He’s already shaking his head before I’ve finished speaking. “She’s gone home to think. Left this morning. She wanted to see her mother and clear her head. She couldn’t afford the ticket, and she’s never asked me for anything, so I surprised her. She’ll be back in a week…unless she decides to stay.”
“What? She might not come back.” After all, she’s been trying to return to the mainland for years. “I can’t leave her hurting and miserable. She can’t make a decision without knowing how I feel.”
“She needs this time,” he warns. “You can’t rush her, man. I’ve learned that about her. She sometimes gets upset or has her feelings hurt. You can’t talk to her about what’s happened or how that makes you feel until she’s sorted through her stuff.”
In some ways, I hate how much my brother seems to know about my woman that I don’t. The old me would have thought he was lying his ass off to spitefully keep us apart. Now…I get the feeling he’s straight-up right. Getting up in her face would be the worst mistake I could make. “Fuck.”
“You’ve put her through a lot. She already knows you’re sorry. I’ll tell her you gave up the deal. After that…she’s got to want to come back, Maxon.”
I really despise how much he’s right. “So I just have to sit here for a week with my dick in my hand? C’mon…”
“If you do, I don’t want the details,” Griff drawls, then turns serious again. “Do you know what you want to say if you do see her again?”
“I think so.” It’s been solidifying in the back of my head since I switched off the guided meditation and tuned back into my own train of thought. “Do you, um…”
Griff raises a brow at me. Getting these words out is going to be tough.
“Are you and I good?”
He swallows and looks away. “You tell me. I’m the one who fucked up big.”
I nod. Getting used to the idea of not hating my brother again will take time, but now that we’re here and I’m sitting in front of him and we’re talking without shouting? I don’t want to give up having him in my life again.
“Why didn’t you even listen to me when I tried to tell you I wasn’t stabbing you in the back?”
He closes his eyes. “I was just so angry back then. Dad was on me constantly about the fact that I was letting you beat me at everything. I probably could have handled that, but things at home weren’t right, either. Britta was hiding something. She’d closed herself off. So when I found out about the deal and Tiffanii told me her lies, I just exploded and…I was stupid. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know.”
For my brother, that’s a huge speech. He sounds like he’s changed in a lot of ways. He’s not perfect. Then again, neither am I. I’m still pissed at him for what he’s done to Britta. But one problem at a time.
I stand and wait until he does the same, then I round the table and drag him into a hug. He crashes against me. We slap backs. It’s all manly and shit. But it’s also monumental and moving. And yeah, I find myself having to fight back tears.
“We’re good,” I assure him.
He pulls back, looking like he’s trying not to lose his composure, too. “Let’s do the Stowe deal together.”
I’ve already promised him my notes, my preso, my appointment. I’m handing him the opportunity on a silver platter. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I let a stupid misunderstanding screw up our business. Once I didn’t have you as my partner anymore, working with you was one of the things I missed like hell. I vote we do this deal together. If it goes well…maybe we can think about making it permanent again.”
I pause. Think. In my head, I can hear our dad saying that I’m number one on the island and I’m demeaning my business to bother with Griff again. Then I remember how fulfilling it used to be. And I hear Keeley whispering that she’s happy for us.
But I need him to answer one other question because I don’t need history repeating itself. “Are you letting Dad stay with you?”
He recoils at the mere notion. “Fuck no.”
“Still talking to him?”
“I’m done. He came storming into my place, all full of himself and ragging on you. I realized a few years ago that he’s toxic, so I wasn’t going to let him stay anyway. But when he told me about some of his conversation with you, it gave me some hope that you’d realized it, too.”
“Totally,” I assure him. “Let’s do the Stowe deal…and think about resuming business together again.” It would feel good. “But I might need one more favor…”
When I outline my plan to convince Keeley how much I love her, he smiles. “It’s perfect. She’ll be the happiest woman in the world if you do that.”
As long as she comes back to Maui.
“I wish…” Griff lets out a rough breath as he sits again. “I wish things could have turned out better for me and Britta.”
I don’t know what to say. He turned his back on his pregnant girlfriend when she needed him most. Of course, that was then…and this is now.
I’m going to try like hell not to give my brother false hope. Britta says their ship has sailed. Maybe. I know she still has feelings for him…but I don’t know if that’s enough.
“It’s not hopeless. But you’ve ignored Jamie for almost three years. I don’t know if she can forgive that.”
He frowns. “Who’s Jamie?”
Is he for real? I’m trying to figure out if he’s being sarcastic or if there’s a chance he really has no idea what his own son’s name is. I should answer but I’m only managing to gape at him.
“Who is this guy? I saw her about a month ago at a restaurant with a Hawaiian dude who looks like a banker. They were pretty cozy. I wanted to rip his fucking head off. Is that Jamie?”
Okay, I need to take a step back and challenge all my preconceived notions…like the one where Griff received Britta’s letter advising him that he was about to be a father.
I scrub a hand down my face and stare at my brother. Shit. I hope like hell I’m not about to betray Britta, but I think Griff has a right to know.
“Jamie is James Tucker. His birth certificate says he’s a Stone. But it should say Reed. He’s your son. He’ll be three in July.” I whip out my phone and scroll through my pictures until I come to the ones I took the other night of him smiling while he played with his toy trucks.