Slow Agony (15 page)

I emerged from the rest room to find Griffin standing near the counter, looking up at the menu. “You want that Sourdough Bacon Jack thing you had last time?”

“I didn’t have that,” I said. “That was you. I had the thing with jalapenos.” I squinted at the menu. “The Hot Mess Burger.”

“That’s what you want?”

“Yup,” I said. “And curly fries. And those mini churro things for dessert.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’re hungry.”

“I know,” I said. “Recently, I’ve been really hungry.”
I must be getting over you,
I thought. But I didn’t want that to be true. Not really.

He stepped into line, and we waited to place our order, which Griffin got to go.

Back in the car, I handed his burger to him.

“Thanks,” he said. “And give me a napkin so that I can put the fries in my lap?”

I got out a napkin. “Here, I’ll put it on your lap for you.” I unfolded the napkin, but as I was spreading it out, I realized how close I was to his crotch.

I may have lingered for a minute.

Griffin cleared his throat. “Maybe I should do it myself.”

“Sorry,” I said.

I looked at him, and he was blushing. He was so adorable when he blushed. “You don’t have to be sorry.” He grinned at me, and there was a hint of wickedness in it.

Damn. I suddenly had the urge to jump him right in this parking lot.

He tore his gaze away from me. “Don’t look at me like that, doll.”

I went back to the bag and got out my own burger and fries. “Sorry.”

He yanked back wrapping on his burger, baring enough of it that he could bite, but covering enough that he could hold it with one hand. He used the other to back out of the parking lot. “It’s only that I’m very confused when it comes to you.”

“Sorry.” I munched on my burger, which had just the right amount of spiciness.

“You don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry.”

“Sorry.” Then I realized, and I winced. “Oops.”

He smirked.

“I’m confused too,” I said. “I know that everything’s a big mess right now, and that we’re in danger, and we could die, but, for some reason, I’m happier to be with you than I was when you were gone.”

He glanced at me quickly. “Really?” He looked back at the road.

“Things were really hard after you left. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been doing really well either,” he said. He took a bite of his burger, and I had to wait while he chewed. “I feel lost without you, doll. I do.”

“Griffin, I feel like that too.”

He shook his head. “I trusted you so much. I don’t trust other women that way. I mean, I can’t even be intimate with anyone else. Maybe that means something, I don’t know.”

I ate a curly fry. “Griffin, as much as I want you back, I don’t want it to be because you think you can only be with me. I’m sure if you spent time with someone else, you’d be able to... you know.” It made me slightly ill to think about it, but I wanted him to want me, to choose me, not to be with me because I was his only option.

“Maybe,” he said.

We both concentrated on our food for a while.

“But I think about the abortion,” he said. “Whenever I see you, I think about it. And I feel betrayed.”

My voice was quiet. “Maybe I feel a little betrayed too.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get past it,” he said.

I wanted to tell him that he would. Of course he would. I wanted to tell him that we’d get through it together. But I wasn’t sure about any of those things. So I kept my mouth shut.

Griffin’s family lived in San Antonio. I was asleep when Griffin nudged me to tell me that we were parked two blocks from their house and that he was going to go check it out.

I barely understood him, because I was still half asleep, so I made some noises and tried to get comfortable again.

I was in a car, so that wasn’t happening.

Gradually, I came to terms with the fact that I was awake. Really awake. And that Griffin had left me alone to go check out his family’s house. Which was a really bad idea for numerous reasons.

I had to stop him.

I started to get out of the car, but Griffin was back, sliding back inside. “Hey.”

“You idiot! What if someone was watching the house? What if they’d tried to hurt you?”

“They didn’t,” said Griffin. “And everyone’s okay in the house. My mom and sister are both sleeping like babies. It’s fine.”

“Unless you just led Marcel to your family.”

“No way,” he said. “There’s no way he followed me.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Cheer up,” he said. “I’ll drive you by the Alamo.”

I rolled my eyes. I’d seen the Alamo last Christmas. It was kind of a let down. It was just a little stone house sitting in a lawn right next to the biggest mall I’d ever seen. The mall was actually cooler than the Alamo. “I don’t want to go to the Alamo.”

