Page 38 of Love Felt Like This

“But you’re all over social media,” Rob says, already extending his phone toward me.

I don’t look. I’ve seen these pictures everywhere. Griffin’s hulking body attempting, and failing, to shield me from the flash of a camera. His palm on my waist. My purse slung over his shoulder. Our bright faces illuminated in a flash, accentuating the dark circles under my eyes.

Rob waves the phone again, as if prompting me to look.

“Yeah, I know,” I say with a laugh. “I was kinda there.”

“When’s he coming over? You didn’t tell me on our last—”

“Probably in a few days.”

My dad heaves the last suitcase and slams the trunk closed. He run-jogs his way to the driver’s seat.

Rob asks, “So, is Griffin Harvey gonna be at our house a lot?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Is he your business partner now?”

“Uh, sort of?”

“Y’know, I think that Griffin Harvey—”

Nana lets out a mix of a laugh and a sigh. “You don’t have to always say his full name, Robert. Now sit back and get that dog of yours under control.”

Rob groans in a petulant teen way, buckling himself in and patting Pudge on the head.

I catch Nana’s eye. She winks. I return a sheepish smile and a silent Thank you.

Dad buckles in. “We all locked and loaded?” he asks, meeting my eyes in the rearview.

“Dad, can we drop by a rest stop for Pudge?” Rob calls from the back seat, barely audible over Pudge’s heavy breaths and whines. “He’s probably gotta pee.”

My dad puts on his turn signal. “You got it, boss.”

“They’re gonna honk again,” Nana says.

“They can honk all they want, but I ain’t moving any faster.” Dad steers into the other lane.

The next ten minutes are a jumble of layered sentences and misused turn signals and Nana’s “Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it?” as we transition from concrete and sidewalks to an interstate lined with trees.

“Here’s another one,” Rob says, holding out his phone toward me.

I wince, having not seen this photo yet. It’s similar to all the others, though; I look flustered, and Griffin looks angry.

“Griffin Harvey isn’t really a jerk, is he?” Rob asks in a whisper, as if trying not to let Nana hear. Like Finch’s, Nana’s hearing aid is better than my ears, so I know she catches it. She doesn’t say anything.

I sigh. “No. He’s not.”

“I didn’t think so,” Rob continues. “Just reporters wanting headlines, I bet. Also, uh, whoa. I didn’t know he had a sister! Way to drop that bomb on us.”

“Yeah…me neither,” I say with a cringe. I’m a terrible liar. So, so terrible.

I expect a lot of questions now that I’m buddy-buddy with Griffin. I have questions of my own, honestly. Mostly, how in the world did Griffin Harvey keep something as groundbreaking as a child a secret from the world? I was thorough in my online searches. I couldn’t find a single sniff of a rumor about Griffin being a dad. Is she his biological child? How old is she? Who is the mother?

It doesn’t matter what I know because, as far as my family is concerned, she’s the forgotten Harvey. Griffin’s little sister. I promised I wouldn’t tell a soul, and I keep my promises. But it’s impossible to excuse an additional human being, so I did what I could with what I had.

“Have you met her?” Nana asks.