He nuzzled behind my ear, revving me back up. He dragged his lips along my jaw. I tipped my head back, inviting more. Instead of following the line of my throat, he reversed course—brushing the corner of my mouth, then the other. His thumb traced my bottom lip, coaxing it open. He tipped closer, lips hovering, teasing.
When I couldn’t take any more, I took his mouth, my palms against his chest. He let out a gravelly laugh that I felt beneath my fingertips.
Okay, I’d tell him. Right after this.
“Can you believe there’s already a video of our karaoke dance going viral?” Charlie said a few minutes later.
I broke the kiss and looked at her. She held out her phone for Cash to see. Thank goodness I’d refrained from joining them on stage. It had been hard to do. “Lil Boo Thang” was one of my faves. The tune was just so darn catchy.
“Yes, I can believe it.” Cash laughed. “It was freaking epic.”
But Charlie’s attention was already back on the screen.
Griff curved a hand along my jaw and pulled me back.
Charlie let out a loud “Boooo—are you kidding me? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Griffin groaned as I pulled back.
“Hold on.” I made myself laugh, stomach turning.
Charlie typed like she was trying to start a war.
“Don’t do it, babe,” Cash said. “Do not interact. You’re training the algorithm that you want to see more BS about Griff.”
“Good,” she said through gritted teeth. “She doesn’t talk about my cousin like that.”
“Who said what?” I asked, fingernails cutting into my palms.
Griffin let out a battle-weary sigh. “What did they say this time?”
Charlie glanced at him, expression guarded. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do, actually,” he said. “Because then maybe I can help you and Jules see that I don’t care what strangers say about me on the internet.”
“Griff.” She sounded so sad. “You’re going to care about this.”
They shared a look I didn’t know how to decode.
He reached up and took her phone. I peered over his shoulder to see who it was. On the screen was a paused reel of a dark-haired woman, about our age. She wore a red puffed-sleeve shirt, black leather pants, and black ankle boots. She was perched on the stage of “Breaking Curfew with Nate Midnight.”
Griffin went still. Then swore. “She’s never going away, is she?”
Charlie shook her head. “You’d think she’d have found a different family to harass by now. I don’t even know why Nate Midnight would interview her. She’s not a celebrity.”
I was about to ask who she was when Griffin tapped the play button.
“So, Selene,” Nate Midnight said. My stomach dropped. Selene was the girl Griffin had dated who sexually assaulted Bowen. “What do you think of all this Griffin Dupree hoopla? You dated him in college, right? What was he like back then?”
“Sure did.” She winked—and I wished I could poke her in the eye—and let out a tinkling laugh that sounded a little too practiced. “Oh, Griffin?” she said with a sigh. “He was… sweet. In a very try-hard way.”
Griffin made a sound of annoyance, but I could feel the anger rippling off him. Maybe he didn’t care what strangers thought about him. But this woman… she bothered him a lot.
“Sweet?” Nate said. “Well, darling, he’s not sosweetanymore.”
The show cut to a quick clip of Griffin on his Hollister shoot. He stood against a stone wall, shirtless, hands in the pockets of the jeans he was modeling. No smile, just a look that could stop a room. If I hadn’t been so knotted up, I would’ve had to roll the window down to cool off.
The camera cut back to Selene, who patted a small yawn like she couldn’t be more bored.
