Stitches

“You’re an ungrateful bastard,” Sebastian tells Griff. “I wish you’d left.”

Gasping at cruelty of that blow, I say, “You do not.” I look back at Griff to reassure him. “You know he didn’t mean that.”

“I don’t know anything anymore,” Griff states, holding Sebastian’s gaze and shaking his head.

“I do everything for you, and all you do is fucking bitch about it,” Sebastian fires back. “You were falling apart at the seams. You were miserable. She was taking everything from you—from us. Everything we spent our whole goddamn lives building. Maybe you’ll let people roll over you, Griff, but that’s not how I work.”

“No, because you’re the one who does the rolling,” he fires back. “Everything is your call. We open the businesses you want, buy the spaces you want, live where you want—I didn’t even want to stay in Philly, but you didn’t want to leave. Did I make a mess? Yeah, I made a fucking mess, but it was my mess. When you said you’d handle it, I thought you meant with lawyers, not with a fucking bullet in her skull!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sebastian says, shoving me back to get at him. “Stop fucking saying that. You think you’re going to poison Moira against me? You think she’ll believe you over me?”

“Stop it!” I call out, finally raising my voice.

Both men look at me, faintly surprised. I’m not generally noisy outside the bedroom, but fuck. They’re still on either side of me, vibrating with barely restrained rage.

“Okay,” I say, lowering my voice to a more civilized level. “There are a few elephants in this kitchen today. I wanted to just pretend they were part of the décor, but that doesn’t seem to be working. You two have to stop attacking one another. Sebastian, you don’t have to worry about Griff turning me on you. I told you,

that isn’t possible. He doesn’t want to, anyway. He loves you and you love him. You two are not opponents, you’re partners, and it’s time you remember that. We all lose with you on opposite ends. Now, you two got me into this fucking situation, and you’re not going to turn on each other over some other woman. Are you?” I glance back at Griff, eyebrows rising.

Griff scowls, not appreciating my wording. “That’s not fair.”

“It is fair. You both love me, right? You both love each other? You both wanted this relationship?” Pointing to Griff, I say, “You emotionally blackmailed your best friend with abandonment issues into sharing his wife or losing you.” I point to Sebastian. “You made me do this in the first place. Now I’m in it, I like it, and I’m attached—you two aren’t going to fuck it up over a dead gold digger. Now, I’m sorry to say that, Griff, I know she was your wife, but she’s not anymore. If you both love and want me so much, stop fighting over another fucking woman.”

“We aren’t fighting over—you make it sound… He killed someone.”

“I don’t care,” I state.

At least now I have Sebastian’s attention. He cocks his head, as if surprised.

“Now, let’s put this behind us,” I suggest. “Griff made a mess; Sebastian may have gone a little far in fixing it. Everybody feels badly about it, but it’s done and over with. Going forward, Griff doesn’t want you to make all his decisions for him. He wants to be consulted. He wants to feel that his input is respected and he has control over his life. In return, Griff is going to stop holding Ashley over your head like a golden ticket, because I’m the only person he could possibly be trying to influence, and I’m only going to say this one more time: I don’t care. This is my family. Two days ago, my family was in trouble and now we’re all free to be together. I say, we make the most of that freedom and get back to enjoying one another. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? Can we all agree to that?”

“I guess,” Griff grumbles.

Sebastian just watches me. I take that as agreement.

“Okay, good,” I offer, brightly. “Now, unless you both want your breakfast burned, stop trying to rip one another’s throats out and let me finish cooking.”

I keep one hand at each of their chests for a few seconds, then take a tentative step back. When they don’t lunge at one another, I slowly lower my hands and take a few more steps back.

“Are we good?” I ask them, glancing between them like tigers running loose at the zoo.

“I can let it go if he can,” Sebastian states, arms crossed over his chest.

“I guess, as long as he’s not going to keep doing shit like this,” Griff mutters.

“Do you have more wives I need to get rid of?” Sebastian asks, dryly.

Griff cuts him a dry, unamused look. “I get the situation, but it was still a shitty fucking thing to do.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Sebastian agrees.

“And you should have told me what you were planning,” Griff adds.

“Didn’t want to get you involved. Plus, I knew you’d never go along with it.”

I grimace. It was a stronger argument without that second half, but at least he’s being honest, I guess.

“I can’t feel good about this,” Griff tells him.