Page 21 of Griffin Food

Determined to prove I have got this, I rise on my own. They both rise, poised like they are waiting for me to collapse.

I don’t, and knees locked and back ramrod straight, I go to my room to pack my things. Inside, I close the door and put my head in my hands.

“Well, that was awkward,” I mutter to myself. But I’ll deal with this. Like I’ve dealt with everything that a woman must while traveling with two men on the road. My initial embarrassment when I needed to ask for pauses so I could go. Washing in streams when necessary.

Being in the company of two men all day and all night for the last two months, I have come to know them. In some ways, they are rough around the edges compared to the kind of men I mixed with at my home.

But they are also good men.

And I trust them.

Trust.

Why does that word linger like a memory… Why do I feel like I’ve had a revelation regarding trust that I now cannot quite grasp? One that the more I try to reach for it, the further it slips away. How or why, I know only that my trust in them has risen while I have been lost in the throes of a fever.

I have no answers, so I put it aside.

I pack my saddlebag and ready myself for the coming journey.

Lark

“She doesn’t remember,” I say, a little mindless and a lot frantic. “She doesn’t fucking know.”

“Yes, so I realize,” Rafe says. He looks as fucking poleaxed as I do.

“What the fuck does this mean? What are we supposed to do?”

“Nothing,” he says, pinning me with a look. One that brooks no dissent.

He’s always taken the role of leader among us. I was happy to let him. He’s older than me. Infinitely wiser.

If ever I needed to lean into his judgment, that moment is now.

“Is she—is she faking it?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” he says, tone clipped, voice low so it does not carry into the other room where she is packing. “Whether she’s forgotten or she is choosing to forget does not fucking matter. We will follow her lead. We will not bring it up.”

“And what if it happens again?”

“If it happens again and she needs us, then we will help her in any way we can. But until then, we don’t mention it. Not unless she does.”

“Gods.” I grip my hair and tug. “I’ve been inside her. I had my fucking—” My hands lower from my hair, and the right one curls into a fist.

“Don’t,” he grits out.

I uncurl my hand and let it drop to my side.

“The things we did…”

Fucking debauchery.

Fucking hot.

“I know,” he says, and I see the pain in his eyes.

“Everything has changed,” I say. “She was just a lass before. Cute and spirited. I admit to having the occasional lusty thoughts. But it is different now. I am different. It has changed me.” A strangled laugh escapes me. “I think I fucking love her.”

The chair scrapes as he rises in a rush. He’s in my face, and I’m backing up until I land against the wall. “Get a hold of yourself. Find control. And find it fucking quickly.”