24. Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Gina
Benji closed the door on me. Even though Diana can’t see me, I shrink deeper into the bathroom. My heart is pounding and I struggle to hear what’s going on in the other room over the sound.
Our screen door closes softly behind her as she lets herself in.
“Is Gina around?” Diana asks absently.
“Haven’t seen her,” Benji says.
The glittery garland and the party lights must have Diana’s attention because it takes way too long for her to gasp, “Oh! You’re—”
Naked. She doesn’t say it.
“I just got out of the shower,” Benji says apologetically. “You haven’t been waiting long?”
“No.” There’s a pause. “Is that Gina’s bra hanging off the chair?”
Fuck. Why isn’t she leaving? Benji is in a towel , and Diana isn’t as comfortable with nudity as Benji.
“Trouble likes to steal clothes out of the hamper,” Benji says, calm and unruffled.
“The cat draped it over the back of a dining room chair?” Diana asks doubtfully.
“Oh. No. I did that. I started cleaning up Trouble’s mess, but it was too hot, so I stopped for a cold shower.
” From his voice, Benji is moving around, maybe picking up our discarded clothes quickly, before it becomes evident that the cat would have to have pulled exactly one full outfit of my clothes out of the hamper and half an outfit of Benji’s clothes. “Figured I’d finish after my shower.”
Diana asks what he’s cooking—carnitas—and what the decorations are for—he’s thinking about doing more private shows.
No, not at Happy Lake, but in Havenwood and Pine Point.
Maybe as far as Duluth. Diana says that’s a good idea, but he should look into the legalities and ensure he accurately claims his income during tax time.
Their conversation goes on for far too long considering one party is wearing a towel.
Does she suspect us? Is she waiting for a chance to snoop around? If she asks to use the bathroom, the shower has glass doors, and there aren’t enough towels in here for me to attempt to hide under.
She could waltz right in and find me cowering and naked. I could lose everything. I could lose Happy Lake. My friendship with Milo.
“Okay,” Benji says, his voice coming from near the front door. “I’ll let her know.”
At the sound of the screen door gently closing, I let out a long sigh of relief. But I stay where I am. It would be too easy for Diana to return under some pretense.
Benji appears in the doorway a minute later. “She’s gone.”
“That was too close.”
He nods, wrapping his arms around me. “We got lucky.”
I step out of his embrace to dart across the hall into my bedroom. “We might not get that lucky next time.”
“She’s coming back in an hour,” Benji says from my doorway as I dig through my drawers for some clothes.
“We should put our anniversary on hold until after dark,” I say.
Benji steps into the room, and I pause my search through my T-shirt drawer when he wraps his arms around me. He nuzzles against my neck. “We have an hour, Gina.”
I’m already shaking my head, pulling his arms away. “No, we can’t risk it. We shouldn’t even touch each other until after ten pm, and you shouldn’t be in here when I’m in a towel.”
Benji takes a step back and sits hard on my bed. “This sucks.”
I grab a T-shirt and pull it over my head. “I want to spend the rest of the day in bed with you. Trust me, I do.”
“It doesn’t suck because you don’t want to fuck right now,” Benji says, falling onto his back.
He rubs his eyes while I grab a pair of underwear and quickly pull them up.
“Okay, that does suck, too,” he amends. “But I don’t like sneaking around.
Yeah, it’s fun when I’ve got my hand down your pants in the office, but this? Not fun.”
I knew this would happen. Expecting a twenty-five-year-old who should be living his life to the fullest to accept this situation was foolish. “Life isn’t fun—it’s responsibilities and duties and—”
“Gina. Come here.” He pats the bed next to him.
I pull on a pair of hiking shorts, but when he pats the bed again, I sit beside him. “What?”
He grabs a handful of my T-shirt and pulls me back until I’m lying next to him. He rolls onto his side and kisses me gently, just the once. “Life should be fun, too.”
That’s because he’s twenty-five. He doesn’t have any responsibilities—hell, he was sleeping on a friend’s couch before he came here, so it’s not like he even had a lease. But that’s not what has my chest squeezing painfully tight. “I’m not fun. That’s not my life.” I have nothing to offer you.
His hand moves to my face, gently turning me back to him.
“That’s a lie.” He kisses me again, longer this time.
“You’re fun. And you’re responsible, dependable, and loyal, as well as many other things I can’t think of when I’m looking into your pretty eyes.
” Another kiss, then another. My body relaxes from the certainty in his.
“I might need to vent sometimes, but I’m not going anywhere,” he says firmly. “We do this together. Even when it sucks. There was something about that in our wedding vows.”
