Page 49
forty-three
MIRA
My phone burns a hole in my pocket as I deboard the plane, dodging impatient travelers and harried flight attendants. I’ll have to turn off airplane mode to let Maddy know I’ve arrived, but the thought has me breaking out in hives.
Did Griffin text or call me while I was in the air, or was he too busy doing other things to notice I’m gone? Which would be worse? I’m so consumed by my worries that I don’t even notice the dark-haired, hulking figure until his hands grip my shoulders and he says my name. Twice.
“Maddy?” I didn’t expect him to park the car and meet me at the gate. And I certainly didn’t expect to be pulled into a tight, protective hug in front of hundreds of passengers. It’s all I can do to hold in a sob as I bury my face in my brother’s broad chest.
I may not have a dad, but I have an older brother who loves the hell out of me, and sometimes I wonder if that’s almost better. And then I wonder if telling him the truth will ruin everything.
“Hey, Mi-Mi.” His voice is gruff, almost as clogged with emotion as mine, and it’s nearly my undoing. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”
Maddox doesn’t ask me what happened; he just grabs my suitcase from me and leads me out of the airport with a brotherly arm slung over my shoulder. His silent support gives me the strength to walk out with my head held high, even as a few tears slip past my defenses and down my cheeks.
Once we’re situated in his car, he turns to me, his face set in a protective-brother scowl I know is for me and not because of me, and asks, “Do you want to talk about it now or at home?”
“When we get to your place. I don’t think I have it in me to tell this story twice.” My voice wavers but doesn’t break. Small victories.
With a nod, Maddox pulls out of the parking lot, silently maneuvering through airport traffic as he gets us onto the highway.
His eyes dart to me every so often, but he never gives in to his curiosity to push for information.
I’m grateful. I have no clue what I’m going to tell him and Isla.
How in the hell do you break it to your brother that you got drunkenly married to his best friend, kept it a secret for months, and now you think said husband may be cheating on you?
It’s going to destroy Maddy. And probably his friendship with Griffin.
That makes me feel like shit. Even though, if Griffin is cheating, it shouldn’t.
But I know how much his friendship means to Maddox.
They’ve been close since college, they play on the same pro team, hell, they’re on the same line.
Not only could my admission blow up years of friendship, but it could have a devastating effect on the team itself.
All too soon, we’re parking and making our way up to Maddox and Isla’s apartment, and my worry turns to acid in my gut.
I hold on to my purse strap like it’s a lifeline because it’s the only thing keeping my hands from trembling.
Sweat beads along my back, and I have a flash of worry that I may puke again.
But then I’m walking into their place, and Isla pulls me into a tight, sisterly hug. I don’t puke, but I lose the battle with my tears. Great, heaving sobs shake my body as I break apart right there in the entryway.
“Oh, Mira.” Isla’s voice bleeds concern as she hugs me. I catch her exchanging a worried glance with my brother before he herds us both into the living room, where I collapse into the embrace of their very comfortable couch.
“I need you to tell me what happened,” Maddox says roughly.
Swallowing, I give myself a few moments to calm down before I look up at my brother and attempt to extract a promise I know he won’t want to give. “First, I need you to promise that you won’t do anything stupid.”
He grunts, eyes narrowing and lips pursing.
“I’m serious, Maddy. You can’t go off and start a fight with Griffin. I know you’ll want to, but I’m telling you right now, you can’t. Promise me.”
My brother’s brown eyes flare. “I’m not promising shit like that, Mi-Mi. If he hurt you, he’s going to pay. Whether that’s with fists or something else, that’s between me and him.”
“It’s not, though. It’s between me and him.”
That has Maddox’s eyes narrowing on me. “What, exactly, is between you and him?”
When Isla gives my hand a squeeze, I shoot her a grateful, tremulous smile before sucking in a fortifying breath and saying the words I thought I’d be sharing under very different circumstances in a few short days. “I didn’t plan any of this.”
