Stitches by Sam Mariano
5
Moira
I can’t sleep,so I finally give up and go for my morning run a couple hours early. It works out, anyway. I’m feeling the need to run a little longer than my usual two miles. I go for three, then walk for another half hour before returning home to shower.
Sebastian is awake. I feel relieved when I get back to the bedroom and he’s up. Griff is still in bed—poor guy’s probably going to have a hell of a headache. I took a bottle of water in and left it on the end table before I went for my run, just in case he woke up and needed it.
I don’t know exactly what to make of last night, so I do my best to shrug it off. My handsome husband swallows up my attention, joining me in the shower and getting me off while he soaps me up. I’m weak from my orgasm and he bends me over, shoving his glorious cock inside me and fucking me like a ragdoll.
God, I love him.
I’m weak and fully under his spell when we step out. It’s hard to let him leave in the morning sometimes. I miss him terribly when he’s gone. I think about him on and off all day. I’ve never been so in love in all my life, and I didn’t know this feeling could last. He’s just the most incredible man I’ve ever met. Sexy and generous and elegant. Any given day, he’s dressed so well he might’ve just stepped out of GQ. He turns me to mush.
He knows it, too. Right now, as he straightens his tie and looks at me draped naked and exhausted across our bed, he’s so damn smug.
“Shut up, you handsome devil,” I tell him.
“I said nothing,” he says, with ridiculous innocence. There’s not an innocent bone in this man’s magnificent body.
“You wore me out and now I have to go make cookies.”
His dark eyebrows rise with surprise. “Cookies? For breakfast?”
I manage a nod. “I promised Griff cookies. I’m not sure he’ll even remember, but on the off chance he does, I don’t want to disappoint him.”
Sebastian walks over and smacks my ass. “You couldn’t disappoint a man if you tried.”
“Yes, well, you probably feel that way because we just had shower sex. Given Griff did not just get a morning orgasm, he probably doesn’t feel the same way. I have to give him cookies.”
“If they’re supposed to make up for lack of orgasms, you better be making one hell of a batch of cookies.”
I crack a tired smile, then drag my ass out of bed so I can get dressed.
As it happens, I have an incredible recipe for ginger cookies that may be as good as sex. Not sex with Sebastian, but probably sex with stupid Ashley. What a jerk. Griff is such a wonderful, attractive man; I honestly can’t believe she would do this to him.
I bake them some fresh cookies while I prepare their breakfast. I go for a classic mix—some fruit for starters, scrambled eggs and sausage to go with it, and a slice of toast with a thin layer of grape jelly.
I also make them coffee and get out the orange juice, just in case.
Griff comes in behind Sebastian, but he is not as ready for the day. He did pull his dress shirt back on, but the brightness of the kitchen lights make him squint so I go over and turn them off. I light a candle on the table instead.
“Thanks,” Griff mutters.
“Of course,” I say, brightly. “How did you sleep?”
“Like shit,” he answers, appearing confused that I already made him a plate and put it on the table for him. Nonetheless, he drops into the chair and stares at it for another moment.
“How do you take your coffee?” I ask him, pouring a cup for him and stopping with enough room for cream and sugar.
“Black,” he answers.
I nod and top it off, then carry it over and slide it up next to his plate, flashing him a smile. “Want some orange juice, too?”
“No, thanks.” He frowns at me, like I’m some sort of oddity. “Man, your house is full-service, isn’t it?”
I smile faintly. “I waited tables for years; can’t break the habit.”
Never had a reason to. Sebastian has a traditional streak. He enjoys having me wait on him, and I take pleasure in doing it; it all works out.
I pour Sebastian some coffee—he takes it black, too—and take it over. It’s only natural for me to bend down and give him a kiss afterward, but as I straighten, rest my hands on his shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze, I can’t help noticing Griff watching, his gaze narrowed, almost like he’s annoyed by it. His words from last night come back, but they bring dread with them.
