Page 64 of Cherry Picking
I click my tongue and laugh, but there’s no humor to it. “How long have you known?”
“About Griffin? Immediately. He wanted you from the moment he stepped foot in the weight room. It was only a matter of time.”
One look and Hawks throws his hands up.
“About Matty? I didn’t for a while. Not until a few days before his accident. And even then, it didn’t really sink in until after. Until I saw what it did to you.”
“What happened before the accident?”
Hawks shrugs. “I left practice early and ran into him waiting for you outside. He looked … resigned. Sad. I got the feeling there was something going on, but didn’t know what it was.”
“And then I went off the deep end when he almost died.”
I couldn’t eat, sleep. I was a wreck. I didn’t know how long Matty was underwater before I found him. All I know is he wasblue and not breathing. When he finally took in that first breath, there was no grand moment where we saw each other and felt relief. He took a breath, but he didn’t wake up.
Not for days.
And when he did, his life had changed forever.
“It killed you, Riley. Inside. You lost something just like he did. His was physical but yours was … I don’t know. You think something is broken now, between you and Foster but … I think you’ve been living without what Matty’s accident stole for so long that you’re scared to have it back.”
“What do you think I lost?”
He smiles all crooked again, slapping me on the shoulder and shoving to his feet.
“That’s for you to find out.”
Several minutes pass in a blur. I finish the beer Hawks conveniently forgot. The noise around me muffles. I close my eyes and rest my head, thoughts swirling like a whirlpool into incoherent muddles.
Matty lost his hearing, yet he never stopped fighting for what he wanted.
Fighting for his career, his existence—fighting for us until the last possible second.
Until I pulled the plug.
“Riley?”
My eyes are too heavy to open, so I grunt and feel around until I make contact with something soft and solid.
“Woah there, big guy,” Griff’s throaty laugh sounds in my ear. “You might be a little gone to the wind to be getting frisky like that.”
I’m not drunk; it takes more than two beers to get me more than buzzed, but Griffin’s warm fingers stroking through my beard and over my cheek wakes up my sleeping libido and the heavy need to feel him against me.
My hands land on his hips to pull him closer, and he doesn’t hesitate to climb onto my lap and bracket me with his body.
“Riley,” he laughs, but I slide a hand into his hair and urge him down. A sensual moan passes his lips, and he gives into the sweet call of our mouths coming together. “Maybe not so gone.”
I maneuver him to his knees, leaving his lips to trail down his neck, hitching his shirt up to pepper kisses along his abs, and even hike one of his legs onto my shoulder so I can mouth at the tantalizing v-line above his loose shorts.
“Oh god. Okay.” Griffin chuckles breathlessly as he tangles his fingers in my hair for balance. “Horny boyfriend alert.”
I grasp a handful of fabric in the hand not holding his thigh in place and tug hard until I get the material pulled down and tucked under his balls.
Griffin’s cock is long and curved, excited enough that the head peeks out beneath the foreskin, and all it takes is one shared look and Griffin’s muttered, “Hell yeah,” for me to take his semi into my mouth and cradle it with my tongue.
The weight of him grounds me, draws me into the moment like a tether. His salty precum hits my tongue, and I get lost in the motion of sucking, swallowing, and choking on his cock.
“Fuck, Riley. Yes. Oh god,” Griff babbles above me, pawing and pulling on my hair.