“Plan what, Mira?”
Tears slip down my cheeks, hot and fast. “It started out as a stupid, drunken mistake. I didn’t expect it to turn into something real.”
Maddox growls at that, and I can practically see his hackles rising. “ What was a drunken mistake? I’m going to need you to stop being cryptic and fucking explain, because the conclusions I’m jumping to are all going to result in my best friend getting his face broken in.”
Pretty sure the truth is worse than whatever my brother is thinking, but I can’t hide this from him or Isla any longer. Especially if I’m asking to stay with them. They deserve to know why. Even as resolve fills me, my body shakes and my lower lip trembles.
“Our marriage.”
Silence. Dead fucking silence meets those two words, and I swear the air grows thick and charged as my brother struggles to digest what I said.
“I must have misheard you,” Maddox says with a slow, measured cadence that belies his internal struggle to remain calm. “I could have sworn I just heard you say the thing that was your drunken mistake was your marriage.”
Swallowing over the lump in my throat isn’t easy, but I manage it and look my brother in the eye as I nod.
“You didn’t mishear me. It—it happened in Vegas.
We were drunk, which was mostly my fault, and then we were walking around the Strip, and there was a young Elvis and a Dolly Parton, and then I woke up with a ring on my finger and Griffin next to me, and the next thing I know, he’s convinced me to give our marriage a shot, and I didn’t think it would work, but then I fell in love with the stupid idiot, and then he went and fucked it all up today, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. ”
Once I start speaking, the words come out in a rush. It’s all one big run-on sentence of my truth, pain, and fears, and by the end, I break down into a sobbing, snotty mess. As Isla gathers me into a hug, I close my eyes while my brother’s form seems to grow and expand beside me.
He pushes up off the couch and shouts, “That motherfucker! I’m going to kick his fucking ass. I warned him to keep his hands off you. I warned him.” Maddy paces in front of the couch. “Married. You’re married? ”
“We were going to tell you all at dinner this week.”
“Vegas was like three and a half months ago, Mira. You’ve kept this from me for three and a half months, which means my best friend—no, my former best friend—has been lying to me for almost four months. Four months!”
My chest tightens at the look of absolute betrayal etched into every line of my brother’s face. This is bad. This is so bad.
“I trusted him. I trusted him, and this is how he repays that? And you”—Maddox turns his ire on me—“you know what he’s like. I thought you were more mature than this. To get so sloppy drunk that you marry the one guy on my team who has never grown up… I don’t fuckin’ get it, Mira.”
Despite Griffin not showing up for me today, despite that damn photo that ripped my heart to shreds, I can’t stop myself from standing up, going chest to chest with my brother, and letting him have it.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare, Maddox. You claim he’s your best friend, but you don’t know him at all, do you?
If you did, you’d never say something like that about him.
Never grown up…” I scoff, enraged for my husband, even now.
“You don’t even realize he’s the glue that holds your stupid hockey team together, do you?
Hell, he’s the glue that kept you and Isla together.
He’s always there for everyone without having to be asked.
He shows up, day after day after day, and encourages you morons, pushes you to be better on and off the ice, and does it all with a smile on his face.
“The minute I said I needed a place to stay, Griffin was there with an offer to help. He never let me pay rent, never asked me for a thing. Hell, he never even lets me pay for groceries. Do you know he had someone remodel the guest room for me? And it’s perfect.
It’s cozy and beautiful and exactly what I would have chosen for myself, and he did all of it without being asked or asking for a thank you in return.
“No one has been a bigger supporter of my business than Griffin. Not only did he set up the meeting with the University of Michigan this weekend, but do you know what I found out a while back? He’s been telling all his hockey buddies about me and sending them my way when they want to rebrand or set up websites.
Never told me he was doing it, either. The only reason I know is because one of the guys spilled the beans.
“And when my stupid, ancient car broke down, he bought me a brand-new one. Did he tell you that? I tried to make him take it back, but he wouldn’t hear of it. All he cared about was that I was safe.
