I getup the next morning really early to avoid Griffin. Since he is always the first one up, even earlier than the baby, I had to practically heave myself out of bed. Like last night, my biggest problem is finding a place to go. I can’t avoid work, though, because there are orders coming in for the café.
At least I have an excuse to be away for a few hours. I manage the schedule for the garage, so I know that Griffin and Charlie have a full day ahead of them. Unfortunately, it’s so busy that even Liam will be back in for a full day. He’s had a really light schedule since he relapsed. I think Griffin is afraid that any amount of pain will drive him right back inside a pill bottle.
Personally, if he’s that fragile, he should probably find a different career. Hopefully, he won’t be slipping a disk in his back constantly, but it’s a very physically demanding job. Griffin has the physique of a much younger man primarily because ofhis job. He does some weight lifting, but his body is built mostly from work. Combine that with the fact that he’s getting older, and that means that most days, there is something that aches, whether it’s his hands, feet, back, or knees. I just don’t see that Liam has the fortitude not to use that as a reason the next time he has an urge to use.
Maybe that’s uncharitable of me. I know that he’s been sober for years before this relapse, or at least so he says. I don’t think he and Claudia were having any issues before he got hurt, but who knows for sure? Claudia pretty much farts rainbows and sneezes glitter. There’s no way she’d respond to finding him cheating by dating his dad, or even keying his car.
Then again, her perfection is probably why he treats her so much better than he ever did me. I doubt he’s slept with anyone else since they’ve been married, let alone her best friend. I don’t have any answers for why she gets this version of him, and I got the other.
What’s bothering me more is why it’s bothering me at all.
“Hey, Mrs. Hale, the truck just pulled in behind the building. Did you want to check the shipment before we unload?” Rickie, my café manager, asks. She started working for me her first year of college, and now she’s graduating. I will have to promote someone soon to take her place since she’s leaving to further her studies in Seattle.
“Mrs. Hale?” she calls out to me again.
I shake my head to clear out the fog. “Yeah, sorry. Let’s go take care of this. You’ve got class this morning, right?”
She nods her head. “Yeah, but our assistant manager is coming in, and the new freshman we hired is going to work with her. You know I can check the shipments by now. You didn’t need to come in this early. I know the baby must still be getting you up at night.”
I shrug. “Not really. She’s almost a year old and has started sleeping through the night. Don’t tell my husband I said this, but I’m a little sad that we’re done having babies around.”
“You’re right about the shipment. I just had a feeling like I’d forgotten something, so I wanted to be here and make sure everything was right. Go ahead and check it in, and I’ll go into my office,” I tell her.
I sit and stare at the clock on the wall. The second hand clicks as it moves around the clock. It’s pretty hypnotic, literally watching the seconds go by. Each one brings us closer to when Griffin will be in to work. Possibly a grumpier than normal version, which is part of the reason I took the coward’s route and left before he was awake this morning. I didn’t even help get the kids ready for school. I sent a cowardly text to Scott this morning and asked if he minded helping Griffin get Parker and the twins off this morning.
Charlie is always going on and on about his dad gang, so I figured he wouldn’t mind pitching in as well and helping watch over Elisa this morning. Everyone in the family always knows everything about each other, so they may as well help. It’s not like they weren’t there to witness me snapping last night.
Now I have little left to do other than watch the second hand continue to taunt me as it ticks its way around the face. Each second brings me closer to the moment Griffin will come into work. He’s not going to keep giving me space either. The word is barely in his vocabulary, and not when it comes to emotions.
Bulldozer is a good description for him. I don’t think he means to just roll all over me, but when he has an idea in his head, that is the only reality he is willing to accept. My habit is to give in to him, because he is usually acting in everyone’s best interest. Griffin has been taking care of others for so long that he doesn’t know how to stop.
The problem is that when what is best for Liam contradicts with anyone else, usually me. It’s then that I wonder if there will ever be a time when I will come first. In my first marriage, my needs always came second to Liam’s. I didn’t anticipate it would be the same in my second. I guess that’s what I get for marrying his dad.
Somehow, I manage to lose myself in work even while waiting anxiously for Griffin to come in. It’s not hard, considering after all of these years, I’m still having to translate the guys’ chicken scratch on random scraps of paper. Any time I’m not in the office, the guys fail to use any of the order slips I’ve placed all over the garage. Somehow, they still find an old receipt, a post-it note, or even paper bags.
Then there’s the inventory that needs to be reordered, billing that only I seem to know how to do, and, of course, all the things I need to do to manage the café as well. My staff really is well-trained enough to manage inventory and create the work schedules. I guess I actually could pull back on some of those things, but it’s my baby.
A knock on the frame of the door makes me jump. I shoot an irritated glare at the clock. Somehow, I expected that persistent second hand to let me know when it was closer for Griffin to arrive. I take a deep breath before I let my attention fall to my husband.
I have to steel myself almost every time I look at him. You would think that ten years would have softened the impact his looks have on me. If not the familiarity of time, then maybe the impact the years tend to have on a body. Neither of those has managed to do a damn bit of good in helping my heart not race every time I see him.
There’s a bit more gray in his dark hair than there was when he was forty-two. He’s gotten a few more lines around his eyes, and even more smile lines since that’s something he actuallydoes now. I call it the Clooney effect. The older he gets, the better he seems to look. Griffin might be a beer man, but he’s aging like a fine wine.
He stretches his arms up to the top of the door frame. There’s a smirk on his face while he watches me ogle him. The top of his coveralls is off and hanging loose at his waist. This gives me a chance to see all of the bulging muscles in his arms.
It takes a few seconds, but I manage to snap myself out of it and pull my eyes up to his. The glimmer in his dark brown eyes dims, and I can see the heaviness of everything between us settle back on him. I want to fix everything and promise it’ll all be fine. That I will make it fine, but I’ve been doing that for a decade, and I’m so tired.
Griffin smiles, and it’s a little sad. “Hey, Baby Bird, missed you this morning.”
I try to force a smile, but I can’t even manage to make my lips twitch. To cover, I gesture to the piles on my desk. “I had a lot of stuff to catch up on.”
We both know that I’m full of shit. If that were the case, I’d have mentioned it, not texted Scott and Charlie to help Griff take care of the kids.
A look flashes across his face for a second, then it’s gone. It had the cold disinterest of the past, and let me know that he’s retreating behind his walls. He’s come a long way to letting me in, but neither of us has ever managed to completely obliterate those old fortresses we hide deep inside.
“Mhmm,” he hums dismissively.
I’d hoped he’d have let me retreat for a while, but Griffin has a very low tolerance for bullshit. Usually, I’d be scrambling trying to smooth everything over. This time, I just don’t have it in me. Instead of saying something, anything else, I just sit, letting the awkward silence stretch between us.
