Page 84 of Holding Out

“Root beer.”

“You guys want food, too?Or just the drinks?”

“Um, I’m all set,” Marina said.

“Me too,” Griff said.

The waitress smiled at them and headed back toward the kitchen.

“Look.I should probably have said more in my messages, but I was hoping to at least get you on the phone so I could explain.Scott and I—we’re getting married.”

So much for the notion that she’d come here to ask for a reconciliation.He couldn’t quite make sense of the tangle of emotions in his chest.Old hurt, but also, maybe, relief?Because wouldn’t that have been the craziest thing, if she wanted him back, now, just when he was falling for Becca.

“Griff?”

“Congratulations,” he said.And he even managed to sound like he sort of meant it.“That’s—that’s really great, Marina.”

She didn’t even try to hide her relief.She just let it break out all over her face, and in the big breath she let out.

“Did you think I was going to throw a temper tantrum?”

“I didn’t know, Griff.I honestly didn’t know.”

“I’m not.I’m—I’m okay, Marina.I’m actually—I’m seeing someone.”

Although “seeing someone” seemed as feeble as “screwing around” had when Becca had said it yesterday.

“Oh, Griff, I’m glad!I’m really glad.Is it serious?”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking of the donuts and coffee and how late he’d made Becca to work this morning, and suddenly he discovered he was smiling.Beaming, actually.Robbie would have been proud.

Right then, sitting across from the woman who’d once brought him to his knees, thinking of the woman who made him want to get down on his knees, he realized just how much he needed Becca to stay.

She couldn’t leave.That was all there was to it.He wanted her to have coffee and donuts with him every morning.

Somehow, despite his best intentions, despite the lesson he’d learned from Marina, he’d gone and done it again.

He’d fallen in love.He’d put himself at another woman’s mercy.

The waitress came back and set down their drinks.He took a long slug of his beer, bitter and cold.Marina sipped her root beer through the straw, daintily.He’d once thought that was super cute.Becca’s appetites had recalibrated him.

He smiled.

“Griff,” Marina said.“I really am happy for you.And—oh, God, I’m—I’m sorry.Sorry, not for what I did, but for how I went about it.”

“It was pretty shitty,” he said, without rancor.“I came home and you were justgone.”

“I know.I know.I’m so sorry.If I’d been brave enough to do it any other way, I would have.But I was a coward.”

Tears filled her eyes.

“If it makes it any better, and I know it doesn’t, really, but I tried every way I knew to warn you,” she said.“I tried and tried to tell you.And I still don’t know if I wasn’t saying it out loud like I thought, or you just weren’t hearing it.I felt like I was telling you, but—”

He could see her, suddenly, in his mind’s eye.Crying.There were words coming out of her mouth, but he couldn’t hear the words.He could just see the pain.So many times when he’d been home on leave, it had been like that—her pleading and crying, the two of them yelling and fighting.But had he everreallylistened?

He shook his head.“I didn’t do a good job of hearing you.Youdidsay how bad it was and I just didn’t want to believe it.I let you down.”

And he saw, with a needle of pain to his chest, that he’d known that all along.That was what Marina had been doing in his flashbacks—trying to tell him how much he blamed himself for letting her down.For not hearing, for not seeing, for not trying harder to save what was between them.

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