11. Kiss Me
11
KISS ME
SIXPENCE NONE THE RICHER
“How was practice, Sugar?” the Colonel called out to Ginny, meeting her with a welcoming hug as she walked from the warm kitchen into the family room. The house smelled of baked apples, sugar, and pot roast, but her daddy smelled like home.
“It was long and hot,” Ginny whined, feeling sticky with sweat. “I’m gross.” She’d come right from practice, after stopping at the grocery store for vanilla bean ice cream at her mama’s request, and would be counting down the minutes until she could go home for a shower and bed.
Her dad pulled away but sniffed her hair as he did and let out a long whistle. “Whew, girl. You’re right. You stink to high heaven.”
“Alright.” She pushed him away, laughing.
“You smell like a hot gym bag left overnight in a dirty creek.” The Colonel chuckled and pulled her shoulders under his arm, leading her to the front porch where her family waited. “You smell like Dakota during the dark years …”
“I do not!” She swatted at his belly but hugged him tight all the same. When he giggled, not unlike her big brother, it made her miss Dakota all the more. “You’re incorrigible, Colonel.”
He kissed the crown of her head. “And you’re beautiful, Sugar. Now, your mama did a thang. Prepare yourself.”
“What thing?” Ginny asked, stepping out onto the porch and surveying the landscape.
Her sisters and their husbands all sat around the covered porch, lounging with drinks in hand and deep in some lively conversation. Caroline stood in the middle, waving her hands around and nearly losing her drink in the dramatics of her storytelling. Griffin, of course, stared at her as if she’d hung the moon and laid a hand on her waist to keep her from toppling over in her excitement.
Ginny laughed to herself but then froze when Caroline moved slightly to the right, being pulled into her husband’s lap and snuggled into oblivion— ick —and another figure came into view beside her mama.
Ryan.
Ryan caught her eyes and then stood, shoving his hands into his loose fitted jean pockets. And…
Why did everyone look newly showered but her?!
Before she could settle on the fact that the man she’d wanted to make out with in the corner of an elementary school only days before and who she’d also called a stiff-necked fart face at practice earlier in the evening—Ryan I was craving cookies Hood—stood newly showered, quite at home on her parent’s porch, and obscenely attractive with wet hair and his dang glasses framing his beautifully chiseled, unshaven face, Ginny’s attention was pulled to the two figures running at full speed ahead.
Davey and Theo barreled into her in greeting, hugging her legs and waist as if they hadn’t seen her in years. She scooped Davey up in her arms and bent to kiss Theo’s sweet cheek, something she knew her nephew would likely not allow for much longer.
“Ewww. Aunt Ginny!” Predictably, Theo swiped her kiss away with a sweaty hand. “Kissin’ is gross!”
“No way! Kissin’ is the sweetest." She turned her attention to Davey, whose blonde curls always seemed to be stuck to her face. “What do you think, Davey Baby? Is kissin’ icky?”
“NO!” she yelled, excited. “Mama and Daddy kiss lots and lots.”
Ginny blanched and spit out her tongue. “Yuck… maybe kissin’ is gross. Give me one and help me decide?”
Davey grabbed Ginny’s face with her chubby hands and kissed her square on the mouth, and then pulled away with a sweet, toothy grin. “Good?”
“The best,” Ginny said, booping her niece’s nose and setting her back down.
When she looked up, she found Ryan still standing, unaware of the hawk-like eyes of her sisters studying his non-movement. Ginny’s mama looked akin to an evil villain, stroking her fingers down her beloved, obese cat, Gus, while her eyes brimmed with delight.
The Colonel cleared his throat, garnering Ryan’s attention where he quickly regained composure, unstuffed his hands from his pockets, and righted himself back into the wicker seat he’d inhabited before Ginny’s arrival.
“There’s my baby girl,” her mama gracefully slid from her position, tenderly setting Gus in the chair as if he were treasure of great value—and not a feline dictator who’d made most of their lives miserable but would rank in the top three things Joan Remillard would save in a fire. “We’ve all been just hankerin’ for you to get home. Haven’t we?” She looked along the porch but rested her gaze on Ryan.
“Just hankerin’,” Lake echoed, saving Ryan with laughter in his voice. He was cleanly showered, too! What in the world was going on? “Thought you’d stick with the socks, huh, Gin?”
