Page 14 of Holding Out

Griff could have told CJ a whole lot more than that, but he kept his mouth shut.This wasn’t about him; it was about CJ.

“You’re just one of us now, that’s all.You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but you should know that if you do want to talk about it, pretty much any guy here will listen.And understand.”

CJ didn’t move.He didn’t acknowledge Griff’s words in any outright way.But Griff could feel the tension leaving the kid’s body, inch by inch.Shoulders dropping, jaw releasing, heart slowing.

CJ had no way to know that Griff was a total and complete hypocrite.

Now he reached across the table and clapped CJ on the arm.“You want a tip, kid?”

“I can get my own pussy.”

Griff felt a growl form in the pit of his stomach, but made himself breathe slow.It was a trick he’d learned a long time ago.If you were calm, you made the people around you calm.“Not if you talk that way, you won’t.”

CJ’s eyes flicked up from the table.“You telling me how to get laid?”

Okay, so maybe the kidwashotheaded.Not surprising in a twenty-something guy who’d been back from the Middle East for all of about ten minutes, but ...Griff noted it.

“I’m telling you to have some respect,” Griff said.“That’s step one.Step two is, remember you’re not convincing her.You’re letting her convince you.”

“The fuck?”CJ demanded.

“Listen to him,” Jake said.“He has a one hundred percent success rate.”

“Nah, that’s bullshit.He’s full of it,” Griff told CJ.“Maybe ninety-eight percent max.But I’m right about this.Women—hell, everyone—want to be listened to.To feel like someone gives a shit about who they are.So, you go up to someone and you’re really curious about who they are?They want to open up.Talk, fuck, whatever.”

For some reason, that flashed him back to sitting on the couch with Becca.Which in turn made him think of her proposition.Basically, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head since she’d issued it.He’d had quite the restless night last night, asking himself theentirelyhypothetical question of what he would do if he were in charge of taking Becca’s V-card.Which was just more of the bullshit she wanted to avoid, right?She didn’t want it to be flowers and candles and a big deal.It would just be sex.Clean, simple—

But he couldn’t quite banish the idea that he could make it something special.Something memorable for her.

Damn it.Hewasn’t going tomake itanything.

She was going to find someone else to do it.

And that ...that fuckingrankled.

“We call him Dr.Griff, the looooove doctor,” Hunter said.“And this—” He gestured to the bar around them.“—is his office.”

“Nah,” Nate said.“Everyone knows Griff’s office is the archery range.”

CJ cocked his head.“How’s that?”

“You ever been to the range with Griff?You’ll end up pouring your guts out.It’s way better than the therapist’s couch.You think you’re going out there to jab arrows in a big target, but what you’re really doing is fessing up to all your crap.”

“Look who’s talking,” Hunter said to Nate.“Speaking of guys who should open a head shrinking practice.”

Griff didn’t know the whole story of what had gone down between Hunter and Trina, only that Hunter had come back from Afghanistan with a year missing from his memory, including his whole relationship with his girl.Now they were married, and soon their adoptions of each other’s kids would be finalized.So whatever advice Nate had given him seemed to have worked.

“I’ll leave the headshrinking to Nate,” Griff said.“I’m not qualified.I’ve got enough of my own crap.But if you want a wingman?”

He addressed this last to CJ.

“I’m your guy.”

6

“Can you believe how huge Sam is?”Alia asked Becca, inclining her head in the direction of Mira and Jake’s son.

It was Monday afternoon and Mira and Jake’s Memorial Day picnic was in full swing.Sam had organized the kids into a game of Ultimate Frisbee.The age range was huge, the skill range even wider, but Sam seemed unconcerned, corralling five-year-old girls in Wonder Woman dresses and pimpled teenaged boys with equal ease.He was a natural-born leader, like his dad.

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