Which was not going to happen here.
Instead of explaining I said, “I have someone I’d like you to meet. Milo!” I called his name and waved him over. He was still wearing that dejected expression and I pointed to Sophie. “This is Sophie. She’s your age. Sophie, this is my friend Milo.”
Sophie jumped up and down slightly, clearly excited. “Hullo, Milo! Did you know that in four billion years the surface of the planet will heat up and kill all life on the surface?”
“I think I have Lyme disease,” Milo responded.
Ah, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
“Brilliant! Let’s be friends!” she said, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him along with her to the playground. Milo shot a glance at me over his shoulder, and I could see that he was smiling. I put my hand over my chest. How did I already care so much about this kid and his happiness?
Speaking of people I cared too much about after knowing them for only a few days, Griffin sat down next to me. His profile was strong and attractive, but even from this angle I could see that his expression was troubled. To my surprise, he didn’t say anything.
I closed my eyes, taking in his warmth and that delicious clean smell of his. It was kind of weird how into his scent I was, but the last guy I’d dated thought his natural deodorant actually worked, so a hygienic man was a literal breath of fresh air.
When I opened my eyes again, it was then that I noticed those small details that other people probably missed. The way his shoulders hunched forward, how his hair looked a little crazier than normal, his clothes a bit wrinkled.
“You look disheveled,” I said to him.
He turned his face toward me, giving me a wry expression. “That’s not very gallant of you.”
“I’ve been trying out radical honesty for the last few years.” I mean, there’d been some huge but necessary deviations from that recently, but for the most part I did really try to always tell the truth. Even if it was painful.
“Radical honesty?” he repeated. “Is that where you get to just insult people and not worry about the consequences?”
Now I was certain something was up. “You sound grumpy. Do you want a snack?” I picked up the tote bag, showing him the inside.
He smiled at my attempt to distract him, feeling more like the regular Griffin to me. “Do you have any raisins?”
“I don’t know.” I started pawing through the bag. Sheila was really into healthy and organic snacks. It took me a few seconds, but I emerged triumphant, holding up a small red box. I handed it to him. “There you go.”
Griffin looked down at the box. “Right. You were supposed to say no, and then I would have said, ‘That’s okay, do you have any dates?’”
“I see what you were going for there.”
He nodded. “I would hope so, because it wouldn’t have been very subtle.”
“Foiled by your own cheesy pickup line.”
“Tragic day indeed for us Oxford graduates.”
“Indeed,” I agreed, and he grinned.
“I do want to point out, though, that the line worked.”
What? “It did not.”
He relaxed back against the bench and put one of his arms behind me. Not touching me, but I was keenly aware of it being there. “The point of those lines is to initiate a conversation by making someone laugh. And hopefully have them agree to go on a date.”
“Neither one of those things happened.”
“The conversation did. You’re talking to me right now. That particular line has a one hundred percent success rate.”
I did not want to think about his past and him talking to other women. At all. “You already know me, so it doesn’t count.” I didn’t mention that the success of that line was most likely due to the person saying it. Griffin Windsor was a hard man to say no to. “Plus, you’re not supposed to ask me out on dates because of the friend thing we’ve clearly established.”
That was a lie, because nothing was clear where he was concerned.
“Friends can ask each other out on dates, can’t they? You never clarified that they couldn’t.”
“It’s universally understood,” I said, mildly frustrated. That was the entire point of being “just friends.”
“Not by me.” He leaned in slightly toward me. “But if you want me to stop asking, to stop flirting with you, tell me and I will. I can take a no.”
Here was my chance. To tell him exactly that. That nothing could or would happen between us and he should not ask me on a date.
All I had to do was say the actual words.
CHAPTER TEN
The words rattled around in my head: Stop. Don’t ask me out. We’re only friends. Around and around they swirled and it was like my mouth couldn’t grab hold of any of them and actually speak the words.
“You’re not saying anything,” Griffin pointed out helpfully, but even him annoying me wasn’t enough to get the words out. “You didn’t say no.”
“I didn’t say yes, either.”
He nonchalantly shrugged one shoulder, as if to say he disagreed with my assessment but wasn’t going to say so. Instead he said, “You were worried that I was married.”
That teasing lilt was back in his voice. I’d probably given him false hope that I would eventually say yes, which I shouldn’t have done. I should take it back.
I didn’t, though. “It was a reasonable conclusion to draw.”
“Not really. I don’t wear a ring and I wouldn’t be asking you for dates if I were.”
Which was why it had shocked me so much to see him with Sophie. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would be cheating on a wife. Especially after that story he’d shared with me about his aunt.
But I could give as good as I got. “So maybe you aren’t married, but if we had to go to trial to determine whether or not you were a stalker, I’m pretty sure today would be enough to convict you.”
I should have known he’d be ready with a retort. “I’m not stalking you, this is a coincidence, and are you carrying any knives that I should know about?”
“This is what happens when you don’t really know someone. I might always keep knives on me. I could be a hired mercenary or an assassin.”
“Yes, the kind who can’t keep her shoes on.”
He was laughing at his own joke, and I nudged his arm. Things felt casual and easy, and I was glad we were back to that.
Then he turned to look at me and wrecked that whole feeling.
“Green,” I whispered. His eyes were definitely green, not blue. In this light I could finally see what color they were. Viridian green. It made me want to run to the local craft store and get a tube of that exact color and cover an entire canvas with it. “I wondered about that.”
For some reason I forgot that voices carry and people could hear you when you talked. “You wondered about me?” he asked.
“Just your eye color.” Now it was my turn to be grumpy. How could I keep him at arm’s length if I was waxing all poetic about his eyes?
His phone buzzed again and he glanced at the screen before letting out a sigh and placing it down.
“Girl trouble?” I couldn’t help but ask.