It starts with dread.
I wake up late, the kind of late that feels like cheating the sun out of its job. Saturday is supposed to be my day off, but instead of freedom, I’m wrapped in the suffocating clingfilm of spiraling thoughts and zero motivation. There’s no store to open, and no chatty customers to distract me –just a whole damn day to marinate in my own uncertainty.
I try coffee it helps for about three sips.
I try to reorganize my bookshelf–1 make it to the Ts before realizing I’ve alphabetized Thoreau and Tolkien under “Torture, Self–Inflicted“.
And then my doorbell rings unexpectedly.
I peek through the peephole with the caution of someone who’s definitely watched too many crime documentaries. And, of course, standing on my porch like a walking contradiction, wrapped in bespoke confidence, is Griffin. Dressed for brunch with royalty, while holding a pastry box in one hand and a to–go tray with what I hope is coffee in the other.
When I crack the door, he brightly says, “You look like a raccoon who lost custody of its trash”
Rolling my eyes, I retort, “Good morning to you, too, Griffin.”
Without invitation, he pushes inside and past me, holds the items in the air, and says, “I brought sugar and caffeine. Put on respectable pants, we’re going out”
I blink, my brain struggling to compute his words. “Out?” I ask eventually.
“Spa day. My treat. Think of it as emotional damage control.”
1 cross my arms, my brows dipping into a frown, as I say, “I didn’t ask for emotional damage control.”
“You didn’t have to. You’re wearing despair as a second skin,” he states, clearly not in the mood to sugar–cost anything today.
1 open my mouth to protest, but my stomach growls audibly, making him chuckle triumphantly, Damn him.
“Fine,” I mutter as I walk towards the stairs, “But if there’s hot wax involved, I want lunch too.”
The spa smells like cucumber water and expensive resolutions, I lie on a heated table while a woman named Ivana smears something lavender- scented across my legs and tells me to breathe through the pain. I try, and fail dismally,
Griffin lounges in the next room, a champagne glass in hand, and wrapped in a thick bathrobe like he owns the place. I can hear his smaug laughter every time I yelp.
“Remind me again,” I hiss after the third strip of wax rips away part of my soul, “why I agreed to this?”
Griffin’s voice floats to me through the thin wall, “Because you love me, and deep down, you want to walk into that gala tonight like a goddess forged in glam and vengeance.”
*You mean vengeance forged in patchy legs and mild trauma,” I grumble as another wax strip rips the first four layers of my skin off.
After waxing comes the facials, which involve soul–scorching steam, painful pimple and blackhead extractions, and Griffin gleefully snapping selfie of my face mid–mask. When he shows it to me, I threaten bodily harm if it ever gets leaked.
Later, during massages, we’re in side–by-side beds with low meditation music playing overhead. I peek over at him, and he’s fully asleep, yet I ask softly, “Griffin?TM”
“Mmh?” he answers in a lazy, half–coma voice.
“Are you always this extra with your friends?”
He turns his head towards me and cracks one eye open, as he says, “Only the ones who need it.”
1/3
Chapter 68
My self–consciousness rears its ugly head as I ask, “Do 17”
His voice and eyes soften somewhat when he playfully says, “You’ve been living like a feral cat in emotional quarantine. So yes.” And it makes me
We don’t speak again until we’re seated next to each other at the hair and makeup station. A stylist is curling my hair while a makeup artist works her magic, all while Criffin watches me through the mirror.
“He does
care about you, you know,” he suddenly says softly.
My stomach flips, and I ask stupidly, “Who? Thane?”
He cocks his one eyebrow, before replying, “Who else?”
I scoff, then say churlishly, “He has a hell of a way of showing it.”
“He’s not used to this. To someone who doesn’t play by his rules.”
I meet his eyes in the mirror, and imitation slips in when I ask, “And that makes me what? A challenge?”
Griffin smiles, but there’s something behind it–a layer I can’t read yet, as he says, “It makes you.. different. And important.”
He pauses for a beat, then adds, “Thane’s been around a long time. Long enough to build walls higher than most people can scale.”
1 frown as I say confusedly. “You say that like he’s centuries old.”
Griffin chuckles but doesn’t answer.
“Griffin?” I press, needing some answers.
He shrugs, then says cryptically, “Let’s just say he has a very..established sense of self”
Realizing I’m not going to get much more from him, I pivot and ask, “And you? What’s your story
“I’m the meddlesome newfound best friend who gets you waxed and pretty before the big ball.”
“Not suspicious at all, I say as another stylist moves closer to start my manicure.
He just winks and says, “Suspicion is healthy. Especially when you’re walking into a room full of monsters.”
“Excuse me?” I exclaim as my eyebrows shoot towards my hairline.
His face suddenly gets flushed, and then he stammers, “I said donors. Wealthy donors.”
I narrow my eyes at him, but then he grins, all charm and evasion, as I say, “You’re being weird.
“Untrue. I’m always weird. Today I’m being mysterious, which is way more fun, he declares, making me laugh.
As the stylist finishes the final curl, he reaches for my hand and says, “Relax. Tonight, you’ll be the most captivating thing in that room. And Thane? He won’t know what hit him.”
I look at my reflection, almost not recognizing myself. And yet, the pit in my stomach doesn’t go away.
By the end of the day, I’m waxed, buffed, curled, and painted into someone that vaguely resembles me if I existed in a parallel universe with less srcasm and a significantly higher Sephora budget. Griffin drives me home in a sleek, smug car that will probably judge my Spotify playlists.
He opens the door for me like it’s second nature to him, and just before I step away from him, he says, “Whatever happens tonight, Harley..you’re not alone in this.”
I don’t answer him. Not because I don’t have the words, but because none of them feel like they’ll be enough.
