Free Me (bxb)

Part 23

The next day at school Griffin is getting his US History textbook when he feels a hand brush up against his shoulder. He turns around in surprise, for some reason thinking that Chad had decided to touch his shoulder weird to mess with him, but he was surprised to see Rose looking up at him with her wide eyes.

"Hey, Griffin. I just wanted to apologize again for yesterday. I shouldn't have tried to talk about something you weren't ready to."

"It's okay," Griffin says, not completely sure as to why Rose has this sudden interest in him and is apologizing so often over something she shouldn't really even be worried about. "I'm really not mad. You didn't know."

"I just wanted to make sure that you knew I really was sorry," Rose says, and she peers past Griffin's shoulder just a bit to the inside of his locker, and her eyes widen when she spots the number of medals in there and some of the pictures of Griffin on his bike and of other inspirational motocross racers. "Woah! I knew that you were into motocross, but I never knew that you were actually so good at it. You look amazing in these pictures!"

"Oh, thanks," Griffin replies, a little more into the conversation now that Rose is talking about something he cares about. "I'm actually able to start getting into freestyle competitions now. You know, when motocross racers do tricks on their bikes and stuff. I'm excited for that."

"You mean doing things like flips?" She sounds genuinely interested, and Griffin is so surprised that a girl is wanting to talk about motocross. It isn't like he hasn't met girls on the motocross track that actually raced, and some of them were really good, but none of the girls at school ever showed any interest in it before. "Isn't that really dangerous?"

"Yeah, it can be if you don't know what you're doing," Griffin says with a shrug.

"But you know what you're doing, don't you? You wouldn't be winning so many medals if you didn't." Rose's voice does something weird so it sounds, in what Griffin can only describe as, sultry. It makes Griffin feel really strange, but not in a good way at all. No girl has ever talked in that tone in front of him before, except maybe Angie a couple years ago, but that experience hadn't ended well at all.

"Uh, yeah- I guess," he awkwardly gets out, and Rose giggles at him, while twining a piece of hair around her finger, looking up at him through her lashes.

"You're cute," she titters. Griffin can feel his blush up to his ears, and Rose seems to take that as a positive signal because she moves in closer until he can smell her flowery scented perfume. She looks like she's about to say something, but Cynthia, one of her friends, calls her name and Rose turns to look at her. They have some sort of silent conversation all with eyebrow raises and some odd gesturing, then Rose turns back to Griffin. "I'll see you around, Griffin." His name comes out of her mouth almost like a purr (he wishes her voice were deeper so it would sound better to his ears). "I'd love to hear more about your motocross and races."

She touches his shoulder lightly again, looking up at him sideways to show off her pretty eyes and eyelashes, before she saunters over to her friend, swaying her hips a bit more than necessary as she moves. If Griffin was any other guy, he's sure that his eyes would be glued to her curved hips, ass and thighs, but he's Griffin so he turns back to his locker without sparing her a second glance. He doesn't even wonder if she notices.

This pattern of Rose openly flirting with him at his locker (Griffin may be dense, but he's not an idiot and he knows when a girl is flirting with him) continues for the next couple of weeks. Nothing much comes out of it, and because he isn't flirting back, he is pretty sure she'll give up after not too long, but she doesn't.

She keeps coming back with that same brush against his shoulder and she's getting to the point where she gets very close to his neck, finds something to talk about for a few minutes, and after Griffin gets into the conversation she flirts with him some more, then leaves to go to her friends or class with a sway of her hips.

It's not until he's at home, scrolling through his phone and his contacts to find ones to delete, that he realizes the chance he has in Rose. He has Courtney's name highlighted when the realization comes to him.

Though he liked Courtney as a friend and he never wanted to hurt her with his problems, he had never wanted her to leave him without a cover to hide behind either. When it comes to Rose he doesn't necessarily like her. He tolerates her, but after talking to her at his locker every morning, he has never found any kind of connection with her and in any other circumstance he would never be her friend, much less date her.

His downfall with Courtney was the fact that he liked her too much. He loved her like a friend, and even though he could have never felt anything more for her because it was both physically (trust him, he'd tried before while they were dating to think of her late at night alone in his room, but his brain always composed slimmer waists, muscular thighs, and strong jawlines instead of her soft and curvy... everything) and emotionally impossible for him. If he was going to find a girl that he could hide behind and keep his sinful thoughts away, he would need a girl that he would never be close to in any other situation. Rose Palmer was that girl.

So, the next day at school, when Rose comes to him at his locker, Griffin is eager for once. He falls into conversation much easier, and Rose smiles more and her flirting becomes more obvious the more into her Griffin seems to be. Before Rose can turn around and head back to her friends, Griffin is the one to touch her gently and ask her to stay.

"Do you want to do something this weekend?" he asks, and he watches with delight as her eyes light up and the smile on her lips goes from flirtatious to plainly overjoyed. If Griffin liked her more as a friend maybe he'd feel bad for getting her hopes up like this, and for making her think that he really does like her the way she wants him to, but he doesn't. Even if he was normal, even if he went out with girls he actually liked and enjoyed kissing them and fantasized about them instead of the gender he does, he still wouldn't like her. Girls like Courtney were the type he would go out with, or the other girls on the circuit, but not Rose.

"Yes, of course," Rose says happily, before she's taking out her phone, punching down on a few buttons, and putting it in Griffin's hand. "Here, put your number in. I'll text you later and tell you when to pick me up."

Griffin puts his number into her phone before passing it back to her. She gives him one last wide smile, and for a second he thinks she might kiss him, but she turns around and walks briskly back to her friends, her hips still swaying. Griffin had expected her to be easy judging from the amount of her blatant flirting, but he really hadn't anticipated for her to say yes to a date the first time he asked. Well, he thinks to himself as he turns back to his locker to grab the textbooks for his morning classes, at least I didn't have to chase after a girl I don't even like.