He kept his stare pinned on our friends and, without looking, reached behind him to grab my hand. He knew right where it was, and he laced his fingers through mine.
Although he’d touched me thousands upon thousands of times over our years growing up together, my hand zinged as if with pins and needles.
Then, like it wasn’t going to blow up our world, in a steady voice he announced, “I’m in love with Joss.”
3
Courtesy of Mr. Chase
My heart fluttering in outright elation, a greater high than even the morphine had delivered, Griffin’s declaration—I’m in love with Joss—looped giddily through my mind multiple times before I realized everyone was silent in the face of it.
Too silent. Unnervingly silent.
My friends were so rarely quiet it could only mean one thing: my fear had been realized. Griffin and I falling in love had ruined everything. We were in the process of ripping our crew apart. We’d broken a cardinal rule of our friendship—don’t date each other and make things weird—and now the only people in the entire world I could actually rely on were divided. The only people I truly loved with all my heart were no longer one indivisible unit. No longer a fully bondedfamily.
Fuuuuuuck. My buoyant heart shifted gears on a dime and now barreled toward a shattering I wasn’t sure I’d survive. And at the very worst time possible: when we had real enemies hunting us. When our lives were being turned upside down so incredibly savagely. When even our parents had betrayed us, and we found ourselves all alone fighting for our ultimate survival.
Griff’s declaration continued echoing in my mind, fulfilling a desire I’d had longer than I’d earlier admitted to myself. I sighed loudly. A devastated lament was already worming into my veins to circle my body along with the IV fluids.
“Why, Griff?” I asked softly. “Why’d you have to do this now of all times? You could’ve waited some more, till things were better. Easier at least.”
He was squeezing my hand when Hunt’s astute stare pinned both of us. “You’ve been hiding it from us?”
“Damn, guys,” Layla added with a disappointed shake of her head, making my heart plummet along with my already churning stomach. “Seriously? After everything we’ve been through together, you’re keeping secrets from us? Aboutthis, no less?”
Wanting to rip off the bandage all at once, I looked to Brady, who scowled at Griff and me so intensely that his nostrils flared. With jerky movements, he crossed his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging with tension from under his scrubs.
He didn’t have to say anything for me to understand. They were all on the same page. Griffin and I were on a different one. What had once been a perfect book was now split in half, a beautiful story forever ruined, its beginning separated from its end. No more happy ending.
Griffin chuckled—fuckingchuckled—and I whipped my head around to gawk at his profile. Had he lost his damn mind? Had resurrection after death messed with his head?
Rubbing my hand in what seemed like a gesture of comfort, he told the others (with yet another laugh, the crazy fucker), “It’s not like that, guys. We’re only just figuring it out ourselves. We told you practically before we told each other.”
Layla narrowed her eyes, again shining an angry blue. “But you already told each other. And didn’t tell us.”
“Yeah, but not like you’re thinking. I told her right before I went over the cliff in Clyde.”
“That was weeks ago.”
“It was, but I don’t think Joss got it then. Not how I really meant it. We all love each other.”
The others waited for more, so Griffin continued. “I probably wouldn’t’ve even said it if I hadn’t realized I was about to die. But it just kinda slipped out. Like I had to say it in case I never got another chance.”
My subdued heartbeat accelerated once more.
“We didn’t even talk about it after. Then, when Joss realized she was about to die in the gym, she said it to me. Told me she loved me. I wasn’t sure if she meant it the way I wanted her to since we all do love each other—as friends, you know. But then when she woke up just now, I asked her about it. When she explained it’s more than friends for her too, I told you guys right away.”
“Even before you fucking told me,” I grumbled, my thoughts slipping out unintentionally.
Layla’s burning stare heated my face for several moments before she barked a laugh. “Damn, Joss. You’re pouting. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“What the hell’re you talking about?” Brady said, uncrossing his arms and crossing his ankles as he continued to lean against the side of the bed. “She pouts all the time.”
“I do not,” I protested automatically.
“Do too,” Brady said. “But apparently it does the trick for our boy.”
Gingerly, Hunt leaned back in his armchair and spread his long legs out in front of him. He looked at Griff, then me, then Griff again. “All right.”
