Page 176 of Love Felt Like This

No musicians.

No famous anything.

Easy.

I’m very good at playing pretend. I can stay beneath the camera lens with Bernie Bird and not think about anything but the performance.

Greg bites his inner cheek, then exhales. In that moment, he looks very much his age. Uncle Greg always has bits of gray at his temples and in his beard, but it’s the lines beside his eyes that deepen now. They’re stressful creases that I’ve only seen closer to his divorce. This look of exhaustion feels like a distant memory. It’s a period of time we don’t talk about.

I sigh. “It’s complicated. Like when you want to eat the last banana, but it’s overripe, and you think, Should I make banana bread? But you don’t know how, so then it’s like, Well, am I wasting a good banana?” I say, desperate to bring his smile back. “Why take an unnecessary risk for something I know won’t work out?”

His eyes swivel to me. “Seriously?”

“I mean, tell me you haven’t thought that before.”

Greg shakes his head, rolling a rock below his shoe. “You know what? I’d risk it all again. To potentially experience banana bread again, I would.” He levels a look at me. “My marriage with your Aunt Andi was tough. Taking her back after she messed up was a risk. And it didn’t work out. The banana bread honestly sucked.” I laugh and he shrugs. “But just because it didn’t work out, doesn’t mean I regret making it. I’d take that risk again and again because if it had worked out, I would have loved her every second she let me. Sometimes the risk doesn’t pay off, but don’t be the one to count yourself out.” Then he sighs again and says, “I’m gonna ask out Daisy, you know.”

I blink up at him. “That’s great.”

“Maybe she’ll say no. But who knows? And that’s a risk. And I’ll keep taking them because life isn’t worth anything without a little risk. I want to keep making banana bread. Don’t you?”

“I am taking a risk, though,” I say. “I’m doing this show.”

“That’s only half the risk. What about love?”

“Greg, you sap.”

“I’m serious, Bev.”

I shake my head. “I don’t…ugh. There. That’s the best response I’ve got. Ugh.”

Because ugh is the only way to describe how much I miss Griffin. I miss that man with his rugged beard and wild hair. I miss his barking laugh. I miss how he holds his daughter, as if without her, the world might fall apart. I love that precious kiss he gives her on the forehead, just beneath her bangs. I love how he can give me that look—the one with the single eyebrow raise, like he knows what I’m thinking before even I do.

Griffin Harvey and I…

We’re…

Ugh.

Clacking of boots on gravel has me darting my head up toward the walkway.

Nana looks between us. “All right, how are we doing over here?”

Greg levels a look at her. Nana’s lips turn down.

“Oh,” she says.

“You two”—I point a finger between them—“need to mind your own business. I’m gonna go achieve my dream, all right? That’s the plan. Now, give me a hug before I strangle you first.”

I open my arms, but Nana tilts her head to the side.

“You’re allowed more than one dream,” she says. “Give yourself more than one happy ending, Bevvy.”

My arms fall by my side. “I might have a show. Heck, he’s going on tour. I mean, you’ve been through this. You and Grandpa spent so much time apart while he worked. Don’t you regret that?”

“No,” Nana says. She doesn’t skip a single beat. “Not one bit. Your grandfather was worth loving every day, even on the missed ones.”

That hurts.