Griffin (Ruthless MC 3)

Griffin and I are making love in a room bathed in white light. He’s inside of me—deep, so deep.

“Meet me in Nashville,” he tells me. “Meet me there, and I promise to love you forever.”

He makes me that beautiful offer, and I let out a shuddering breath.

Then I ask him, “Boy, are you out of your mind?”

He blinks, and that smooth bad-boy arrogance gives way to confusion. “What?”

I sit up. “What part of ‘I’ve got hopes and dreams’ did you not understand when you made me that offer? I have an internship of a lifetime lined up in New York, and you are so obviously the kind of guy who could ruin a girl’s entire life. You think I’m just going to let myself fall in love with you? To believe you’re falling in love with me? No, I’m not that stupid. And you…you’re a monster.”

He stares at me for a confused moment. But then that bad-boy arrogance creeps back into his expression.

He pulls out a guitar out of nowhere and begins strumming “Boat on the Sea.”

“You sure about that?” he replies. “You sure you’re not that stupid?”

“Mommy?” a voice asks somewhere in the distance.

Icicles of foreboding form in my stomach. “Where did you get the guitar?” I ask him.

“Mommy?” the small voice asks again.

And Griffin abruptly stops strumming. “Who’s that?” he demands.

“Why did you do this to me? Why did you lie about who you were and ask me to meet you that New Year’s Eve?” I demand instead of answering his question. “Was it just for kicks and giggles?”

Griffin stares at me blankly. Then he opens his mouth wide to answer: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re beginning our descent into Nashville. Please turn off all portable electronic devices and stow them until we have arrived at the gate. Please also make certain your seat back is straight up and your seat belt is fastened.”

I jerk awake to the sound of the descent announcement and O2 saying, “Mommy! Mommy! We’re here!”

I pop my eyes open to see my three-year-old daughter staring out the window and pointing down at the city where we’re about to land. I don’t know how long I was asleep. But even though she hasn’t gone anywhere, O2’s somehow managed to lose the band that was supposed to secure the end of her bottom left ponytail braid. It’s half-unraveled.

“What happened?” I demand, reaching over to re-braid her loose dusky-brown hair.

“Can I wear it down at Thanksgiving?” she asks.

“Sure, I’ll do it in the car.”

“Then don’t do it now,” she whines, batting my hands away.

I roll my eyes, but I let her have this one.

I’ve learned to pick my battles with my sweet but stubborn daughter over the years. Besides, my hands are still trembling a little from that dream.

I always have nightmares when I travel back to Tennessee. But they don't mean anything, I remind myself. It's a location thing. That's all.

“Mommy, what were you dreaming about?” O2 asks.

Probably to distract me from re-doing her hair, but the question feels prescient. Too prescient. And there’s no way I can tell her the truth.

I can barely tell myself the truth. In my dreams, I always turn Griffin down when he asks me to go to Nashville, but I said yes that morning in real life. Even though he never promised to love me forever.

And I instantly came to regret it that night….

“Mommy?” O2 says again, and this time her voice sounds wobbly.

I look up to find her dark blue eyes full of fear and her little light-brown face drawn up in pain.

“My ears hurt,” she tells me, her voice a little shaky.

“Oh sweetie, that's because of the air pressure change. You need to pop your ears. That happened to me when I moved from Tennessee to New York. It was my first time on a plane, and a nice flight attendant had to explain what was happening to me. Here, try yawning, really wide. Like this…”

I show her, yawning big with a huge stretch of my arms.

She tentatively mirrors me, then nods and yells way too loud, “It's working! It's working!”

Her whole face lights up, like I've introduced her to the wonders of sliced bread. And even though she looks exactly like her father when she smiles at me like that, a wave of love and gratitude washes away all the regrets I expressed in that dream.

No, my life isn’t ruined.

Yes, I felt more than a little bit stupid when I looked up from the GPS instructions I’d printed out with the address for the Fairgood Residences building to see Griff. Not the country star he told me he worked for, but Griff himself—looking down at me from a billboard advertising Stone River’s big New Year’s Eve bash.

It had taken me several blinking seconds to realize what I was looking at—that Griff was also some guy named G-Latham who would be headlining that night’s New Year’s Eve bash along with a few other country music stars I didn’t recognize.