Page 94 of Holding Out

“Or free massages to veterans, maybe.We could even do a special clinic for them.Maybe have all the massage therapists come in Thursday afternoon and evening when we’re open late, and they could volunteer, like, half their fee, and the spa could donate the other half to veterans’ services.”

“I’ll think about that,” Wendy said, in the tone of someone who had no intention of wasting a quarter of a brain cell on the topic.

When Becca wasn’t working, she mostly hung out with Jenina, who had been doing everything in her power to snap Becca out of her down mood.But Becca wasn’t interested in Jenina’s cure of choice, swiping right.

“I thought the whole point of sleeping with Griff was that now your sex life would be a hundred percent less complicated.And what point is there to that if you don’t take advantage of all the no-strings sex the world has to offer?”

Becca shrugged.They were sitting cross-legged on her bed, their phones tossed in the space between them.Becca had just swiped left until she had tendinitis.

“Can I ask you a question, Bex?”Jenina said.

“Sure.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?”Jenina gestured around her at the apartment, and then a broader sweep that seemed to encompass the whole city of Seattle.“You haven’t seemed happy since you’ve gotten back here.”

“I’m fine,” Becca said.

“Do you think it’s possible you had more feelings for Mr.Pop My Cherry than you’ve told your good friend Jenina?”She gave Becca an innocent open-eyed look.

Becca heaved a big sigh, closed her eyes, and leaned back on her pillows.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.What actually happened down there?”Jenina always talked about the Oregon coast as if it were on the other side of the world, as opposed to just a four-and-a-half-hour drive.And the truth was, it felt that way to Becca, too.She missed her sister and Nate and Robbie, Jake and Mira, and Sibby, as much as she had ever missed people in her life.She kept having dreams where she was playing with Robbie, and he was giving her his single-toothed, drooly grin.

And then there was Griff.Who she didn’t allow herself to think about much, except that he had a way of creeping back in whenever she let her guard down.Like late at night, when she would remember the way he touched her.Kissed her.Teased her.Filled her.Or worse—when she would remember the simple pleasures of being with him, watchingThe Princess Brideor the Mariners game, playing dirty Taboo and learning naughty archery, eating donuts and drinking coffee.

Confessing, confiding, soothing.Poking and prodding each other to take one more step, to try one more thing, to wake up the next day better and stronger.

Damn it, her eyes were filling up with tears, and Jenina, who didn’t miss a thing, was watching, her face bright with sympathy.

“I don’twantto miss him,” Becca wailed.

“Of course you don’t.”

She told Jenina about the last conversation she’d had with Griff in the street outside her sister’s house.

When Becca was done, Jenina made a humming sound.

“Can you believe he said that?”

Jenina tilted her head to one side and gave Becca a long, hard look.

“Shutup,” Becca said.

“I saidnothing,” Jenina said.But she was smirking.

“I don’t do that.I don’t do thatanymore,” Becca amended.

“So you’re sure that the look on Griff’s face that day was because he is still in love with his ex-wife?”

“I—”

But Jenina, relentless as ever, plowed on.“Do you think it’s remotely possible that he was just really, really surprised to see her?And maybe trying to wrestle with coming face-to-face with a ghost from his past?And that maybe the hug was just a goodbye hug?”

Becca opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.Saw, in her mind’s eye, the two of them coming down the stairs.

She tried it on for size: They’d been moving Griff’s stuff, and then they’d come down the stairs, and he’d given her a hug goodbye.

She took a deep breath and looked at her friend.“Why do you refuse to ever, ever let me get away with my shit?”