Chapter 25 Gia
Gia
My head pounds as I shuffle into the bathroom. With my eyes half-closed, I crack my hip on the corner of the vanity.
“Fuck. Ouch. Goddamn Gwen and her peer pressure,” I grumble, my voice raspy. I should not have had that fourth margarita—not after we finished those two bottles of wine first.
Such a bad choice.
Once I take care of business, I slowly make my way downstairs, where Farrah is still passed out on the couch. There’s a note on the counter from Gwen. I squint to make the words clear for my fuzzy brain.
Good morning, loves!
Coffee is made, but drink the puke-colored stuff in the fridge first. It’ll cure your hangover in about five minutes if you can keep it down. There’s bread in the box for toast if you’re up for it. Come see me at the Grind later if you get time.
-Gwen
I scowl at her cheery words. How the hell was she functioning enough to do all of that and make it to work on time? I kind of hate her right now, but if this magic hangover cure works, I might kiss her.
“Oh, fuck! What time is it?” Farrah shouts before groaning out a curse. Doesn’t sound like Farrah’s feeling much better than I am.
“Eight-thirty. Gwen left a hangover cure. You want some?”
Farrah comes stumbling around the corner of the kitchen. “If that’s Tula’s recipe, hell yes, I do.” Her dark hair is a mess around her head. She looks adorably rumpled this morning with her eyes half-closed and her borrowed T-shirt and sweats wrinkled.
“I have no clue if it is.”
“Does it look like dirty dishwater?”
I shake the large glass bottle around, making the grayish-brown liquid slosh. “Yep.”
“That’s it. Grab a couple of highball glasses. It’s best to throw it back like a shot.”
My stomach rolls at the thought. I let Farrah pour the drink into our glasses and then grab the one she hands me.
“Drink fast and don’t breathe. Trust me.” Farrah lifts her glass in the air before throwing it back. I follow suit, gagging a bit once it’s down. We both stand there for a minute, waiting to see if it will stay down or if we’re gonna get to experience it twice.
Once we’re positive we’ll be fine, I pour two mugs of coffee, and we sit at the table together.
I ask her about what it was like to grow up here, and we commiserate about the best and worst parts of small-town life.
Farrah and Gwen went to high school together, but they didn’t become friends until she moved back to town last year.
My phone rings in the middle of us laughing over embarrassing high school moments. I answer Holt’s video call without thinking about the state of my hungover face and immediately regret it. My hair looks like a rat’s nest, and I have giant dark circles under my eyes.
“Hey, Rainbow. Rough night?” Holt’s grinning at me, his blue eyes sparkling. I try to tame my wayward locks but quickly give up. He’s seen the damage and didn’t hang up.
“Mm. Gwen pulled out the premade margarita mix, and things went downhill from there. I drank Tula’s hangover cure, and am just now starting to feel like myself.”
“G!” Leah shouts, making me wince. She steals the phone out of Holt’s hands before he can stop her. I have to close my eyes to avoid getting motion sickness as the video goes blurry. “You wanna have a sleepober with us?”
Lauren’s face comes on the screen next to her sister’s. “We built the coolest fort with our friends last night, and Daddy said we could keep it up and watch movies with you tonight.”
“Only if she’s available. She hasn’t said yes yet.” Holt’s voice comes from the distance.
I glance at Farrah as she covers her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “I would love to have a sleepover. What time do you want me to come over?”
“You can come right now! Daddy maked abocado toast.” Leah grins.
“I thought we were going to the library today?” Holt asks.
“Oh, yeah. You can come over right now, and then we can go to the libary together.”
“How about Gia meets us here after we get back from the library?”
“Can we leave right now?”
“No, you’re still in your pajamas, and you haven’t eaten your breakfast.”
I lose the battle with my laughter. The way the three of them interact with each other kills me. The girls are entirely too smart to let Holt get away with anything, but luckily for him, he doesn’t seem to fall for their tricks very often.
“Uggghh. Fine. See you later, G.”
“Wait, I need—” The phone beeps as the call ends. I look at Farrah, and we both crack up laughing. “Those girls might be my favorite humans.”
“Same,” Farrah says through her giggles. “I’m not supposed to have favorites, but Leah is something else altogether.”
I text Holt for the details of when and where I should meet them since we never settled the plan, then Farrah and I finish our coffees before she heads home to get ready for her shift at the diner.
I head upstairs to shower and attempt to look somewhat human before going over to Holt’s house.
I’m going to need my wits about me if I want to keep up with Lauren and Leah.
“Knock, knock!” I holler as I walk through the Basil family’s front door.
“G!” Leah and Lauren race across the room from the kitchen. “Is that stuff for us?”
“It sure is. I’ve got tons of snacks and a few super important items every girls’ night needs to have.”
“Like what?” Leah tries to look into the bags. I set them on the dining room table and start pulling stuff out.
“Popcorn is a must, and M&Ms to cut the saltiness, nail polish in a multitude of colors, a speaker in case we want to listen to music before we watch a movie, and the last and most important item for a good girls’ night is face masks.”
“We’re going to do all this tonight?” Lauren’s eyes are wide.
