Page 81 of How Not to Date a Griffin

“What would have happened? I mean, if… if I hadn’t found out about my father when you did?”

Reid was quiet, and Nolan couldn’t help but slip his eyes open, trying to read the emotions on his face.

“Well… I guess you would’ve gone to your conference this morning. I would have met up with John. Had him write the story.”

“Would you have ever spoken to me again?” Nolan asked, even though it hurt his throat to voice the words. Once you got what you wanted.

Surprise stilled Reid’s hand. “What? Of course I would have.” Nolan felt him move, yet still startled when his hand touched his cheek, directing his gaze up.

“I would’ve called or texted or found you, told you everything that was happening. Nolan, this might surprise you, but I do actually listen when you talk.” Reid stared down at him, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Even if we weren’t so… entangled,” he settled on before continuing, “at the very least, I know you had nothing to do with your dad’s decisions – his collusion – and there’s no reason I wouldn’t have given you a heads-up.” His brows furrowed, a spark of indignance glowing in his gaze. “In fact, he’s dragged the business that’s supposed to be yours one day through the mud. This is just as much your fight as it is mine.”

Relief filled Nolan. The question had been burning in Nolan’s mind for hours, and with just a few words, Reid had tamed the flames.

“I have a question of my own,” Reid admitted.

“What is it?”

“What happens after?” Reid asked, his expression nervous, reminiscent of their first night.

“After… tomorrow?” Nolan clarified, though he knew, even before Reid nodded.

After Nolan exposed his father and his assistant. After Nolan protected Reid’s business, and in the process, damned his own.

In front of his father.

To his face.

“I can’t think about that right now,” Nolan said, shaking his head. “I can barely think past tomorrow, getting up in front of all those people and—oh, god,” he said, sitting up and swallowing sharply. “I’m gonna be sick.”

“No, you’re not,” Reid said, palming his shoulders and holding him still. “Just breathe. I know how big this is.”

Nolan shook his head. Reid didn’t understand, couldn’t. “No, you don’t. You really don’t.”

Because in Reid’s eyes, Nolan was doing the right thing, the only option. But Nolan saw the other facets. He was losing his father at the end of all this. Despite how decidedly… terrible George Whittier was, at least he was there. Hell, he was the only one there. He’d been all Nolan had for what felt like forever.

After all this, Nolan was going to be alone.

If he succeeded. If his father didn’t somehow weasel his way out of it.

Drawing in a deep breath, Nolan counted to five and reached up, taking Reid’s hands from his shoulders and holding them in his own, turning slightly on the bed to face him. Two of his fingers rested over Reid’s wrist, and—call it selfish, if he must call it anything at all—Reid’s pulse was racing almost as fast as Nolan’s was, and he found relief in that.

“You’re afraid of him, aren’t you?” Reid asked. “There’s no way he could even lay a finger on you, not with me there.” His words were spoken carefully, softly, as if afraid to spook a particularly wild cat.

Nolan blinked. “He doesn’t hit me,” he said, slowly.

“He doesn’t have to hit you to scare you,” Reid retorted, expression wide-eyed and sympathetic.

And, well, that was somehow not what Nolan needed to hear in that moment, and yet the exact thing he needed to hear.

“Fine. He scares me,” he whispered. “What if he tries to drag me down with him, turn it around somehow? Would someone even believe I’m that much of an idiot, that this was happening around me and I remained oblivious?”

Reid hummed. “Give ‘em a few minutes, they’ll figure it out.”

Despite the situation, Nolan laughed. “That wasn’t nice,” he muttered petulantly as Reid dragged him back down to the sheets. Nolan went willingly.

“So, we don’t talk about tomorrow,” Reid decided aloud. “Only now.”

Nolan sank into Reid’s shape, his warmth. Stared down at him and melted under the heat of his affection.