“How’s Ashley?” I ask, since it’s as subtle as I can be.
He cuts me a look to let me know he’s not amused and, for whatever reason, I no longer have the right to ask about that.
I feel it in my gut. Griff’s the only person—outside of Moira, of course—I can’t stomach losing, and right now, our friendship feels more tenuous than it ever has.
I’m losing him.
I don’t know why, but I know I am.
“Come to dinner tonight,” I say, when he doesn’t answer.
“No,” he snaps.
“We don’t have to stay in. We’ll all go out. Dinner, drinks—whatever you want.”
Shaking his head, Griff ducks his head and stares down at the ground. “Just let me get this out, would you?”
I lean back in my chair, nodding for him to go ahead.
“I want you to buy out my half of the club. I don’t want this partnership anymore. I’ll give you a better than fair price, I really just… I just want out. I don’t care about the money. All the money we’ve made may have worked magic for you, but it’s done nothing but make me fucking miserable. Attracted a fucking gold digger that I couldn’t see through, bought a big, beautiful prison that I can’t stand to spend the night in… I’m more alone than I’ve ever been in my life, Seb, and I want out.”
I feel like he just kicked me between the fucking legs. “You want out? Of our partnership? Of our friendship?”
“I can’t do this anymore, Seb. I can’t. I don’t want to. I’m at a point in my life where I have a choice; I can choose to be unhappy or I can try something new and maybe get a different result.”
I scowl, sitting forward and irritably shoving papers across my desk. “No. Fuck that. You’re making an emotional decision because Ashley fucked you over. This is not… no. You can’t just quit on me.”
“Yes, I fucking can,” he states, causing my stomach to sink.
“So, you’re just like everybody else now, huh?” I demand, gesturing toward the door. “Every other fucking person who just leaves. Does our friendship mean this little to you? Do I mean this little to you?”
He places a hand on either side of his head, as if that’s the only way he can keep it from exploding. Like I’m so fucking infuriating that he can’t even wrap his head around it. “This isn’t about you. I can’t make every decision in my life to fit you, Sebastian. You have everything. I have nothing. You’ve got the perfect fucking life—you are not alone anymore. You have a person who will never abandon you. You have Moira. What do I have?”
“You have me. You have both of us,” I state, feeling walls erecting around my heart. There have never been walls between me and Griff. He’s the one person in the world I knew had my back, the one person in the world I didn’t hesitate to trust.
Now he wants to fucking walk away.
I guess I was wrong. Over half my fucking life, and I was wrong.
I want to know why. I want to rage at him and demand he explain to me why our friendship went from the most important thing in his life to something so meaningless, he’ll toss it out and move on like it never happened. Like we haven’t been partners, building our lives together for more than half our lives.
But there’s no answer that could
make me understand. In his place, there’s nothing that would have made me walk away from him.
Nodding my head, I clip, “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
He sighs, the weight on his shoulders appearing heavier instead of lighter. “I have to talk to my lawyer this afternoon. I’ll schedule an appointment with the accountant afterward. I’ll let you know when I have a fair price for you.”
I nod mechanically, but I couldn’t give a fuck less about the price. I don’t want his half of the business; I want him to stop this shit and stay on.
Instead of taking any of it back, he stands. He heads for the door, pausing just before opening it to leave.
“I’m sorry,” he says, quietly.
“Of all people, you should know how worthless those words are,” I tell him, coldly.
He nods slowly. “You’re right. I do.”