Neanderthal by Avery Flynn

Chapter Forty-Two

Griff

Three days later, Griff was in the shower letting the high-pressure jets set to peel-off-the-top-layer-of-skin beat against his back, working his way through two problems he couldn’t find the answer to.

The first one was if it was finally the right time to tell Kinsey he loved her. She’d said she didn’t want him to be alone at the campfire in the dark even after meeting his father. She wanted to protect him. He could bench-press her with one hand, but she had gone all feral on him.

He tilted his chin and let the water blast his scalp, a dumb-ass grin on his face. Thank God no one could see it. Still, he couldn’t stop smiling, because Kinsey wasn’t the type of person who would make that declaration if she didn’t care—or, maybe, even love him back. Right? It was a question that made his balls shrink just to think about answering. The safe bet was to keep going like they were. If he didn’t press the issue, she wouldn’t have to answer, and he still had hope.

Dangerous fucking thing that was, an unknown variable that could make everything blow up in his face.

The second problem was what in the hell his dad was up to. There was no way he’d just happened upon them at Wakin’ Bacon. Dad’s idea of brunch was adding a splash of coffee to his whiskey. The man survived on spirits and spite—any actual food intake was gravy. So Griff wasn’t buying the accidentally-ran-into-them excuse. His dad had been there—and on his worst behavior even for him—for a reason.

Griff took the bar of soap and scrubbed it across his chest, arms, and face, using more force than necessary as his frustration built up. Something was wrong, and it was just out of reach.

That’s when it hit him—that throwaway line of his dad’s about not getting attached. Holden Beckett had never given two shits about his or Morgan’s love lives before. This time, though, his dad had sent out a warning.

In the next heartbeat, Griff was out of the shower and halfway across the bathroom. The water pelted the tile walls as he looked through one eye—the other one had soap in it—to text his dad.

GRIFF: What did you mean by “don’t get attached” the other day?

DAD: Have you sunk so low that you need a dictionary for that phrase?

The man was never going to stop being an asshole, but that didn’t mean he got to add Kinsey to his list of targets.

GRIFF: Leave Kinsey alone.

DAD: I’m not the one you need to worry about.

GRIFF: Who?

DAD: She’s a somewhat smart girl, but corporate secrets aren’t meant to be leaked.

And there was his dad, fucking with his head, but Griff knew Kinsey. She wasn’t that person.

GRIFF: Bullshit.

His dad didn’t bother to respond with another text, and Griff just stood there naked and dripping in the middle of his bathroom, staring at his phone screen, reading the exchange over and over again. Archambeau was on the verge of something big. Everyone in the industry knew it after their last stockholder call, but the specifics had stayed under wraps.

“Complicated.”

That’s how she’d described what was going on between them. She had to balance being the new person in the lab with dating the head of R&D at Beckett Cosmetics. Even if people only thought it was for a bet, there would be questions, concerns, avenues of research that would be denied to her—and that would be if it went the best way possible. Margins were tight, and even a hint of a corporate double cross or leaking company intellectual property could result in Kinsey losing her chance at the career she wanted.

But it was more than that. Kinsey’s job was about more than just being her passion; it was her way of protecting her grandmother. That he could understand all too well. That’s what someone did for those they loved; they protected them and those they cared about—even when it hurt, even when it was the last thing in the world the person wanted to do.

And he loved Kinsey.

He couldn’t let Kinsey lose what she wanted in life if it was in his power to help protect her—and it was. The worst thing for her career if people were beginning to talk about corporate secrets being spilled was for her to be connected to a Beckett.

Griff dropped his phone onto the bathroom countertop and sat down on the edge of the tub. His big ass barely fit, but he didn’t give a shit, because his legs weren’t about to hold him upright at this moment. He sucked in a deep breath as his eyes watered—and it had nothing to do with the soap suds.

There was only one solution.