“So, how about Austin, then? It’ll only take us about an hour.” Last Christmas, his sister had told us all about the Southern Congress neighborhood in Austin and how cool it was. She’d wanted to take us, but we hadn’t had enough time on our trip.

I remembered that I’d really wanted to go, but now did not seem at all like the time for us to act like tourists. “Griffin, I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”

“I’m glad my family’s okay, that’s all.”

Griffin didn’t make it to Austin. He got tired. I was tired too. We pulled the car off somewhere in the wilderness that seemed to be all there was between San Antonio and Austin and slept until morning.

When we woke up, we went to a gas station to use the bathroom and get freshened up. There was a crock pot of tamales next to the squirty fake nacho cheese. I bought some.

“I love Texas,” I told Griffin as we continued our journey.

“Because of tamales in a crock pot?” he asked, chewing on the one I’d bought for him.

“That and because of jalapenos everywhere.”

He laughed. “That’s my spicy doll.”

My insides felt melty. “I
am
yours,” I whispered.

He flinched. “I didn’t mean to... Dammit.”

And then neither of us said anything, but I felt a lot like crying.

“Two rooms? You’re lucky we got anything at all,” said the guy behind the counter at the Austin Motel. “Only reason we’ve got this vacancy is a cancellation. We book pretty far in advance here.” He leaned forward. “Julia Roberts stays here sometimes.”

The motel had a big sign out front which proclaimed its name in neon light up letters that managed to look both Tex-mex and Bates Hotel at the same time. But it wasn’t creepy at all, just nostalgic. Beneath the name, it read, “So close and yet so far out.” I loved it here already.

“Two beds?” said Griffin.

“I think we can manage that,” said the guy. “We’ll put you guys in Polka Dot Surprise, then.”

The room we were staying in had the original wallpaper from 1969, and, yes, it was pastel polka dot. The mattresses and furniture were all turquoise. I sprawled out on my bed, grinning at the ceiling. “I love Texas.”

Griffin just laughed at me. “I don’t think Austin is indicative of the rest of the state exactly.”

I stuck my lower lip out at him. “Don’t be a killjoy.”

He shrugged, tossing his pack on his bed.

“We could live here.”

“What?” he said.

“We could live here. There are colleges here. We could transfer and live in Austin.”

“You’ve driven in and seen the inside of one hotel room and you want to move here?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Besides, I think you’re forgetting that there isn’t really a ‘we’ anymore.”

I had been forgetting that. I rolled over on the bed. “It’s only that it
feels
—”

“I know,” he said. He sat down on the bed. He sighed. “You were right, you know. If you were pregnant right now it would make everything a lot worse. But you couldn’t have known something like this would happen.”

I propped myself up on one elbow. “You think you’re ready to be a father, Griffin?”

He rubbed the top of his head. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I could be,” he said. “If I had to be. I could be. I think. It’s not like money is a problem.”

Right. We were all very well off thanks to my father and the rest of Operation Wraith.

I traced patterns in the bedspread. “So... what if we just tried again?”

He got up. “I wasn’t the one who wasn’t ready to be a parent. Are
you
ready?”

“Well, it’s kind of a bigger commitment for me, you know.”

“I didn’t think so.” He unzipped his pack.

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Maybe. If you were there, if we were... It’s not as if I don’t see myself having children someday. And yes, I want that to be with you.”

He yanked out a change of clothes. “I’m going to take a shower. Let’s just drop this, huh? Afterwards, we’ll walk around. We’ll try to have fun.”

“Griffin—”

“No,” he said. “We could use some fun.”

South Congress Avenue was like an extended Purple Fiddle. The whole street had the same eclectic atmosphere, whimsy married to shock art. It was like strolling through the coolest place I could possibly imagine. We went into funky art galleries, where the art on the walls ranged from typical landscapes to large pieces of metal sculpture. (There was even one that was made entirely of forks. I loved that one.) We went into vintage clothing stores and tried on outlandish outfits. We got coffee and sandwiches at a little bistro where the walls were covered in oddly-framed mirrors. Some were old and brass and stately, others bright and bold.