“And what about what he did for you? You almost lost the woman you love because you were too hurt to go after her, so he did that for you. He made sure you didn’t blow up your life because of some dumb understanding.
You’re marrying her because your best friend cared too much about both of you to let you blow it all up. ”
I’m sobbing now. Each word is a knife that slices off a little piece of my heart and the anger I’ve been feeling toward Griffin.
Each truth I recount makes me question the photo and the events of the day.
Because with every word I speak, it becomes clearer and clearer that Griffin Wright isn’t just a good man—he’s a great one.
And I am exactly like my brother.
When Maddox overheard Isla talking to her stupid asshole ex, he assumed the worst and walked away without letting her explain. Because we grew up with a dad who walked away. It’s something that, on some level, we must both expect the people we love to do. Abandon us and walk away.
Except, the people you love can’t walk away if you beat them to it.
And at the first test of my love for Griffin—even if it looked bad—I did the same thing. I got on a plane, turned my phone off so he couldn’t reach me, and walked away.
The truth of it all slams into me like a runaway bus, and with a sob, I run to the guestroom and lock myself in. I’m falling apart and don’t want an audience.
What if there was a very logical explanation for what happened today, and I not only didn’t give my husband a chance to explain, but jumped to the most nuclear option?
Griffin is one of the most selfless men I know.
He’s always rooting for the underdog, always a hopeless romantic.
He sees the good in people, and he steps in and steps up for them over and over again.
Here I am, assuming the worst about him, when all he ever does is see the best in everyone else.
In all our time together, he’s never done a single thing that would make me believe he’d cheat on me.
Not one.
Yet, that’s exactly where my mind went when I saw that photo with the blonde.
Ignoring my brother’s voice through the door, I pull my phone out with shaking hands and turn off airplane mode.
It only takes seconds for notifications to flood my screen, and I suck in a breath as I tap on the texts and scroll to the earliest one.
Griffin
Hey, baby, I am so sorry, but I’m running late.
This is going to sound like a crazy excuse, but I swear it’s not.
I’m stuck in an elevator with the head of marketing for Breakaway.
The power cut out, and the elevator stopped moving.
I’m going to do whatever I can to get to you, but don’t wait for me, okay?
I’m so sorry I’m not there already, but you’re going to kill this pitch.
I believe in you, sunshine. You don’t need me. You’ve got this. I love you.
It’s not looking like I’m going to make the meeting.
I’m sorry, baby. I’m also kicking myself because my battery is almost dead, but the woman in the elevator with me—the head of marketing—is severely claustrophobic, and she left her phone in her office.
She was only supposed to be walking me out.
I’m using my flashlight app so she doesn’t have a full-blown panic attack.
If you can’t reach me after you get out of your meeting, that’s why.
Now I’m sobbing again, but this time it’s not because of what Griffin has done; it’s because of what I’ve done. Scared to hear it, I press play on the voicemail and hold the phone to my ear. When Griffin’s panicked voice hits me, I stifle my sob with my hand.
“Baby, hey. I’m so fucking sorry I missed your pitch. I tried to call and text you, but I didn’t have any phone service. It was the craziest thing, sunshine. I got trapped in an elevator for almost an hour.
“I’m at the hotel and all your stuff is gone. Where are you? Please call me back. I’m so so sorry, baby. I swear I did everything I could to get to you. Did the meeting go well, I hope? Please call me back. I love you.”
He didn’t ditch me. He was literally trapped in an elevator.
And that blonde woman in the photo? I’d bet a million bucks she was the marketing exec who was having a panic attack.
Because of course my husband would do everything he could to help her.
He’s good like that. So genuinely good. And I immediately believed the worst.
It hits me then.
My brother is worried about Griffin not being good enough for me, but the fact of the matter is that I’m not good enough for Griffin. Not even close.
And that’s the realization that finally, truly breaks me.
Table of Contents
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