He slammed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to stop all of it, the emotions, the agony, the truth that was so obvious, he didn’t need his eyes to see it.

Fuck.

This was the last thing he wanted—the very last thing—but it was the best thing for her, and that’s all that mattered. After all, it wasn’t like they were a real couple. This whole thing was one-sided. She was having fun. He had fallen in love. Now, all that was over.

He got up, grabbed the towel off the hook on the back of the door, and shut off the shower. The silence meant he could hear Kinsey’s murder podcast, the one she listened to while doing yoga on his bedroom floor. The woman was chaotic good personified, sunshine wrapped around steel. Taking longer than necessary, he dried off and forced himself to figure out the next steps. Never in his life had his brain moved so slowly to put the pieces together.

Finally, when he had it together, he wrapped the towel around himself and walked out into his bedroom. Kinsey was laying on her back, her eyes closed, with her arms by her sides and her legs extended. If this had been the first time he’d found her like this, he would have assumed she was asleep, judging by her slow, steady breathing. He couldn’t help but wish that she was, so he could delay this.

She cracked open an eye. “Well, hello there, good-looking.” She opened both eyes and gave him a more considering look, her grin melting into a flat line. “Bad news?”

Griff affected a relaxed expression, forcing his mouth to curl upward as he leaned against the bathroom doorframe, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Actually, it’s great news.”

Kinsey sat up, her eyes wide in anticipation. “So spill.”

Pain made his gut twist into a knot that nearly brought him to his knees, but he could do this—he had to—for her. “I got my cousins to agree that the dates we planned ourselves should count for the bet and so that’s six dates out of the way. We’re free.”

She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as she cocked her head to one side. “Free?”

“Yeah.” He pushed through the agony squeezing his chest, determined to keep it light so she didn’t feel bad.

“Griff, I can’t—”

“Believe it’s finally over?” he interrupted, needing to get this over with before he broke down in front of her. “I know. Don’t take me wrong. It’s been fun and all, but we both have regular lives to get back to.”

Kinsey narrowed her gaze and stood up, placing her hands on her full hips. “That’s a lot of words.”

“Just excited, I guess.” He shrugged, ignoring the rusty-ice-pick-worthy sharp pain in his side. “You know, there’s a guy at the gym you might like; I can vouch that he’s not a complete asshole.” How he’d even gotten those words out, he had no idea. There was no one at his gym good enough for her. She was amazing. Smart. Funny. Ambitious. She deserved everything that she had coming to her, and he wasn’t about to stand in the way of that. “Can I give him your number?”

“Sure,” she said as her expression changed, going from concerned to utterly and completely neutral.

There. The confirmation he needed to see that all of this was just fun for her, that none of it mattered. She was just being a friend, helping him win a bet. He’d known it all along; he’d just been foolish enough to think he could change that. Somewhere, his dad was laughing his ass off.

“Cool.” It was anything fucking but. God, his whole body hurt; every inch of skin was on fire and his joints blazed. It was like he was only seconds from combusting.

She let out a long, shaky sigh and grabbed her phone and keys. “Congrats on winning the bet.”

This fucking bet. He didn’t give a shit about it and hadn’t since he’d first heard her voice, but he had to play along for her. All of this had to be convincing. She wasn’t the type of person who would leave someone who needed help, which was why she’d agreed to help him in the first place. She’d sat by him at the campfire, but now he had to let her go—for her own good.

“I haven’t yet. Nash still has to fall in love, but I have ideas.” God, he sounded like the biggest douche even to himself. “Thanks for doing this. I can’t imagine it working with anyone else but you.”

She shot him a tight smile. “I’ll get out of your hair, then.”

He kept his arms bolted to his sides so he wouldn’t reach for her. “Let me know when I can return the favor.”

Kinsey nodded, her lips smashed together, and then walked out of his front door and his life—exactly what he wanted to happen. Just like he wanted his legs to finally give out, because his heart had cracked wide open.