"Come to a party with me." a quiet voice stirred me out of my roundabout thoughts.
It didn't take a genius to know who was standing in my doorway; it took a genius to figure out how to get him out of my house completely.
"I'm not going to a party, Griffin." I responded without looking up from the pile of envelopes on my bed.
"I know you don't want me in here, that you'd probably rather watch me jump off a cliff than get in a car with me, but I think it'd be good for you. It would get your mind off of all of this shit."
His voice was closer, as were the echo of his footsteps. I lifted my head up a fraction, feeling Arrow twitch on my lap at the closeness of Griffin.
Sometime over the last couple weeks, he had given up shaving his beard all together. I had seen it grown out once before, but it had only been for a couple days. I had always thought a slight stubble on a guy was kind of hot; Toby has teased me about it for years.
"Thanks for the concern, but I don't want to go." I tore my eyes away and went back to staring at the untouched zip lock back in front of me.
Arrow stretched as she stood on my lap, then waddled over to Griffin and threw herself down on his arm. A hint of a smile played at his lips, losing his eyes in the puppy's brown ones.
"Tobias is such a kiss ass." He stated, rubbing Arrow's head with his thumb, "What guy buys a chick a dog, then friendzones the hell out of her?"
"Toby's one of a kind." I replied.
"That he is." Griffin agreed, "What if I told you Toby would be at the party?"
I pushed the zip lock of envelopes under the fold of my comforter and turned to Griffin once more, "I've got more important stuff to do than spend my Friday night at a party, Griff."
"Please." He took my hand, "I'm sick and tried of seeing you hurt over that piece of crap."
"One thing that piece of crap told me was to never give into peer pressure." I poked his nose with a small smile and stood up, setting Arrow in her small bed on my way to my desk.
I could feel Griffin's eyes on me from across the room, all I could do was shift anxiously under his gaze. I was scared to go downstairs and face my brothers and stepmom. I was horrified to face my father if he was down there too.
Maybe a party wouldn't be so bad, it would loosen me up and get me out of the house for a while. Most of the guys in our town new better than to come within a hundred feet of me if they had thoughts of hitting on me; in there eyes I was the Crazy Eight's little sister and they'd be left for dead if they touched me.
"Yeah, okay." I spun and faced my brother's best friend on the bed, "I'll go to a party with you."
*
Griffin Young's definition of a party was far different from my brothers idea of one. We didn't pull up to a yard littered with red solo cups and teenagers wandering around aimlessly, we pulled up to a small diner I hadn't been to since I was a kid.
"Griffin, you said-" I started, turning my attention from the window to the boy in the driver's seat beside me.
"I know what I said. We will party here, just not in the way you think." he climbed out without another word, reaching in back and grabbing his Letterman to keep the cold front from the getting the best of him and nipping at his bare arms.
I locked the doors on my way out of the car and met him in front of the Camero parked next to us, hugging my own light jacket around me. A peaceful feeling set inside me once we walked through the front doors.
I had always loved how unique the diner was. It was a bar for all ages. They had live performers on the small stage that also hosted karaoke once and a while. The tables were set in a strange diagonal pattern, the table tops resembling that of a sixties diner.
"Welcome to Swingers! I'm Alicia, I'll be your server today." a girl around our age perked up from where she stood leaning against the counter, waving.
"Hi." the left side of Griffin's mouth curved into a smile, "Do we just take a seat?"
"Yes. We'll have water brought your way as soon as possible."
Griffin and I weaved in and out of a few tables before we sat in front of the stage, a band currently in the midst of setting up.
"I wonder if they understand the double meaning of the name of this place." Griffin muttered, tapping his fingers against the cold tabletop. I slid out of my jacket and draped it over the back of my chair as I smiled.
"I'm sure they do." I glanced around the semi-crowded diner, "I feel so over dressed."
"You're fine." Griffin turned his dark, attentive eyes to me.
"I have a ton of makeup on, Griffin, and we're at a small diner." I pointed out, rubbing at my cheek with a frown. He reached out and pried my fingers from my cheek.