Ginny looked down at herself. She’d worn an oversized Good Start t-shirt, running shorts, and tall highlighter-pink soccer socks with the phrase Who runs the world? and GIRLS! printed across them. Her hair was barely hanging in the scrunchie she’d haphazardly thrown it up in before running into the grocery store. And, she could confirm, she did smell like Dakota’s dark years of teenagedom.
“I didn’t know we were having a party,” she said, boring her eyes into her sisters who wore matching smirks and the looks of traitors who should have given her a warning… AGAIN.
Their mama, ever the hospitable hostess, wrapped her arm around Ginny and pulled her into her side. “Oh, Virginia. It's no party. It’s just a simple family gatherin’,” she said, her spare arm gesturing out dramatically to the porch attendants.
Every eye turned to Ryan, who was notably not family.
Ginny whisper-hissed in her mama’s ear, “I know you are up to somethin’.”
Her mama opened her mouth, shock and dismay and a little bit of mischief in her countenance. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean by that, Virginia Maple. Georgia asked if she might look through some old photos tonight for all that Bicentennial Homecomin’ business. We thought it might be nice to get the whole gang together to go through the photo collection. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Georgia answered far too sweetly.
Ginny placed her hands on her hips. “The whole gang, huh? Then where’s Blaire?”
“She said somethin’ about sneeze-peein’ right as we were leaving practice,” Ryan spoke up and had the decency to look apologetic about his surprise invitation. “You’d already left.”
“See,” her mama clapped her hands, “there ya have it. Blaire was just too pregnant to join us. Babies are a blessing, aren’t they? Now, I’d like ya to go say hello to Gus Gus and our guest while I fix supper.” She patted Virginia’s backside and pulled the Colonel along with her into the house.
Ginny narrowed her eyes. “Hello Gus,” she said, receiving an unpleasant hiss as the ferocious feline rolled over and displayed his haunches for the whole porch to see. Used to his antics, Ginny turned her face to Ryan, “Hello, guest.”
“Don’t you mean, stiff-necked fart face?” Georgia asked, eyes gleaming and holding Caroline’s son, Simon, on her lap.
Theo promptly began singing, “Fart face. Fart face. Fart face,” and danced between the adults with Davey at his heels, chanting along.
“Alright,” Griffin grabbed Theo up under his arm by the waist and Lake did the same, scooping up a delighted Davey. “I think that’s about enough of that. Let’s go play in the yard while your mama and Aunt Georgie impose on other people’s business.”
“We aren’t imposin’,” Georgia said. “We invited our friend to dinner and dominoes.”
“I seem to remember dominoes bein’ a family only invite.” Lake raised his eyebrows but couldn’t pass off the look he gave to Georgia as anything less than pure adoration. “No offense, Ry.”
“He’s more like family anyways,” Caroline echoed their older sibling’ stance.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “ He’s sittin’ right here.” He jumped up and followed the guys down the front porch stairs. “Mind if I join y’all? The Remillard girls obviously have some stuff to work out, and I don’t necessarily wanna be privy to it all.”
“‘Course, fart face,” Theo said, but slipped his hand into Ryan’s.
Ginny’s heart pitter-pattered with annoyed affection as she watched them skip off to play on the lawn, where heaps of leaves were ready to be jumped in. She whipped her head around to her sisters. “You!”
They both cackled but settled into seats on the porch swing. Georgia held out Simon to her like a peace offering. When she took him into her arms, the baby sleepily nuzzled into Ginny’s shoulder, where she kissed his head and found herself bobbing her weight from one foot to the other to keep him happy and lull him into a cozy sleep.
“Don’t think you can distract me with this perfect baby,” she said, voice low. “You told Caroline about… youknowwhat. I told you that in confidence, Georgia.”
“I’m sorry, Gin. Honestly, I didn’t intend to tell Caroline anything. It happened, but I know it was wrong. Forgive me, please?”
Ginny merely glared.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Caroline asked. “I thought we told each other everything.”
Ginny stomped her foot, refusing to acknowledge that she would have told Caroline willingly if she’d been at breakfast that morning with Georgia. “Why didn’t you tell me that Ryan was coming to dinner? Why didn’t you tell me to go home and shower, for goodness sakes? And why… WHY did you bail on karaoke the other night?”
“Virginia,” Georgia said, tone hushed, but solid, much like their daddy’s when he was about to lay some unforeseen, but sage wisdom on one of his children. “I’ve been friends with Ryan for a long time. And for the last three years of that friendship, he has steadily pulled away. Now, I know some of that is on me and life and growin’ up, but I suspect most of it, my sweet sister, is due to the fact that he can’t reconcile the way he feels about you.”
