Page 34 of A Little Secret
My nostrils flare, but I stay quiet.
“So what are you gonna do?” he prods. “Are you gonna tell him?”
“Him?” My voice cracks, and I chew on the edge of my thumb. “As in…”
“The father,” he finishes for me.
“I haven’t exactly had the chance.”
“That isn’t an answer,” he points out.
“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly something I want to tell Drew over the phone, and since I barely confirmed my assumption right before I started seizing, you’ll have to cut me some slack for not having a game plan quite yet.”
“So, what? You’ll just wait until spring break when you can reveal the gender? Or hell, maybe you should wait until summer, and Drew can skip right ahead to meeting his kid firsthand during the long break. How does that sound?”
“Oo, you’re annoying today,” I huff, fisting my hands in my lap.
“I’d say the feeling’s mutual, but I’m too stressed outabout everything that happened today to care.” He scrubs his hand over his face. “You scared me today, Fin. You scared the shit out of me.”
Well, damn.
The tension in my hands eases as I study Griffin across from me. The worry lines framing his blue-green eyes. The strain in his jaw. The concern radiating off him in waves. Hell, it’s so thick I can almost taste it.
He cares. I know this, but even so, sometimes it’s nice to see the reminder. That his frustration isn’t because he’s actually pissed at me. It's because he’s scared for me. And yes, there’s a difference. One I’ve failed to recognize until this moment.
“I scared you, huh?” I whisper.
He nods.
“You know, that’s almost as bad as theI care about youbit,” I mutter, causing his mouth to twitch. “And I’m sorry,” I add.
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I mean, I did kind of give you a heart attack this morning. How dare I drop to the floor and?—”
“Not even gonna let you finish that sentence,” he interrupts. “Sometimes your humor is way too twisted, you know that, right?”
I give him a cheeky smile. “It’s one of my best features.”
“Sure it is,” he murmurs. The concern in his eyes doesn’t disappear, though. If anything, it’s only amplified as he holds my attention hostage. “I know I’ve seen you have a couple seizures, but today? It was all on me, and…shit, Fin.”
“I’m okay, Griff,” I remind him.
“I know you are. And I know I shouldn’t yell at you?—”
“You haven’t yelled.” I hesitate. “Okay, you haven’tyelled by most people’s standards. For you, you’ve been a total monster.”
He rolls his eyes. “Smartass. I guess I’m a little…overwhelmed. And concerned,” he clarifies. “Because I know you want to say we’re not friends and shit, but like I said, I care about you, Fin. I care about you, and today was a reminder that I could’ve lost you. We all could’ve lost you.”
“I’m fine.” I lick my lips. “And thank you, by the way. For calling an ambulance and staying with me and pretending to be the doting boyfriend and keeping my parents out of the loop for now.”
He studies me carefully before tossing my own words back at me. “For now.”
“Yeah.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “I’m not stupid. I know I need to tell them. I just…I can’t get myself to say the words to myself, let alone the people I care about.”
“Denial isn’t going to get you anywhere,” he reminds me gently.
“Yeah, but it’s so much more palatable,” I quip.