Neanderthal by Avery Flynn

Chapter Four

Griff

While countering Mac’s hard jabs and right hooks in the ring, Griff had been unwinding the details of how he was going to rearrange his Lego room to best display the Taj Mahal when he completed it. There were pros and cons to moving the Death Star closer to the Millennium Falcon, and he had been working through them when a woman’s voice cut into all the noise in his head.

All the background racket stilled.

Mac’s punches shifted into slow motion.

It was just this voice, thick like honey barbecue sauce with a snap of something tart in it to balance out all that sweet.

He delivered a swift one-two combination that had Mac back on his heels just so he could listen to that voice. Thirty seconds. Tops. That’s all it took for her to silence Eddie and Phil, who’d been having the same three debates every day for the past week and a half (she was correct on all three counts, even if the argument could be made for Manny Pacquiao) and put Eggsy’s shithead friend Wade in his place. Hell, it probably wasn’t the first time someone had threatened—or wanted—to stab Wade with a fork, but it still had probably moved the asshole back to his spot behind the front desk. Griff had planned on telling Tommy what he was doing wrong with the mop bucket as soon as his match was over, so she beat him to the punch there as well.

Whoever she was, this woman was someone special, and out of all the gyms in Harbor City, she’d chosen him—no, his gym, not him. Aunt Celeste and her tarot readings were not influencing his thinking on this. Hell, he hadn’t even had a chance to turn and check out the woman the voice belonged to yet—or her ring finger. Not that he gave a shit about that, of course, because he was happily staying single.

“Hey, Griff!” his sister called out, ending the silent spell and bringing all of the noise crowding his head back into play. “I brought Kinsey by.”

He muttered a few words that were practically a six-page monologue for him while his brain tried to unravel what it was about that woman that clicked with him. Then she went into a no-doubt-about-it monologue about The Great British Bake Off hosts, and everything clicked. Her logic was impeccable. Her defense of her position passionate. Her diatribe was lengthy but fucking fascinating.

Time seemed to stop.

Everything went silent.

He was already at the altar before he’d even seen her.

It took only as long as his inhale to have all the details about Morgan’s friend fall into place. Country bumpkin who was new to town. Working for the enemy. The closest person his all-acquaintances-and-few-friends sister had to a bestie.

On the exhale, he glanced over at Morgan, and then for the first time his attention traveled over to the woman next to her. The one who had Wade looking sheepishly at her while Eddie and Phil were in awe. The voice, it had been her.

It was like there was a blast of lightning from the heavens followed by a crack of thunder that shook him down to the soles of his boxing shoes.

It wasn’t until he was on his way to the mat that Griff realized it had actually been Mac’s fist crashing into his jaw with enough power to lay him out flat right in front of the woman he was going to marry.

Way to make a first impression, dumb-ass.