I shrug. “If you want to. The goal is to have options. We also have to eat a good dinner. One lesson you must learn early in your life is to always, always, always, eat before a party. That will save you a lot of stomachaches.” And headaches, but that doesn’t pertain to them at this particular moment.
It also doesn’t seem to make a difference when you go whole hog on a cheap bottle of margarita mix.
“Why would we get a stomachache if we don’t eat dinner?” Leah asks.
“If you eat dinner first, you won’t make yourself sick on the snacks. Too much of a good thing can ruin it forever.”
Holt comes up next to me and wraps his arm around my waist. I tilt my head up, silently asking for a kiss. He obliges, smirking when he pulls away. “Much better than a high five.”
I lightly backhand his stomach, and he laughs as he heads into the kitchen, saying, “I’ll never be able to drink Titos again because I didn’t follow Gia’s rule. Be smarter than your dad, girls.”
The three of us laugh, although the girls don’t fully understand what he’s talking about.
“Come look at our fort!” Lauren grabs my hand and pulls me into the living room, where a ginormous structure has been erected. The four of us will comfortably fit in it tonight, although I wouldn’t have minded needing to be squished.
“This is the coolest fort I’ve ever been in. Did you guys build this on your own?”
“Daddy helped get the sheets up so they won’t fall, but Lee Lee and I decorated.”
Hanging from the ceiling are paper stars and rainbows, colorfully decorated with crayon scribbles. It honestly is an amazing structure. One I would have loved to have as a kid.
Leah grabs my hand. “Can we paint our fingers now? We never did that afore.”
“Let’s see how long we have until dinner. Nail polish and food do not mix well,” I answer.
We climb out of the tent and gather at the island to watch Holt put the finishing touches on dinner. He made some sort of baked chicken with orzo that smells incredible.
It hits me then why Holt is different from every other guy I’ve met before. He doesn’t need me. He’s a fully functioning adult who can take care of himself and his girls without needing his hand held.
I’m not the kind of woman who is willing to teach a man how to treat me.
I don’t want to be his mommy, doing all of the wifely duties to give him an easy life without getting anything in return.
I want a partner, someone I can rely on to pick up the slack when I’m not at my best because I’d do the same for them.
Nothing in life will ever be divided fifty-fifty, so I wholeheartedly believed that finding someone willing to put in the extra effort when necessary was going to be impossible. I was fine with that too. I knew I could take care of myself a whole lot better than anyone else.
Then Holt entered my life, and suddenly my idea of marriage and partnership didn’t seem so far-fetched. He isn’t dating me because he needs me to fulfill some role in his life. He’s dating me purely because he wants me here.
Holt looks up at me from behind the kitchen counter. He winks as if he knows I’m thinking about him. It makes me grin, and I start contemplating the best way to show him how grateful I am to be a part of his little family later.
The four of us settle at the table for dinner.
The girls barely eat anything, too excited for our activities to focus.
We leave clean-up duty for later to set up our makeshift nail salon.
I’ve laid paper towels on the table, and Leah’s tiny fingernails are spread out before me.
She picked electric blue and hot pink, and it only takes me a few minutes to get the polish on her.
Lauren chose a salmon color for her nails. She grins at me the whole time I brush it on.
“Daddy, it’s your turn,” Leah says once I’m done with Lauren.
“Oh, I’m not sure I can rock the nail paint like you guys.”
“It’s nail polish, Daaad.” Lauren rolls her eyes.
“Come on. You can have hot pink like me,” Leah offers, as if not matching was the only thing holding him back.
Holt comes over to the table to peruse the options. “How about you pick a different color for every finger?”
Leah’s eyes widen. “Like a rainbow?”
“Yeah, like a rainbow.” Holt’s heated gaze sends a flush through my face.
The girls dive into my basket of polish to choose the right colors. I raise an eyebrow, silently asking him if he’s sure. He shrugs as if to say it doesn’t really matter.
“Gia doesn’t have yellow, so you’ll have to skip it,” Lauren says as they line up the bottles.
Holt places his big hands down in front of me. “I think that means we need to buy a yellow one to say thank you to Gia for bringing this stuff over.”
The girls nod sagely, adding a verbal thank you after Holt gives them a look. It doesn’t matter how often I see him in Dad-mode, it makes me want to jump him every time.
I start painting Holt’s nails, following the pattern the girls laid out. Since his fingers are much larger than the girls’, they get bored after a few minutes and go to the living room to pick out a movie.
“Thank you for doing this.” Holt’s deep voice rumbles in the small space between us.
I look up from my task, catching his blue-eyed gaze. “It’s no problem.”
“They don’t get to do this kind of stuff anymore. It means a lot to them. And to me.”
“I’m happy to do it. I like being here with you guys.”
“We like it when you’re here too.” Heavy emotions sit between us. Words neither one of us is ready to use hover in the air as if they’re waiting for us to grab them when it’s time.
Before we can say anything else, the girls bound up to us with their movie choice. It makes Holt groan, and the girls laugh.
We spend the rest of the night cuddled in the tent with our snacks. This all feels too good to be true. Worries float around in the back of my mind that this contentment won’t last. That something is going to get in the way of my happily ever after, and I’m terrified that it’ll be me.