Griff and Sebastian aren’t merely friends—they’re family. When I met them Sebastian told me that, how Griff is really the only family he has. My husband is an orphan, and Griff was half an orphan. He had a mom out there somewhere, but he ended up in foster care alongside Sebastian, and that’s how they met. They didn’t stay in the same house for the duration, but they did stay in the same school system until Sebastian aged out of the system. He’s older by a year, so Griff ditched his foster family and went to stay with Sebastian until he aged out, too.
For half their lives, they’ve been inseparable. Their loyalty to one another is the only thing in the world they never question. I hate to think Griff is going to drift again because of me. I can’t be the thing that comes between them.
I don’t even know how I could be. You wouldn’t know it by his drunken behavior last night, but Griff has never had feelings like that for me. It has to be because of everything that’s going on with Ashley. It has him off-kilter and lonely. He knows how happy I make Sebastian, and he feels like it’s me, like I’m the harbinger of happiness. I’m not, though. Sebastian and I are just really lucky to have found one another. We’re cut from complementary panels, like fabric cut haphazardly that somehow, sewn together, creates something perfect.
I’m not perfect and he’s not, either; it’s just that our flaws fit together seamlessly and give off the impression of perfection.
Griff doesn’t have that, though. I’ve never felt like he and Ashley had that kind of connection, and now that I know she’s been sleeping around behind his back, I’m quite sure of it. I would never do that to Sebastian, not for anything in the world. If I ever felt unhappy, I would talk to Sebastian about it and we would fix it.
It’s incredible to have that, and I’m so sad Griff doesn’t.
I think about him implying he felt left out last night, so as I walk past, I try to throw him a bone, letting my hand drift across his shoulders and giving him a one-handed gentle squeeze.
Then I feel ridiculous for thinking “throw him a bone,” like Griff is someone who needs pity attention. Not by a long shot. He may be in pain right now from Ashley’s bullshit, but Griff is impressive in his own right. Sebastian and Griff are both incredible specimens—not just physically, but their unrelenting drive. These two men know what they want, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get it.
They began their journey in life as castoffs with nothing. They sacrificed and saved and worked their asses off—five jobs between them, at one point—living in squalor so they could make something of themselves. They purchased their first business at the tender ages of 22 and 23. They continued to work their asses off, and now they both have so much. Half a dozen businesses, beautiful homes, loving wives….
Well, no, I guess Griff doesn’t have that anymore.
Dammit, Ashley.
He can do so much better, though. If she doesn’t appreciate what she has in Griff, she doesn’t deserve him. It kills me that he’s in so much pain now—even if he won’t properly show it, I know he is. Last night wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Last time Griff called me drunk to come pick him up in the middle of the night was right before he met Ashley. He had stopped hanging out with us, then one night he called me out of the blue. He told me he was walking around and couldn’t find his house. I told him to stay put and I went to find him so I could get him home safely.
Now he’s a grown ass man. Sebastian is 8 years older than me, so Griff is 7—that makes him 31. He should be settling down, not going through his first divorce.
I wanna give Griff a hug, but given last night, I decide not to. I felt like I should mention it to Sebastian this morning, but I also didn’t know what to say. Nothing untoward actually happened. He joked that if I took off his pants he might get an erection, but that wasn’t a big deal. Sure, he pulled my body close in bed, but he’s lonely and hurting; he probably just needed some affection. I’m sure in his vulnerability last night, he probably said things he didn’t mean.
“So, what should I make you gentlemen for dinner tonight?” I ask casually, grabbing my own plate and taking my seat at the table.
Griff raises a dark golden brow at me. “Us gentlemen? I don’t live here.”
“You don’t remember last night?” I ask.
His blue eyes dull a little and his gaze drops to the table.
I guess that answers that.
I skip that part, though, and say, “I invited you to stay tonight. You owe me a Hepburn double feature. I’ll make dinner and we’ll stay in and be lazy asses.”