“Georgie… we talked about this,” Ginny said, feeling defensive and too afraid to hope, despite the way he’d looked at her in the office. The way she thought—if they hadn’t been rudely interrupted by what Ginny later learned was a child vomiting in the gym during Ryan’s lunch break—that Ryan might’ve been craving more than chocolate chip cookies.
Caroline tucked one leg under the other and pushed off from the ground with her bare foot, rocking the swing gently. “We’ve all seen it, Ginny. Even if Georgia hadn’t told me, I’ve seen the way you look at him. And, I think… I think Ryan is just so settled in his ways, he can’t figure out how to acknowledge his attraction. And it’s more than that—”
“Guys, I know. I get it, alright? I’ve been here before,” Ginny interrupted. “Longer than you both have, thank you very much.” Ginny swayed now, feeling Simon’s small body relax into her. “I’ve waited for a long time for him to see me. To look at me as more than your baby, tagalong sister. But it’s gonna be awful hard to know whether he is actually interested in pursuin’ me of his own accord if my dang family and friends won’t stop tricking him into it.”
“Friends?” Georgia asked.
Caroline giggled, obviously having gotten a full run down from Danger. “Danger trapped them at lunch the other day. Said you coulda cut the tension in his office with a knife.”
Ginny growled low so as not to wake the baby or alert the man on the lawn, who they were quite unmistakably discussing, but her anger with her sisters had all but dissipated. Maybe the baby was a good distraction. “Do you even have photos to look at tonight, you schemers?”
“Of course we do.” Georgia hopped off the swing and pulled out a small printer box hidden beside the wicker chair where Gus slept peacefully, passing gas between purrs. “Look, I already found some great ones. I really do need photos for the Homecoming Dance and then some are going in the time capsule.” She flipped the lid and pulled a stack out, handing them over to Ginny, who in turn, handed the sleeping baby over to his mother.
Ginny looked through the photos slowly. One of Georgia and Caroline before the Snow Ball, Georgia’s senior year, where Georgia was to have met Lakeland as her secret date, only to be stood up. She then lived the next six years under a giant misunderstanding. But it had turned out to be in God’s perfect timing, for when they reunited, it was clear Lake and Georgia belonged together.
Next, a photo of the whole family cheering Dakota on at a football game, dressed head to toe in Sugartree purple.
Another captured the moment Georgia, Ryan, and Blaire had saved their college acceptance letters to be read together. All three were open mouthed, clearly screaming in excitement. Ginny remembered watching them with Dakota and Caroline at her side, laughing at their hysterics, but sad her big sister would be leaving their family behind.
One caught a moment of unbridled rage between Dakota and Sadie that Ginny had taken a quick snapshot of and texted on their group thread, knowing they’d probably frame it and put it on their mantle.
Ginny smiled, looking at another from her own senior year. She and some of the youth group girls had decorated the entrance to Living Hope Church for the themed VBS that summer. The photo showed Georgia piggybacking Lake while he held streamers in his hands. Caroline was in a striped summer dress, her arm around Sadie’s waist so they could pose cheek to cheek. A crowd of the youth posed in the back row with silly faces and in various states of mayhem, but Ginny’s eyes and face were turned to her left, where Ryan had casually placed his arms around her and Dakota’s shoulders.
She tucked the photo in her shorts pocket and handed the stack back to Georgia. “Okay, listen. I love you guys, and I know your hearts were in the right place.”
“They really were. We love you, Gin. You haven’t dated in a while, and we thought after Kota and Sadie left… well…” Caroline gave her a tender smile. “We thought you might be lonelier than you’re letting on, and we just wanna see you happy,” Caroline said.
Ginny niggled her way between her sisters on the porch swing and gave it a gentle push to start a sway again. “I am happy, you goobs. I’m so happy and content and filled with joy in my life, with or without… youknowwho noticing me.”
“But he does notice you.” Georgia slipped her hand into Ginny’s.
“Maybe so, but no more meddlin’, okay? When Ryan finally admits how he feels… whatever his feelings really are, I want to know it was because he felt them and not that he was coerced into feeling some kinda way by his friends.” Ginny gave Georgia’s hand a squeeze. “But, I will admit, I am kind of lonely.”
She felt her sisters close in around her. Like they could protect her from any hard feelings with their mere presence at her side. And it made her feel stronger, sharing the load with them. “I’m not lonely in the way you think. I don’t need what you guys have in Lake and Griffin, necessarily. Though I want it. And I want it with Ryan. I always have.”
