“How about if this was all a dream?” she asks when we stop at her door, her voice pitiful and small. “How about if I wake up as soon as I let myself close my eyes?”
She always says things like that when she’s had a good time and doesn’t want it to end with having to go to sleep. Usually, I give her lots of hugs and reassurances that the good times will swing back around again someday. But tonight, I’m too on edge. Having Griffin there is like standing next to a time bomb with a countdown clock I can’t see.
“O2, c’mon,” I say, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Let’s not do this. It’s already an hour past your bedtime.
“But—” she starts to protest.
To my surprise, Griffin crouches down in front of her and says, “I promise you, I’m going to be right here when you wake up. You’re going to go to sleep, and your mom and I will talk, then I’ll be seeing you for breakfast tomorrow morning. And I’ll make this right, I promise you.”
O2’s whole face lights up, like Griffin eating carbs. “Really?”
“Yeah, really,” he answers. “But breakfast in the morning isn’t happening unless you go to sleep right now. No more whining about it.”
O2 doesn’t have to be told twice. She hugs him and says, “Goodnight, Dream Dad. I love you. Love you too, Mommy.”
Then she dashes into her room like she can’t wait to go to sleep.
Leaving me in the hallway with the monster. And his Reaper prez bodyguard.
It feels like my life—my nice, boring life as a side character is slipping through my hands. But maybe I can fix this. Maybe he can be reasoned with. I read all those magazine pieces on him after discovering who he really is. I got to know him inside and out after the fact. Nothing I’ve learned about him screams, “Yes, I, Griffin Latham, would love to have my wild and luxurious life disrupted by a child.”
I mean, at the cabin he pretty much said an unexpected baby was his worst nightmare. That might have been the only thing he didn’t lie to me about.
I start off with a compliment to get us off on the right “maybe both of us can be reasonable adults in this situation” foot.
“That was really impressive,” I tell him. “She usually makes me clock at least thirty minutes of story time before she’ll even agree to close her eyes.”
Griffin just smirks, like getting kids to go to bed is on the long list of talents he failed to tell me about when I thought he was nothing more than a criminal biker.
But then his expression softens, and he says, “Hey, Waylon, I know you’re dying to get back to that family of yours, so why don’t you go on ahead and take my plane back to Iowa.”
Waylon glances from him to me. “Seriously?”
Griffin answers with a magnanimous nod. “Yeah, seriously. I have some things I need to take care of here.”
Then his eyes swing back to me.
Waylon looks between us again, but then he accepts Griffin’s offer with a terse, “Thanks, brother.”
“No problem,” Griffin answers without taking his eyes off me.
Waylon leaves, and it’s just him and me.
“You should go to bed too,” he says. His tone is gentle in a way I would never have imagined before this moment.
Now it’s my turn to ask, “Seriously? But we have so much to talk about.”
“Yeah, we do,” he agrees with another nod. “But that was my first show in a while. I’m dead tired, and I bet you are too. I’m going to find a bed someplace in this castle you’ve been living in and face-plant into it. Then, tomorrow, we’ll all get up, and you’ll see I meant every word I said to Olivia. That’s her real name, right?”
“Right.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and even smile a little.
He’s being so cool about this. I’m relieved…and confused. I think about New Year’s Eve again, trying to reconcile that monster with the man standing before me. It doesn’t seem possible.
But then, I think about all the other things I’ve read about him recently. That he’s killing it as the head of A&R for AudioNation. And there was that animated film O2 watched like a thousand times with her play cousins and Little Brother. Maybe that family friendlier version of him wasn’t a one-off. Maybe he was trying to change for the better.
“Neither of us are the people we presented ourselves to be at the roadhouse,” I say carefully—to both him and myself. “But we’re both adults, and O2 is a child, so the main thing is doing what’s best for her. Right?”
“Right,” he agrees with a solemn nod. “But emotions are running high. We should both get some sleep, clear our heads—so that we can do what we need to do tomorrow morning.”