Griff shakes his head. “Gonna have to pass.”
“Why?” Sebastian asks.
Griff glances over at him, but he seems a little uneasy, and I hate it. “Got shit to do.”
“What kind of shit? Packing up Ashley’s clothes and tossing it on the lawn shit?”
Griff just rolls his eyes.
“If that’s what you have to do, I’m happy to help,” Sebastian volunteers. “We’ll get it done fast, then we can come spend the rest of the night with Moira and Audrey.”
Shaking his head, he spears a forkful of scrambled eggs. “You’re relentless,” he states, before taking a bite.
“You are leaving her, right?” Sebastian pushes, watching his best friend.
“Stop,” Griff says, cutting Sebastian an unfriendly look as he reaches for his coffee. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Then tell me you’re calling a divorce lawyer this afternoon and I’ll gladly drop it,” Sebastian states. “Otherwise, I’m going to keep talking about it.”
“Then I’m going to leave,” Griff states.
Sebastian feigns a grimace. “Your car’s at Callahan’s.”
“I’ll walk,” Griff shoots back. “I’m not going to sit here and discuss this shit with you, Seb. It’s my life, not yours.”
“She makes you miserable. She cheats on you. You put up a good fight, Griff, but there’s nothing left to fight for.”
Pointedly ignoring my husband, Griff eats his food in silence.
I’m not nearly as pushy as Sebastian, but I’m uncomfortable with the fact that it does seem like Griff isn’t planning to leave Ashley. If I thought it was because he loved her too much or they had more good times than bad, that would make sense. It breaks my heart right in half even imagining it, but if Sebastian cheated on me, I don’t know how I could leave him. I’d want to, I’d be completely miserable, but we’ve had all these happy years and I’m sure we have more ahead of us.
It doesn’t seem like the same can be said for Griff and Ashley. They had a good year, followed by a couple of tepid years, and then a couple of shitty years. What’s the point? Marriage means something to me, but my relationship is wonderful. Griff seems to have married the wrong woman, and I hate that he’s settling for unhappiness.
He forgot his phone in the bedroom, so while I won’t ask in front of Sebastian, who has already been quite vocal in his opinion of what Griff needs to do next, I follow my friend down the hall to retrieve his phone.
Checking behind me to make sure Sebastian isn’t in hearing range, I step inside. Griff pauses when he turns back and finds me standing in the doorway.
“Why are you staying with her?” I ask him.
He doesn’t get as annoyed when I press him about this as Sebastian, but he’s not quick to answer, either.
“Is it because you love her too much to let go? Because your life feels empty when you think of it without her? Is it because you know you’ll get past this and have many beautiful years together? Or is it because you don’t want to be alone? Because if it’s the last one, I think you’re making a huge mistake. I don’t think Ashley deserves you. I think you deserve a woman who looks at you and sees you. Who values you. Who knows your worth. You deserve much better than ‘not as lonely,’ Griff. You deserve to be loved, and I don’t think Ashley loves you.”
A sad smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “No one does, Moira.”
“That is not true,” I tell him, firmly. “We do. We love you. And someone else will, too. Someone who deserves you—not someone who uses you and treats you like shit.”
“Stop with the ‘we’ shit, please,” he says, brushing past me on his way out of the bedroom.
I grab his shoulder. I shouldn’t—I should let him go, but I feel like I’d be letting him go to make the biggest mistake of his life. My stomach twists, because the alternative might be making the biggest mistake of mine.
I mean this, but not the way he might take it.
“I do,” I tell him, halting his descent. “I love you. And I want more for you than you can have with her.”
He stands there for a moment like I stole his ability to walk. He finally looks at me over his shoulder—no, glares. “That’s fucking mean.”
My heart sinks clear down to my stomach. “I’m not trying to be mean.”
He laughs a little before walking away, but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah, you never are.”
