Page 46 of Love Felt Like This

There are a few confused looks, and for a moment I think I can save this whole situation. Didn’t they all see the article? Or was it just Maria? Maybe I could say I was joking. I shouldn’t have said anything. There was no reason. But if I heard Beau’s name one more time—

“Wait, who’s that out there?” Eddie asks. “I’ve never seen that car before.”

I twist in my seat right as the black SUV pulls into the parking spot next to mine.

My stomach plummets.

People are dropping their forks, setting down their coffees, pressing closer to the fogged-up windows with condensation leaking down the cracks.

“Kind of a nice car,” someone else observes, right in time for the driver door to open.

A single leather boot hits the gravel, followed by the hulking form of Griffin Harvey.

His long, wild hair falls from under a black baseball cap. He wears a jean jacket over a sweatshirt with the hood dangling over the collar. His aviator sunglasses fit on the bridge of his nose perfectly, like they were designed specifically for him.

“Oh my God, is that Griffin Harvey?” Fran asks.

“He’s here?” someone in another booth squeaks.

“Of course!” Maria shouts. “That’s him! They’re together!”

There’s a collective gasp.

Mistake, mistake, mistake.

Griffin closes the car door. His hair is particularly messy today, even more unruly once he removes his baseball hat and runs veined hands through the brown strands at his temples. He replaces his baseball cap and tips the bill lower.

“Well, that won’t do him a lick of good,” Nana murmurs to me. She’s right. The diner is already a hum of heated whispers.

Griffin strides to the back seat and pulls the door open, obscuring him from our view. The windows are completely blacked out, spotless and shiny like the rest of the car. It sticks out like a sore thumb among the well-worn pickup trucks and off-color sedans in the lot.

Finally, he reappears, and a little girl is swung onto his hip. She’s got his same brown hair. His same olive skin. But unlike the straight line of his lips, her mouth is an open pit, and the sound exploding out is nothing short of an ear-splitting wail.

There’s another all-at-once gasp.

“All right, we have business to discuss, everyone,” Nana quickly says. “Let’s not lose our heads.”

But heads are absolutely lost.

Chapter Eight

Dr. Napkin

Griffin

It turns out that Ava doesn’t like mountain drives. Maybe it’s the twisting roads or the new rental car, or maybe her ears popped like mine did on that last steep incline. She’s been crying for the last five minutes. I tried singing to her from the front seat, but she wasn’t having any of it. Halfway up the mountain, it hit me what I’d done to us.

I moved myself and my daughter to a random town to follow a random woman to chase my random inspiration to write.

What in the hell was I thinking?

Jimmy wasn’t happy when I said I’d be moving for a couple of months. He insisted I bring at least one assistant or some sort of security team, but I told him I could take care of us just fine. The town was closed for the winter. It’s secluded on a mountain. No big deal.

Except Ava hasn’t left California in a year. She probably doesn’t remember her life with Robin before that, in their little house on the ranch. Was it irresponsible to take her from the only place she’s known?

I drive over roads that curl like knobby fingers, with telephone wires crossing overhead and guardrails serving as the only barrier between me and my daughter and the plunging drop to the valley below. I clutch my wheel tighter. I hate heights.

I was raised in a small town, too, but it was out west with flat land. Not here, where each winding curve could be your last.