Neanderthal by Avery Flynn
Chapter Forty-One
Kinsey
Kinsey didn’t even bother to glance through Wakin’ Bacon’s ten-page menu on this visit to what was now her favorite brunch place in all of Harbor City. Sure, she could pretend it was because she had already memorized the menu during the past month, but the real truth was because she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate enough to read it with Griff’s hand on her upper thigh and moving northward under her skirt.
“Your sister is gonna be back any minute,” she said, trying her best to remember they were in public and having brunch with Griff’s sister—her best friend—when all she wanted was to pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist right now.
He stroked the inside of her thigh, so damn close to her panties that her breath caught.
“So you’re saying I have sixty seconds to get you off?” Griff asked.
“Griff!” Okay, yeah, that didn’t even sound close to censure. She really had forgotten all of her home training. The man was a bad influence, and she fucking loved it.
He dipped his head down and brushed a kiss against the shell of her ear. “Parking garages and balconies are a yes and restaurants are a no, I take it?”
“Not always, but—” She clamped her legs shut, trapping Griff’s hand between her thighs. “Oh my God, here she comes.”
Morgan was walking through the maze of tables packed close together into the café, her expression grim. When she made a sharp left and began beelining it to their table, Griff pulled his hand free and let loose with a string of low curses. That’s when Kinsey realized there was an older man behind Morgan who was obviously following her. Kinsey had seen him before, but it took her a second to place him. He was the same guy with Gavin at the sandwich shop a few weeks ago.
“Well,” the man said, not waiting for an invitation to sit down before sliding into the booth seat across from Kinsey and Griff. “Aren’t I just the luckiest father in the world to run into you.”
Kinsey was still trying to control her oh-shit face at the realization that Gavin had been meeting with Griff’s dad the other week and all the implications that entailed when the older man stuck out his hand.
“Holden Rogers Beckett, but you already knew that, I’m sure,” he said, shooting her a slick smile as he grasped her hand for a too-tight shake. “After all, my children do love to keep me front and center in their lives.” He paused when Morgan sat down next to him but left as much space between them as physically possible. “I ordered a pitcher of Bloody Marys for the table.”
“Our brunch isn’t until next week,” Griff said, his voice deceptively steady, considering how fast his knee was bouncing under the table.
“Exactly.” Holden picked up his glass and inspected it in the light, rubbing away a few water spots. “How lucky is it that you get to see me two weeks in a row?”
Griff grumbled something under his breath, and Morgan sank lower in the booth. The misery was palpable, but Holden was either oblivious or didn’t care. Kinsey wasn’t sure which.
Three-fourths of a pitcher of Bloody Marys by himself later and Holden was launching into another story about how he’d been the one person who saved Griff from a stupid decision by pointing out the many errors in logic that Griff had had as an eight-year-old planning out an experiment for the science fair. Kinsey’s nails were basically embedded in the palms of her hands, and it was taking every fiber of her being not to Instacart rat poison to dump into the big jerk’s drink.
Morgan sat next to her dad, flushed with anger as she worked her jaw back and forth as if she were chewing up every snide insult and coy dig her father issued. Griff, on the other hand, was totally relaxed next to her, buttering his toast and sprinkling cinnamon sugar onto it with bored indifference, as if his dad was talking about how nice the weather had been lately instead of being a total and complete jackass. For his part, Holden seemed completely oblivious, going on and basking in the self-assumed spotlight that all narcissists enjoyed as he barely finished one shitty story before jumping into another.
“At least Griff turned things around somewhat,” Holden said with only a slight slur to his words. “Being head of research and development at a makeup company is something.” He pivoted in the booth to look at his daughter, who was staring straight ahead. “Morgan, you really have to find something besides charitable fiddle-faddle.”
Griff tensed, leaning forward and putting his forearms on the table, their tattooed, muscular width dwarfing his father’s. “You’re not gonna do that.”
Holden turned his head and gave his son a look that would have translated to a bless-your-heart in the very-not-sincere way. “Do what?”
“You’re not going to talk about Morgan and her life choices that way,” Griff said.
“She is wasting her potential.” Holden scoffed. “She has half my DNA, for God’s sake. She could be doing something with her life instead of running a damn bookstore.”
Morgan’s face was a blank canvas, neither angry nor hurt nor murderous. Kinsey knew that look. It was the one she’d spotted on her own face when shutting down was the only way to process the level of bullshit around her. It had been her default expression when her mom had dropped her and her siblings off at Meemaw’s. It had been the one she fell back into when someone patronizingly patted her on the head in the lab or spent an entire workday staring at her boobs. It wasn’t being neutral. It was being armored up, being protected by layers and layers of mental shields so that nothing could reach you. It was safety when the only other option was trauma.
To keep herself from stabbing Holden in the eye with a butter knife, Kinsey reached across the table and took Morgan’s hand. Her bestie’s gaze flicked over to her for a second, and she gave her a brief smile before going back into lockdown mode.