What I loved about the whole area was that it was iconoclastic and edgy, but it somehow managed to pay tribute to its traditional roots as well. Like The Purple Fiddle was tinged with bluegrass and West Virginia charm, SoCo had a Hispanic undercurrent. It was Tex Mex, and it knew it. It celebrated it. But it also twisted everything so that it felt like we’d stumbled through the looking glass and that everything had been switched from right to left. The best thing was that the whole time Griffin and I strolled the streets, it seemed as if SoCo was washing away all the complications between us. We both seemed airier, happier.

As the sun began to go down, I clutched Griffin’s arm with one hand and several shopping bags in the other.

“I could definitely live here,” I said.

He smiled down at me. “It’s kind of a big Thomas, huh?”

He got it. I beamed at him.

He held up his own shopping bag. “Let’s change into our Austin outfits and then find someplace to go to dinner.”

Good plan. Griffin had been right when he said we needed more fun. I hadn’t realized how positively grim everything had been recently. I mean, maybe it was necessary. After all, we were in danger. People had died. But having fun felt nice. I felt like I hadn’t felt this free since... Gosh. A long time.

Griffin let me change in the bathroom, while he put on his clothes in our room. I had a few different outfits, but I settled on a blue seventies-style dress. It was off the shoulder, a long ruffle hanging to my elbows and over my breasts. The skirt was made of layers of the same kind of ruffles. The dress made me feel light and pretty.

And... pure.

Which was something I wasn’t sure I’d ever been, but something I desperately wished for right then. I wished I could erase all of the things that had come before and go to Griffin fresh. Surely then we’d connect in the same magical way we had before.

I surveyed myself in the mirror. The reflection that greeted me was clean and simple. I tossed my hair and called out to see if Griffin was ready.

“Sure,” he said.

I opened the door.

Griffin spread his hands. “What do you think?”

He was wearing a tight, tight Rolling Stones t-shirt. It was black, and the letters were starting to flake off. It looked grungy and too-cool. And it hugged each and every aspect of his perfect chest. His jeans were snug too. And he was wearing cowboy boots!

I grinned. “You look awesome.”

He was staring at me, a stunned look on his face.

“Griffin?”

He shook his head “I like the dress, doll.” He reached for me. “I like you in blue.”

I knew that. I put my hand in his, happy with his reaction. I let him tug me close.

He gazed down into my eyes, searching them.

I reached up to brush my fingers against his cheek.

He closed his eyes.

I was so close to him that I could feel the faint patter of his heart through his shirt. I wanted to be wrapped up in him. I wanted us closer.

But he swallowed and pulled away. “Dinner?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

The restaurant was dimly-lit and furnished with mismatched, brightly colored tables and chairs. The food was delicious—smoky, spicy, and crispy. I was beginning to think that my favorite thing about Texas was the food. If I lived here, I’d probably gain at least eighty pounds. I couldn’t stop eating.

There was a band tucked in the corner on a small stage. Two guys with acoustic guitars and another guy on hand drums. The sound was a fusion of African beats and southwestern folk. I’d never heard anything quite like it. But there was an earnestness to the way the man crooned into the microphone that I liked.

I swayed in my seat to it, occasionally taking long swigs of the Shiner Bock that the waitress had recommended to me. It was a fairly nice beer, not quite as tasty as the homebrew of Silas—but, then, that was a tall order to fill.

Griffin chuckled at me. “You want to dance.”

I smiled. “Yes, I do.”

He gestured. “Go for it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh come on, you can’t pretend like you can’t dance when I spent months helping you get in touch with your inner dancer.”

He might have blushed again. I couldn’t be sure in the scant light. “No way. I’m not dancing.”

“You can pretend like you didn’t like it, but I know better.” I got up out of my seat and held out my hand to him.

He sighed heavily, took his napkin off his lap, and put his hand in mine. “One song.”

I pulled him to his feet and across the room to the band. Griffin could pretend all he wanted that he didn’t like to dance. I knew better. We’d had conversations about it, in fact. They were often the same conversations that touched on spirituality. And we both agreed that dancing was powerful primarily because it was about surrendering your body to the music.