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“Baby,” Griffin rasps.
“Sorry,” I sniff.
Being able to talk with him about my mother yields an exquisite pain. I love and miss her. For all the lows, some of them terrifying, I would not trade her for another.
The same cannot be said of Griffin’s feelings for his mother—or his father. I get that sense from the conversations we have had. He encourages me to talk about my childhood, laments that there are no “little Kate” pictures for him to look at, like the first day of kindergarten or the day the training wheels came off my bike. But, when I try to steer things toward “little Griffin,” he laughs off the idea of such a creature ever existing.
The laugh doesn’t fool me, so I let it go for a time, then circle back like a cat chasing my own tail.
“I need to see you,” he scratches out. “Turn your computer on, Kate.”
“No,” I hope the soft voice I use eases the sting of my refusal. “You are already over your quota for the week, Montgomery.”
I am trying to get him to laugh. The video chats are hell on my resolve that we get to know one another before we are physically intimate again. Griffin grows impossibly sexier each time. Maybe it’s because I have learned all the subtle nuances of his expressions and voice. I even know when his mind drifts into some deliciously dirty thought mid-sentence. The little smile, the way he coyly lifts his lashes, the flash of teeth or tongue before he finishes his sentence—they drive me crazy with conjecture and need.
When it’s just the sound of our voices, that’s when we venture deeper.
Who we are.
What drives us.
Just so long as I stay away from his childhood.
Tonight, though, I have a new reason for refusing to open a video chat.
“Sorry,” I say when he offers no reply. “I want to see you, too. But I can’t right now.”
“It’s okay,” he responds, the sound still scratchy. “I think I understand. Your mother was a very wise woman, Kate. I wish…”
His voice catches and it takes a few seconds before he finishes.
“I wish I could have met her.”
The continued references to my mother only increase my awareness that I cannot get him to talk about his. He holds back while I share my pain. I told him about the closet, the darkness, my mother shaking like a leaf in the wind as she clutched me to her. I told him about begging my father for the pills. I told him about the mistresses…
“Still there, Kate?”
His voice has turned flat, signaling his retreat for the night. It is a regular pattern to our conversations. Far too often, he seems to be looking over his shoulder for the nearest exit.
Lifting the phone, I check the hour. I have a cab scheduled. It’s almost time.
“Yes.” I answer as I brush a stray tear from my cheek. “I'm sorry. I have to go."
Griffin
I placethe decanter of scotch on the bar then return to the fireplace with my freshly filled glass. Holding the drink up, I study the fire through the deep amber liquid. My mind replays the conversation with Katelyn that ended an hour ago.
She all but hung up on me—not angry, but decidedly remote. I am close to losing her again. I can’t pretend ignorance as to why. She keeps opening herself up to me, but I continue to meet her only half way.
Or less.
I sigh then take a sip of the scotch. The flavors melt across my tongue, unfolding from sweet to smoky. Closing my eyes, I lean back against the leather couch and shift my hips. I shouldn’t have grown hard while we talked and I shouldn’t be hard now, but, when I hear Kate, I see her, see all of her, all the ways I’ve known her. I see her vulnerable, obstinate, aroused, submitting, defying.
So I am hard and I will stay hard until the scotch smooths away the need.
I pull my phone out and check the time. Almost midnight.
The hour grates at me. Kate’s shifts at the data center start at two in the morning. She gave me the brush off more than sixty minutes ago. How is she filling the time between?
