Page 89 of Repairing the Wreckage

“Knock it off, drama queen.” I grab my plate and hold it out to her. “And give me another pancake.”

She shakes with laughter as she returns to the stove and slides her spatula under a fresh pancake—with no burned bits.

After she sets it on my plate, I say, “Remember the first episode where they made fun of Griff for putting the picture of us on his nightstand?”

Kyla rolls her eyes. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know if they were making fun of it,” Darcy argues. “I thought it was more like they were highlighting how genuine and wholesome Griff is…er, was.”

I let out a sad snort-laugh. “Sure, whatever. Anyway.” I circle my hand in front of my chest as if that will help unroll the words from my mouth. “When I watched that part again…” I swallow down the sourness crawling up my throat. “I noticed the picture isn’t on the nightstand.”

Kyla’s eyes widen. “Noooo. Really? How’d we miss that?”

“Because we were all staring at the couple in the bed?” Darcy swivels her hips in a circle. “Making it rain in fuck town.”

She’s so ridiculous, a giggle-snort bursts out of me.

“And listening to the announcer guy,” Hayden adds. “She’s right, look.” Hayden holds out her phone to Darcy, then Kyla.

The girls all crowd around Hayden to squint at her phone. I stay right where I am. I’ve studied the footage on a much bigger screen and still don’t know what to think. Of course I want to believe he didn’t cheat on me. But I don’t want to be the oblivious girl who follows her heart and ignores her brain.

“He could’ve just put it away out of guilt,” Darcy suggests.

A few folks on Reddit would agree.

“Maybe,” Hayden mutters, staring at the screen. “Damn, we need like a computer forensics team to clean up this footage for us.”

Something about that is so absurd, uncontrollable laughter bursts out of me.

“You know, the fact that the film quality is so bad and that they never really showed Griff and Kiki together again, points to it not being true,” Jenn says.

“Are you sure you want to go to school for cosmetology?” Hayden pats her cousin’s head. “You sound like a defense lawyer.”

“Wait.” I focus my attention on Jenn. “Back up. You kept watching the show too?” I shoot a dirty look at Darcy who gave me weekly updates right until I left for college.

“Hell yeah we did,” Darcy says. “That guy Woolly is hot as fuck.”

“I’d let him ground and pound me any day.” Hayden lets out a shrill whistle and claps her hands.

“Traitors.” I cross my arms over my chest again.

“I did not partake in any more viewings,” Kyla says, slipping an arm around my waist.

“Thanks.” I rest my head on her shoulder.

“Well, Griff made it to the end,” Darcy says.

“Obviously, since he just got home,” I mutter.

“Yeah, but they haven’t shown the last episode yet,” Darcy says. “Rumor is someone got injured.”

Griff had looked pretty bad last night once I really took him in.

Nope. I don’t care if he won the show or not. If I never hear about Supreme Underground Fighter ever again, it’ll be way too soon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Griff

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