Page 43 of What If I See You

“Yeah.” He nods, watching me curiously. “That doesn’t upset you?”

My brows furrow. “Heck no, Griffin! I think that’s amazing! You’re very lucky to have a family you’re close to. I imagine they love you very much. Have they always been supportive of your hockey playing?”

“Oh yeah. My dad would shoot pucks with me all the time. And my younger brother, Gage…” There’s a sparkle to his eye when he mentions his brother. “He would come to every single practice and every single game growing up. He was even the equipment manager for the team when I was in high school.”

My heart melts a little listening to Griffin talk about his family.

“That’s so sweet! So, Gage didn’t play hockey too? Is he a lot younger than you?”

He shakes his head. “Only two years younger and he didn’t play on my team, but he did play for the adaptive team for a few years.”

“Adaptive team? What does that mean?”

“Teams for kids with physical or cognitive disabilities.”

“Oh.”

That must mean…

I sit back watching Griffin, trying to gauge whether or not I’ve hit a nerve, but he takes another bite of his taco and glances at me before he explains, “Gage has Down Syndrome.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He nods. “Yeah. He’s high functioning but has enough of a delay that playing in the mainstream leagues would’ve been dangerous for him.”

“I totally get it. And you’re close with your brother, yeah?”

“Mmhmm,” he says, stuffing the rest of his taco into his mouth. “I don’t really remember a time without him. We’ve been best buds our whole life.”

“I love that.”

“Do you have siblings?” he asks as I take a sip of my soda.

“One younger brother, and one older brother, yeah.” I nod. “They’re the perfect ones compared to me.”

“What?” His brows pinch. “What do you mean by that? How are you not a perfect child?” He raises his hand. “Present marriage situation excluded, of course.”

Picking at the toppings on my taco, I try to come up with the easiest way to answer Griffin’s question. “I’m the middle child between two brothers, for one. They were the sporty ones growing up. They participated in everything. They never needed to study but aced all their classes. Went on to ivy league colleges and stuck close to my dad’s profession. My older brother, Justin, is a judge in Oregon where he lives with his super-hot wife and super-attractive model-worthy kids and their golden retriever. And my younger brother Braylen, will be taking the bar exam this spring and hopes to work with one of the largest law firms in Dallas. He’s engaged to a senator’s daughter so he’s got everything going for him. And then there’s me.”

He turns himself sideways on his chair so he’s facing me now. “Why do you say it like that though? ‘And then there’s me’,” he asks, repeating my words.

“Because compared to them I’m the lazy screw up. I didn’t go to college at all and instead got a job with a non-profit right out of high school.”

“But there’s more to life than going to college,” Griffin says, irritation in his expression. “College isn’t for everyone and that’s totally okay. We wouldn’t have people working in trades if we didn’t.”

“I know that. And I know my parents know that, but that doesn’t mean they’re okay with one of their own children making that choice. My dad is a judge, which is an elected position, so my mom would do everything in her real-housewives type of power to give the appearance that our family was the perfect Anaheim, California, family. So, when I decided I didn’t want to go to college because it just wasn’t for me, she freaked the fuck out. Kind of shunned me from the family and refused to give me the time of day.”

“That’s fucked up.”

I nod. “Yeah. It was what it was. And at the time, I was happy to get out and be on my own, you know? I was finally free from the chains of my family.” I raise my fists to signify my freedom. “I moved in with a friend…it was this super shitty rundown apartment which means I knew my parents would never visit and then I found a job working for a local non-profit. I worked my way up in the organization I was with and then got lucky enough to win the job at Pacific Children’s. I was damn good at my job.”

“Is that where you met Corrigan then?” he asks, taking another bite of his food. “At the hospital?”

“Actually no. She was the one who told me about the opening. She used to volunteer at the organization I was working for. We kind of became friends through a mutual friend and that mutual friend moved away. Corrigan liked what I was doing for this company so much that when she heard about an opening at Pacific, she called me and told me about it. And then I got the job and the rest was history.”

“Wow.” He smiles, shaking his head. “Do you ever marvel at how cool it is that somehow the universe drops certain people into your life at just the right moments? Like whether you realize it or not, the people you meet or talk to or interact with each day have some sort of effect on your life in one way or another?”

“Like right now, for example? Like how the universe decided I needed to shack up with Griffin Ollenberg of the Anaheim Stars?”

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