than anything.

I'd managed to get in a bath to soak my sore muscles, then I spent thirty minutes painting my toenails, a task that I always found hard but satisfying.

I could never open a nail polish bottle when Tate was in the house.

He'd yell about the smell and stomp around as if I'd greatly offended him by trying to put a little color on my nails.

All in all, it had been a fabulous start to my latest half-life.

Tate had mumbled something about being on the road for two weeks.

It was entirely possible he'd spend half that time with other women.

They could have him. I'd been avoiding sex with Tate for a year and had been quite successful.

The few times he'd caught me at a vulnerable time or managed to ply me with enough alcohol to submit to him, I lay there like an emotionless robot, his AI wife, and he complained and called me a frigid bitch.

I was fine with that title. More than fine.

I'd earned it. I occasionally worried that I would never enjoy sex again, but I decided as long as I had my half-life where I could dance, paint my nails freely, soak in a tub for an hour undisturbed and eat sugary muffins for dinner, I was fine without physical contact.

The sun had started to set. Days were getting shorter and shorter.

I pulled on a sweater and carried a muffin outside to the back stoop.

Down the street, someone had started playing music, and the steady stream of cars turning the corner signaled they were having a party.

I'd thought about Griffin's invite to the party more than once but quickly talked myself out of even considering it.

It would be a group of strangers, and my social skills had fallen down to just the basics, hello and good morning and the occasional nice to see you.

My few chats with Griffin had been the most social contact I'd had in months.

I had to admit, I'd enjoyed those chats immensely.

I'd felt instantly comfortable with Griffin.

The music and voices grew louder. I went back inside, my belly full with pumpkin spice.

I sat on the couch and had to move because I could smell Tate's sweat left behind on the cushion.

It was my half-life, and I wanted no reminders of the other bitter half.

I flipped through a few million possibilities on streaming, but nothing caught my attention.

I turned off the television and stared at the dark screen.

I could see my reflection in the gray contours.

I looked happy, relaxed … and bored. Griffin's invite popped back into my head.

What if I went for just an hour? Mostly to see him, of course.

Then it occurred to me that a man like Griffin would be surrounded by women at a party.

What if I showed up, and he had no time for me at all?

I supposed I could handle that. If nothing else, my rotten marriage had trained me in the art of never being disappointed because disappointment was a permanent fixture in my life.

Before I could talk myself out of the party and into another muffin, I got up and headed into the bedroom.

A cute autumn outfit might give me the courage to head to a party with a group of strangers.

The bottoms were easy. Jeans. They were all I had for cool temperatures.

I tried on a few sweaters and settled on a dark green turtleneck.

I pulled on my boots and stared at myself in the mirror.

Trying on multiple sweaters had sent my short hair into a static electricity frenzy.

I raked my fingers through my hair to tamp down the static and propped up some of the spikes.

I blew out a frustrated puff of air. Who was I kidding?

A party, a friggin' party? What would I say?

Would people look at me and somehow know about my other life?

One advantage of moving to a new town was leaving behind the sympathetic frowns and looks of pity.

Griffin had figured it out fast but then he'd had a big clue handed to him when Tate barged into the office like the world's meanest testosterone-amped bull.

I reached for the bottom of the sweater, ready to take it off and switch over to comfy pajamas, but something stopped me.

I wanted to see Griffin. If my earlier fret came true and he didn't have time for me because he was surrounded by other women, then at least I'd get this urge to be near him out of my system.

It was probably exactly what I needed given the fact that I'd been thinking about the boss's son far too much.

It was a stupid and convoluted string of reasoning, but that was how I left it in my mind.

I was going to show up so I could see Griffin in his natural element, with all his friends and, no doubt, a bevy of pretty admirers and then I'd stop having romantic and, admittedly, erotic daydreams about the man.