Neanderthal by Avery Flynn
Chapter Forty-Six
Griff
The next day, Griff was back home, shut up in his Lego room, looking at the three-thousand-plus individual bricks that would come together to make the Eiffel Tower, but he wasn’t building. The one thing that had always kept one side of his brain busy while the other side worked out the six or seven problems he was dealing with at the moment wasn’t working this time.
He looked over his shoulder at the painting of a man buried under a pile of online shopping delivery boxes from his date night across the harbor. The stupid thing was called Unpack Your Feelings, but despite the Paint and Sip guy’s talk about excessive consumerism in place of actual connections, it would always be The Kiss to Griff.
One glance at that painting and all he could think about was the taste of cheap wine on Kinsey’s lips when she’d kissed him silly. The drive home when it had taken everything he’d had to stop from pulling over in the lot of the outlet mall they’d passed, finding a dark corner to park in, and fucking her until they could both breathe again. He’d made it home to their building’s garage instead, and Jesus, the way she’d looked when she’d come all over his hand. It was imprinted on his brain forever—as was the sound of her laugh, the way she loved to tease him, and the absolutely fucking impressive way her brain worked. She wasn’t perfect, but damn, she was perfect for him.
Doesn’t matter, asshole. She’s gone, and that’s the best thing for her, for her career, for her hopes and dreams and all the things that will make her happy.
He did what had to be done.
The buzzer on his front door went off. Dixon and Fiona were out at brunch with Nash and his little sister and brother, Bristol and Macon. Like him, Morgan had turned down the invite. No doubt she saw it as the perfect opportunity to come for round two of why Griff is an asshole—as if he didn’t already know that.
“It’s open,” he hollered.
Griff spent the time it took her to get from the front door to his Lego room to put a few bricks together—that click was satisfying even when everything had gone to shit—so she wouldn’t realize just how fucked in the head he was at the moment. She didn’t need to see that. She was his little sister. He had to be the strong one for her.
“Good, you’re alone,” said someone who definitely wasn’t Morgan.
Griff’s head snapped up at the sound of his father’s only slightly slurred words, and his shoulders tensed up as if waiting for a blow.
“What are you doing here?” Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. It never was.
His dad smirked. “Saving your ass per usual.”
He resisted the urge to throw the old man out of his place because the rejection would mean he’d start focusing his bile on Morgan. Griff let out a deep breath and reminded himself he could take it.
“How’s that?” Griff asked, forcing himself to sound as if his entire body wasn’t on high alert and an adrenaline rush wasn’t blasting through him.
“With this.” His dad pulled out a thick nine-by-twelve tan envelope with Archambeau’s logo in one corner and tossed it onto the table, sending Lego bricks flying. “Take it.”
Griff’s stomach clenched and his hands stilled. He knew exactly what was in that envelope without having to open it. This fucker. This absolute motherfucker.
He fisted his hands to stop from throwing the envelope at his dad. “Get that away from me.”
“Don’t go all high and mighty on me.” Holden scoffed. “If you think all companies don’t do this, then you’re wrong.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Oh, your little department has come up with its own product that is going to revolutionize the pharmaceutical cosmetics space?” his dad asked with enough snark in his tone to send Griff back to middle school when he’d brought home an A minus. “One that will take Beckett Cosmetics from a luxury boutique line to the most important cosmetics company in the world?”
“We’re doing fine.” They had their niche, and the company was wildly successful by any benchmark his dad wanted to cite.
“No. You’re not.” Holden started pacing the building room, his gait just the slightest bit wobbly, as he poked and prodded the completed Lego sets on display. “God, why are you like this? I spoiled you growing up; that’s why you aren’t hungry. This is for the best. You need to understand that, stop your whining, and take the damn formula. It’s for your own good.”
What. The. Absolute. Fuck.
And that’s when it hit him. Really hit him.
He’d always known his father considered him a disappointment, but Griff had clung to some childish idea, he realized now, some fragile hope, that his mom hadn’t left him all alone, that his dad loved him, he just had the absolute shittiest way of showing it.
Every single one of the horrible things his dad had ever said to him, Griff had just absorbed them all—and kept each spiteful thing inside, building a wall around himself so his doubts never escaped. So his fears and anger and frustration and heartache didn’t ever leak through. Because the alternative was too scary to face.
It was the real reason he’d pushed Kinsey away.
If he hadn’t, he would have had to admit once and for all that his dad had never loved him. Only a father who doesn’t care about his son’s happiness would tell him to lose the woman he loved. That was it, plain and simple. And his father hadn’t hesitated.
His mind was whirring now, everything sliding into place like a puzzle it had taken him literally a lifetime to figure out. Griff loved Kinsey—and she loved him back. He was certain of it, even though she’d never said the words. All he had to do was imagine the look of joy on her face as she walked around his Lego room that was his happy space, the curve of her mouth as they teased each other over who made the best scratch biscuits, the tilt of her chin when she told his sister about his latest barbecue sauce creation. All things he’d never once witnessed with his father. Acceptance. Pride. Understanding.
All he had to do was look at that envelope sitting on his build table to know with absolute clarity that his father was incapable of any of those things with Griff.
And not because Griff wasn’t perfect. Hell, Kinsey was the first one to call him on his shit when he deserved it. But even then, even when her heart had to have been shattering after he’d broken things off with her, she’d told him some hard truths about his dad, but she’d not torn him down to do it.
His hands started to shake as he realized he might never get the chance to fight with Kinsey ever again. And he wanted a lifetime of anything with her. Good times or bad times, he’d love her through all of them—if she let him.
He was so focused on running through various scenarios of how to beg her forgiveness and get her back that he almost forgot his dad was still standing there.
“If you had an ounce of sense in you, you’d take that envelope and make something of your life, son,” his dad repeated. “I only want what’s best for you.”
“Since when do you care about anyone’s good beyond your own?” Griff asked, his voice barely above a whisper because he was holding on so tight to his emotions. If he let the volume go up, that could be the trigger that would set off everything else and a lifetime of anger and frustration and bitterness would roll out like hot lava.
“Don’t talk to me like that, boy,” Holden said, spinning around to try to stare down his son as if he were still a scared, vulnerable kid trying to deal with the loss of his mom. “I am your father, and everything I do, every push I give you, every hand up like this is to make you better.”
“I’m good enough for Kinsey, and that’s good enough for me,” Griff replied, shaking his head. “Monthly brunch with Morgan and me is permanently canceled. You’ll have to find someone else desperate for your approval you can tear down from now on.” He looked his dad dead in the eyes before he could object. “Don’t let the door hit your Nobel ass on the way out.”
His father bristled, but Griff had already wasted too much time listening to this man speak, so he got up and walked out of the room. Eventually, the old man would find his way to the door.
Right now, Griff had to win back the woman he loved, and that focus would require every last ounce of his attention.
He grabbed his phone from his pocket and opened up the Beckett cousin group chat.
GRIFF: SOS MY PLACE ASAP
