“I like him. But not that much!”
I wiped my eyes from the tears of laughter before turning serious when I said, “Okay, so . . . oh my gosh. Two years since you’ve spoken to your dad, Griffin?”
A frown washed over his face. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
He blew out a breath. “Well . . . you remember he never supported my musical aspirations growing up. That never really changed. It wasn’t until I made it big out here that he ever started to acknowledge that I might have made the right decision. Anyway, our relationship had always been strained because of how he treated my mum before she died, but even so, I still tried to keep the peace. That ended when he gave an interview to a British tabloid for a large sum of money. The article was titled something like, ‘Cole Archer’s Father Spills All His Secrets’ or some garbage. Anyway, I stopped talking to him after that.”
That hurt my heart. Griffin’s dad was the only immediate family he had left after his mother died. I could relate to how awful it felt to be an only child and have almost no one. It must be a different kind of pain, though, to have your parent betray you.
“I’m really sorry, Griff.”
He shrugged. I could tell from the way he sucked in his jaw that talking about it had upset him. “His loss. Maybe someday I’ll get over it and call him, but that day hasn’t come yet.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed it. Touching him even in this innocent way felt absolutely electrifying.
“Anyway . . . ,” he said. “The night I forgot the words to the song was recorded and is now on YouTube. You can find it if you want the proof. Early on, when the fame had gone to my head, I’d gotten caught up pretty heavily in the drinking and partying. That concert was the last straw. The label threatened to boot me. Got my act together real fast after that embarrassment. Never drank before a show again.”
“Wow. If you can bounce back after blanking out in front of thousands of people like that, you can survive anything. Just standing there in front of them would be my biggest nightmare, let alone having to sing and remember words.” I shivered at the thought.
“Your turn, love. Two truths and a lie.”
I took a deep breath in and thought about what I was going to say.
“Okay. Two truths and a lie.” I paused. “I’ve developed an intense fear of spiders . . . I’ve never had sex with the lights on, or . . . my readers think I’m a man.”
His eyes widened. Then a look of amusement flashed across Griffin’s face. “Why do your readers think you’re a man?”
“How do you know that’s even the truth?”
“It’s so obvious the spiders thing is a lie. Anyone who lives with a pig must have a high tolerance for creatures of all kinds. Plus, there is no possible way you have arachnophobia and agoraphobia.”
I chuckled. “Okay. You’re good.”
“Yes. I am . . . in many ways.” He winked.
Feeling my body heat up, I said, “So my readers think I’m a man because my name is . . .” I braced myself. “Ryan Griffin.”
He took a moment to let that sink in. “Griffin? Ryan . . . Griffin.”
I nodded. “I never mentioned my pen name, and you never asked, but it’s our two names combined. Well, my fake last name and your real first name. My actual last name is Vinetti.”
“Vinetti. Italian like your dad. I love it.”
“Thanks.”
“So Ryan Griffin. That’s wild—and amazing that you held on to me in that way. I’m honored. Now that you know about my fake persona, I can’t wait to properly explore yours. Will you let me read your books?”
“It’s not like I could stop you if you really wanted to, now that you know my pen name.”
“You’re wrong about that. If you didn’t want me to read them, I absolutely wouldn’t violate your trust.”
I sighed. “You can read them. You might think I’m even more screwed up than you already do . . . but you can read them.”
“Nah. Not possible,” he teased. “Seriously, though, I wanna binge them all, find out what my Luca’s intricate mind can conjure up. I can’t fucking wait, really.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Great.” As much as his reading my novels made me nervous, I was also kind of curious as to what he’d think about them. I wanted to make him as proud as he made me.
“So you’ve never fucked with the lights on. That’s easy enough to change. Any particular reason why, though?”
“Well, my first time was in a dark car, and the other times, I made them shut off the lights. Just never felt like letting those guys see me. Not even really sure why that came to mind. I guess I couldn’t think of anything else on the fly.”