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But something stopped him. She pulls her trousers up again before collapsing on the bed. She stares at the ceiling. She thinks she should feel guilty, anything, for what she tried to do so soon after Patrick’s death, but she feels nothing except the sting of his rejection. I’m that much of a shitty person, she thinks. That’s why he wouldn’t fuck me. Not even a man like Griffin wants me.
The door opens and Griffin comes back into the room with a sweep of cold air. He looks at her.
“Jessica—” he begins, but she cuts him off.
“It’s Jess. And I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, and he nods.
“Suits me.”
He joins her on the bed, taking his shirt off over his head and lying on his front, facing away from her. He pulls the duvet over himself. A flash of light reflects on his left hand, and for the first time, Jess notices the wedding ring. So was that why he stopped them? But then why is he living here?
She can’t think about that now. Exhaustion hits her and she rests her head on the pillow. Despite his rebuff, he doesn’t seem to mind her being in the bed next to him, and she’s glad.
“Griffin?” she asks, and he grunts. “What’s your name?”
He turns to face her, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“That man called you Nate.”
He turns away again. “Nate. Nathanial Griffin,” he says, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Not many people call me that anymore. Just stick with Griffin.”
Jess listens to his breathing. It’s slowed now to a soft in and out. She closes her eyes. Images flash in her mind. The blood. The dead pregnant woman. Her ruined house.
Think of something else, she tells herself, screwing her eyes tightly shut. Something good.
Alice.
The ache of being apart from her daughter makes it almost hard for her to breathe. But Alice is alive. She’s safe, Jess thinks, with my mom and dad and Nav.
And with thoughts of her daughter in her head, lying next to a strange man in a strange apartment, she slowly falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER
11
HE LIKES THE thump thump of the bass line, so loud it reverberates on his diaphragm. The flash of the lights, the haze from the shots hastily downed at the bar. He dances, his hands above his head, the smell of sweat—from him and the other men in the club. He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling their bodies against his. Smooth skin, hard muscles.
He feels a hand on his arm. Gentle, caressing.
“Not seen you here before,” the man shouts over the music. He meets his eyes; he sees his interest.
“My first time,” he replies.
“Really?” The man smiles suggestively. “You wanna do something about that?”
He looks at him. He looks young, barely out of his teens. But his confidence is attractive; this club is clearly somewhere he feels at home in his tight white T-shirt, ass-hugging jeans.
He nods and the man smiles, then grabs his hand and starts pulling him from the dance floor toward the toilets. He pulls back and the man turns, looking at him curiously.
“Not here,” he shouts. “Let’s get a taxi, go back to my place.”
The man tilts his head to one side in a mock sulk. Then he grins. “You better have something to make it worth my while.”
“I’m sure I can knock up a rum and Coke,” he replies with a small smile. “What’s your name?”
“Steve,” he replies. “What’s yours?”
But he’s already turned, the man following obediently after him, the name fixed in his head.