Caroline cooed loudly, earning a playful elbow to her gut from Ginny.
“Of course I want it, but I just… more than that, I miss being with you all before the marriages and the babies and the moving. Bleh,” she groaned. “That makes me sound like such a whiny baby, but there it is. I’m alone a lot, ya know? Workin’ from home and being single, and I do miss Sadie and Dakota. I miss them so much. Sometimes, I see you guys living your lives with your families and, even though I’m so incredibly proud and happy for you, I’m not always sure where I fit in.”
She realized then how much her words sounded like Melody Man’s. His longing to be on the inside with his friends mirrored some of the same feelings she carried about her siblings. The love she had for them and the longing to be a part of it all. She smiled, despite it all, knowing there was a person in her life—though she’d never met him—who completely understood what she was going through.
“You’re our girl,” Georgia sighed, sandwiching Ginny into a hug between herself and Caroline. “I’m so sorry if you’ve felt like an outsider to our lives in any way. But you are cherished, Virginia.”
“You’re the best aunt and the best sister, Gin. But more than that, you are our friend. Our forever, precious friend. No season of life can change that.”
They both kissed her head and settled their temples on either side of her. “This growin’ up business is tough stuff,” Caroline said, admiring Simon in her arms.
Georgia giggled. “Didn’t I hear you tell Theo that, like, just before Ginny got here?”
“It's no less true for us than it is for him, Georgia Snow,” Caroline whispered, sounding an awful lot like their mama. “And Ryan? What are ya gonna do about him?”
Ginny shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about taking another wise woman’s advice.”
Georgia raised her hands in the air in praise. “Hallelujah!” she hollered, then lowered her voice. “That man could use a good kiss to knock him over.”
“We’ll see,” Ginny mused, and laid her head on Caroline’s shoulder and her hand in Georgia’s hand. “We will definitely see.”
They fell into a quiet calm, pushing their toes off from the floor and maintaining a steady rock on the swing. Ginny closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the kids’ laughing on the lawn as they jumped into piles of leaves only to insist the men rake them up again, and the gentle whistle of the wind, brushing up against the remaining leaves on the trees surrounding the house.
“Y’all settled?” Ginny opened her eyes at the sound of Ryan’s voice, and found him casually leaning against the porch’s cedar post, one hand resting on the rail.
Leaning … she finally understood why Caroline had been so obsessed with the While You Were Sleeping reference during the months she’d tried to avoid loving Griffin. The way Ryan looked, so effortlessly cool and just… himself, with the colors of dusk settling in behind him and the light breeze ruffling his hair. She was completely gone for him.
“‘Course we are, Hood.” Caroline untangled herself from them and bobbed with the baby towards the front door. “I better get him down before dinner. I’ll see y’all inside.”
Georgia followed suit but hollered to the men and kids on the lawn, “Y’all come in and eat!”
The Lovett men grabbed each of their children by the waist and carried them in football holds up the stairs. Theo shouted, “I’ll save ya a seat, fart face,” as he was carried across the threshold.
Following suit, Davey could be heard chanting fart face from inside.
Ryan chuckled and made his way to the door, and Ginny made a split second decision. She jumped up from the swing, stumbling a respectable amount without falling flat on her face. “So, fart face,” she bit her lip, feeling her smile widen, “Ry… do you maybe wanna go for a walk with me before supper?”
He looked to the door, where food, friendship, and a lack of hard conversations waited, but then, seeming to make a decision of his own, Ryan nodded and wordlessly stepped down the stairs once more, pausing for Ginny to catch up.
They walked down the long and winding driveway that led from the family home to the main road with the sounds of the breeze, critters, bugs, and the trees around them a tranquil soundtrack along their path. Large branches from the towering oaks lining the driveway hung over the path, casting darker shadows over the twilight of the surrounding woods. With little space between them, Ginny’s bare arm brushed against Ryan’s. Innocent contact that sent goosebumps across her skin and an instinct to be closer.
Before he could shove those stiff hands of his into his pockets, Ginny interlaced their fingers together and pulled him to a stop. She felt the tension sizzle between them immediately but wouldn’t release him, and Holy Heaven’s to Betsy, SHE WAS HOLDING RYAN HOOD’S HAND!
“Ryan, can we talk about this?” Ginny whispered more sedately than she felt.
He looked down at their hands where they connected. “About that?”
