Page 76 of Holding Out

Jake crossed his arms.“Can I say something?”

Griff nodded.

“Hindsight’s a bitch.It always tells you that you should have known.And maybe so.But you knew what you knew, you did what you did.And here we fucking are.It’s not pretty, but it’s how we keep on going.”

“You get paid to sell that shit?”Griff asked.A choked, tear-sodden laugh came out of him, unexpectedly.

Jake smiled, too.“Damn straight.”

“Nice work, if you can get it.”

“You can get it.You can lead the support group from time to time like I asked.”

Griff took a deep breath.Nodded.“As long as you know I’m no expert.Just a guy with his own shit, ready, willing, and able to hear out other guys about their shit.”

That made him think of CJ, and he smiled.

Jake’s grin spread.“Glad to hear it.So what made you decide to tell me all this now?”

Griff hesitated.“Dunno.Maybe enough time just passed.”

Jake raised an eyebrow.“Or maybe you have a new friend?”

Griff tried to give Jake a blank look in return, but Jake just shook his head and smirked.“Don’t you know by now that I know everything that goes on at R&R?Besides, last Friday at dinner, the amount of energy you and Becca spentnotlooking at each other could have powered Portland for a year.”

Griff could feel a rare deep blush coloring his face.

Which reminded him—

“I should get the hell outta here.I’m, uh, meeting someone.”

Jake raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.You know everything about everyone, Mr.R&R.I know.”

“It’s not much,”Griff said, as he opened the door to his R&R room.It had nice carpeting, had been recently painted, and was well-lit—but it was still a dorm room.

If Becca was disappointed—if she thought a guy his age should have more to his name, more to show for himself—she didn’t say so.Instead, she gave him a little shove into the room and pushed the door closed behind them.

“We’re alone, aren’t we?”she asked.

He nodded.

“Then it’s perfect.”

All of a sudden, it really did feel that way.As if the only thing that mattered was the four walls around them and the way she was looking at him, like he was everything she could possibly ever want in the world.And right at the moment, he felt pretty damn good.As if maybe he was someone she could want like that.

She sure as hell was someone he wanted like that.

“So where’d you go just now?If it wasn’t to get condoms?”

She looked a little worried, which made him want simultaneously to laugh and to wrap her up in his arms.And that captured in a nutshell his feelings for Becca.

“I was in Jake’s office.”

She tilted her head.

“I told him.About the episo—flashbacks.”

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