"Nobody is staring, you're all good." he assured me, keeping my hand pinned to the table. He sat quietly until they set our drinks on the table and took our order. Once the waitress was out of sight, he leaned back in his chair and stared at me.
"First things first, Alexis, I want you to tell me how you are feeling right now. At this very second." He leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
"I feel horrible for being selfish around Lucas. I feel like absolute garbage for running out on my video chatting session with Evan. I feel like I'd be better off burying myself in blankets then doing anything else."
He only nodded, not questioning who Evan was or forcing me to say more.
"I think that being selfish about Lucas' situation is normal, Alexis. He's been your father figure for as long as you can remember. You're having a sense of separation anxiety. Some of your thoughts might be from there too, the thought of losing not only your brother, but the boy who pretty much raised you. You're probably jealous and angry too. You're jealous that he has a real daughter now that he'll give his full attention too and angry because his girlfriend never told him about his daughter and expects him to jump when she tells him to." his words came out so soft that I had to strain to hear them.
"When did you become a psychologist, Griffin?" I laughed, wiping at my eyes before tears could escape them.
He chuckled, "I've always been smart. Plus I was taking it last year. You wouldn't believe the kind of chicks that were in that class. They were all gorgeous." I shook my head at his answer, smiling at the normalcy of the conversation.
"I'm sure you hit on every single one of them and they loved every second of it." I answered, pushing my hair out of my eyes as I sipped at my water.
"You know me so well, babe." he winked, stirring the ice in his water with his straw.
The smile fell from his face when he spoke up again, "As for the video chatting, I can only assume that whoever you were facing was a shock or surprise. You don't have a filter, Alexis. It's one of the things I love most about you, the other being how you act on your emotions, your heart. Whoever was on the other side, this Evan, will understand if you explain the situation to him." I bowed my head with a slow nod.
"As for the burying yourself in blankets and feeling that the world would be better without you; forget the thought ever came to your mind. I love you, Alex. Every time I have a shit day, your face is the first I try to find because I know there will be a smile on it no matter your own mood. Your brothers all love you to death too. You're our sun, we revolve around you, we wouldn't be able to live without you." I felt my lips begin to part as I lifted my head to meet Griffin's hazel eyes.
He offered a weak smile that I returned, "So I can't go move to Canada and forget you all existed?"
"We'd just follow you there." He said, laughing. I was about to call the waitress over to us when the band began to play behind Griffin. He stood before I could and offered me his hand.
"Wanna dance?" he questioned. I thought about what he said for a moment before setting my purse down on my seat and taking his hand. He led me a few feet away so we didn't run into any tables and stepped up to whisper something to the singer of the band.
They weren't all that bad; an indie pop band with an obvious rock influence.
When Griffin stepped back down, I threw my head back and laughed at the slow song that began to play. "You didn't!"
He nodded and took my hand again, "I did."
The day of my thirteen birthday party my favorite band, Heart to Heart, had come out with a song called Rose. I had loved the song so much that every time it came on the radio, I'd blare it no matter our location. It had drove my brothers, Toby, and Griffin insane. They had gotten to a point where they knew every lyric as well as I did.
Griffin spun me as he sang along to a verse of the song, "'Every petal is a reason I love you. Every thorn is a promise of getting too close to you."
I rested my head against Griffin's chest, forgetting for a moment that we were dancing and buried my face against his Letterman. Holding me there in the middle of the diner, onlookers watching, I wrapped my arms around his neck and shook my head against his chest.
"It's okay if you want to cry." he breathed into my ear, "I'm here, Alex, and I'm not going anywhere."
I gripped the back of his jacket in my fist and allowed the tears I'd been holding back all night to finally escape and soak my brother's best friend's Letterman. For the first time in the last month, I was allowing my emotions to get the best of me and completely destroy any sort of control I had left.
***AN***
A filler chapter, I know. But a necessary one
Let me know what you guys thought!
~ChasingMadness24