“Yes, Ryan. About that. We’re holding hands. And, frankly, it’s awesome.” She wiggled their hands but would not let him go. “But we should also talk about the peacocking and cookies and… the office.”
“Peacocking? What in the world does peacocking have to do with you and me holdin’ hands right now?”
“Oh, you are such a Peacocker.” Her voice sounded so much like Georgia’s it startled her, but then suddenly Ryan seemed much closer than just moments before and she felt her own conviction rise. “Every time any guy shows the slightest interest in me, you get all high and mighty, struttin’ around—” She changed her voice to mimic his, “ Why do you call yourself Virginia… huff huff huff. Grump grump grump. ”
“I don’t strut, Ginny .” Even in the growing darkness, Ginny could see Ryan’s green eyes narrow on hers. His stare intense, but his resolve softening. “And I don’t sound like that.”
“You do, and I want you to just finally admit it. You feel something, Ryan, and I feel something, too. And the other day in Danger’s office, I thought you—”
Ryan surged forward, the space between them taut, his breath on her face and his familiar scent wrapping her so closely she felt it impossibly hard to concentrate. “I feel…” he pulled his hand out of hers and traced her face with his finger, touching one of her stray curls so lightly she wasn’t even sure it’d happened.
Suddenly, Ginny was transported to a hot alleyway off of Main Street two years before. Desperate for the answer to the question she knew in her heart. She was frustrated and tired, but starry-eyed over this man, and she wasn’t afraid to admit it, even if he was. Even if she had to be brave for them both. Now, with Ryan looking at her—really looking—she was not going to let him walk away from her again.
She caught his hand against her face, wordlessly begging him not to release her. And when he didn’t fight her—didn’t withdraw, didn’t run—Ginny slowly ran her hands against the light, bristly shadow of hair along his jaw, closing the distance between them. So slowly, she moved closer, setting a glacial pace and giving him every opportunity to pull back. Letting Ryan decide, then and there, if he’d accept what she offered. If he could admit his feelings, not with words or declarations, but with action.
With touch and lips and promises.
One. Two. Three breaths and her endurance slipped. She brushed her lips against his and sighed helplessly against them before connecting again and feeling his answering sigh press against her lips in return. He deepened the kiss, pulling her flush against him and framing her face with his hands. Those hands he always buried in pockets, finally tangling in her hair, tracing her spine, landing at her waist. Squeezing her hips in a desperate push and pull that delighted and unnerved her.
Ginny had waited so long to kiss Ryan. Had spent teenage nights innocently dreaming, in the privacy of her very active imagination, what it would be like. But her wildest fantasies held no candle to the man hovering over her now. Pressing his mouth against hers again with a feather light touch and then, putting a firm and all too soon stop to things by resting his forehead on the crown of her head.
“See,” she said, breathless, “kissin’ really is the sweetest. We should probably do it again… just to be sure.”
“Ginny,” he sighed again. Deep. Resigned.
And for some reason, her nickname on his lips… the lips she’d just had on hers… didn’t sound anything like she wanted it to.
“I can’t—” he began, stepping away from her.
“You just did,” Ginny said, completely astounded at the turn things had taken.
“I can’t do this with you. You're—” He pulled further away and put his hands in his pockets. It may as well have been that giant red boundary line he always drew between them.
“I’m what, Ryan?”
“You’re you, Gin. You’re my friends’ little sister. You’re…”
Ginny felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. His blatant rejection punched her in the gut with the weight of a sledgehammer to her sternum. She backed up, tripping again on the ridiculous croc sandals she’d decided to wear but righting herself before she could fall flat on her face.
She felt foolish. So foolish and silly. Exactly as Ryan so obviously viewed her.
“I’m sorry.” He stared at the ground, not at her.
“Don’t… Please don’t…” Those warm, invading tears pooled from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. She swiped them away but nodded her head in confirmation. She let herself take a final look at Ryan, who to his credit, looked devastated. Likely feeling guilty for taking this walk in the first place. For letting her hold his hand. For kissing her… For breaking his best friends’ baby sister’s heart.
She backed further and further away from him, until he fell into the shadows, and Ginny felt confident her feet would carry her to the car and back to her apartment.
“I think I get it, Ryan. Tell my family…” she sniffed, swiped her cheeks again, and dabbed at her nose with the heel of her hand. She could feel the ugly cry coming on and she would not be standing in front of Ryan Hood when it happened. “You can tell them whatever you want. I… have to go.”
Then Ginny turned her back on Ryan and made her way home.
Alone.