Kinsey had never felt more violent in her life than when she looked at Holden and the smarmy, self-satisfied expression on his patrician face.
Griff let out an honest-to-God low growl. “Shut up, Dad.”
“Why, Griff?” Morgan said, snapping back to herself, a barely leashed fury apparent in each clipped word. “We all know this is what he thinks. He’s been like this since I decided against majoring in microbiology in college.” She grabbed a handful of crinkle-cut fries sprinkled liberally with everything but the bagel seasoning and stuffed it in her mouth before flipping off her dad, stepping out of the booth, and walking out of the café without a single look back.
Kinsey wanted to start the slow clap for her. Fucking powerhouse. Instead, she laid her hand on Griff’s thigh and gave it an encouraging squeeze, just imagining the fury he was about to unleash on his dad. His quads were tight underneath her palm, and his entire body was coiled with repressed energy.
“Not another fucking word about her again,” Griff said. “Ever. Got it?”
“You two are ridiculous. You act like you know everything that’s going on, but you don’t have a damn clue. I can only do so much for you; don’t fuck it up by getting attached.” Holden tossed his napkin on the table and got up, his stance a little wavier than he had been when he’d first sat down; almost a whole pitcher of triple vodka Bloody Marys would do that to a person. “I’ll see you next Saturday.”
Holden turned, nearly crashed into a waiter carrying four plates at once, and stormed out of the café.
Kinsey’s heart was going a million miles an hour from all the effort it took not to murder Griff’s dad. Seriously. The man was worse than rancid butter slathered on a biscuit from the week-old rack at the bakery. “You’re really meeting him next week?”
Griff shrugged.
Kinsey tried to wrap her brain around it. Holden Beckett was toxic as fuck, a horrible dad, and probably kicked puppies for shits and giggles. As Griff continued to eat his brunch meal of chicken and waffles with an extra cup of country gravy, she tried to imagine what could be going on. None of the options she came up with made sense.
“Is it always like that with him?” she asked, doing her damnedest to understand what in the waffle fries was going on here.
Griff kept his attention on his plate, pushing around what was left of his waffles as if he still had the stomach to eat any of it. “Pretty much.”
Okay, deep breaths, Kinsey. Families can be complicated. Griff’s only dating you to win a bet. Yes, you are fucking like rabbits, but that’s chemistry, not a mutual connection. Just because you feel it doesn’t mean he does. If he did, he would have said something by now. Treading the murky waters of family dynamics needs to be done with care. So shut your mouth. Don’t say it. Stay out of it.
“And you’re okay with that?” Damn. So much for listening to her smarter self.
“Not with him talking about Morgan like that,” Griff said, laying his fork and knife down on his plate with exacting care, as if he couldn’t trust himself not to smash it all to hell. “She doesn’t deserve his shit.”
“Neither do you, Griff.”
That shrug of his shoulders again. “But I can take it.”
Pow. Right in the heart.
Kinsey scooted closer to Griff on the bench seat, taking his hand in hers and laying her head on his shoulder. If she could have squeezed her body between him and the table’s edge so she could wrap around him like a blanket, she would have. Fuck Holden Beckett.
“But do you have to? You could—”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “I really am, but I can’t see it.”
“My mom’s gone. Grandma Betty’s gone.” Finally, Griff turned to look at her. Pain shone in his eyes as bright as a neon Bud Light sign at the hole-in-the-wall bar on Main Street back home. “He’s all that’s left.”
“What about Morgan and your cousins?”
“That’s different.” He turned his focus back to the table. “I watch out for them.”
“And your dad watches out for you?”
Griff didn’t say anything for a second, then let out a heavy sigh. “In his way.”
Wow. Just capital W. O. W. Wow. She had nothing she could say to that, so instead she palmed Griff’s face, his dark beard tickling her palms; turned him so he was looking at her again; and kissed him.
“You don’t always have to be the one watching out for everyone,” she said, her voice breaking. “You don’t have to sit by the campfire in the dark alone.”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Is that a promise?”
“Yeah,” she whispered back. “I guess it is.”
And she wasn’t just saying it to make him feel better. The truth of it was a warm, living thing inside her that filled her up with bubbles of hope until it was like she could float right out of the café. All of it came together the way answers always came to her in a rush of understanding that she couldn’t deny. She loved Griff Beckett, and she wanted to be by his side facing off sabertooth tigers and anything else that went bump in the night—and she wanted to start now.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re going home.”
He didn’t ask. He didn’t take time to think about it. He just took her hand and hauled her out of the booth with that look in his eyes that made her want to strip down in the middle of the café and have her wicked way with him right the fuck now. Since getting arrested for indecent exposure and lewd activities wasn’t on her to-do list today, though, she kept it together—at least long enough to get almost all the way inside his front door.