I stare into his eyes, searching for signs that he means it and he won’t leave when things get hard like Milo did or when he gets bored like my Mom still does. It feels foolish to put so much hope into a twenty-five-year-old guy I met by chance in Vegas. And yet, I believe him.
“I love you.” It slips out, but the relief I feel when his face lights up with a gorgeous, dimpled smile is immense.
“I love you, too,” he says. His lips find mine again. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him over me. It doesn’t feel reckless. It feels steady. But when he pulls back, I let him.
“If we’re going to wait until after dark,” he says, rolling off me, “we need to stop.”
He’s right, so I sit up. “You need to get dressed.”
His nose wrinkles at the mention of clothes. “Can we still have margaritas and carnitas?”
“Absolutely.”
We're ready when Diana comes back, an hour on the dot later. We’ve taken down the decorations and put the party lights away. Benji is hiding out in my room with Trouble to keep him company.
I welcome Diana in and offer her a drink, which she declines as she sits on the couch. “I stopped by earlier, but your cousin told me you were out,” she explains.
Cousin, not Benji. That feels intentional. I perch in the recliner in the corner of the room. “I went for a walk in the woods.” It’s the most Gina-like answer and one she can’t easily refute.
Diana nods, then glances around, and that’s how I know whatever is coming is going to suck. I lace my fingers together to keep from fidgeting.
“How are you and Milo doing?” she asks gently.
“Fine,” I say, trying not to let the wariness creep into my voice.
“You seem to be drifting apart.”
“No, there’s been no drifting.”
Diana gives me a look she usually reserves for Milo. It’s a slight tilt of the head and a dead-eyed stare that screams really? “You aren’t the only one who goes for walks in the woods. Why is Milo sleeping in a tent?”
Oh shit. Milo might do his best to camouflage his tent, but Diana knows these woods. Maybe even better than we do. I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Well…” I say slowly, racking my brain for anything that might sound remotely plausible and will still make our relationship sound stable and dependable to Diana.
“This is kind of embarrassing, but we thought it might make the wedding night more exciting?” I can’t stop the rise in my voice that turns my excuse into a question.
Her eyebrows furrow. “So he’s going to sleep in that tent until the end of August?”
“He likes sleeping in a tent, out under the stars with the sounds of the forest. It’s not a hardship for him.
I think it’s bringing us closer. Like we appreciate each other more.
I mean, I’d marry him tomorrow if I could, but—” I don’t like the gleam that brings to Diana’s eyes, and I’m about to course-correct hard when there’s a loud crash from my bedroom.
Benji.
Diana rises to her feet, peering down the hallway.
Trouble races out of my room, skittering after a hair tie.
Diana shakes her head and sits back down. “That cat dragged your bra out of your hamper earlier.”
“He does that,” I say.
“Is your cousin still sleeping on the couch? It's not a good look with Milo out in the woods.”
“Oh, no.” Crap. Why did I say that? Where else would he be sleeping? “Sometimes he crashes on the couch. Sometimes in the RV with Briar.” Internally, I’m wincing.
Diana’s brows lift in surprise. “Are they together?”
I shrug. “She likes her space.” Diana can interpret that however she likes.
She sighs. “Just like Milo.”
“It’s not a bad thing.”
“Marriage is about partnership, Gina. You can’t go off into the woods whenever you feel like being alone—you have responsibilities to your spouse. Their feelings matter, too. You have to be able to trust that they’ll be there for you when you need them.”
Of course, she would think he’s selfishly gone off into the woods without considering my feelings. I doubt I can convince her of anything else. I’m kind of mad that I even have to. If Milo would talk to her instead of shutting her out, I wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting in their relationship.
“He needs to depend on you to be honest, too,” Diana continues. “Ask Milo to stop sleeping in his tent. Or at least move the damn thing closer to your meadow. Your wedding night will be as exciting as you make it, whether or not you sleep together in the lead-up.”
I stand, hoping it will encourage her to leave.
I wouldn’t expect Diana to share sex tips, but I’m not willing to risk finding out that I’m wrong about her.
“I’ll talk to him,” I promise. “Planning has been stressful on both of us, but we’ve known each other so well for so long.
We’re solid. You don’t need to worry about us. ”
“I know,” she says, getting to her feet. “Maybe I’m seeing trouble where there isn’t any. You’re good for him. But he needs to be good for you, too. And from here, it looks like he’s letting you do everything.”
“He’s not. Wedding planning—any kind of party planning—isn’t his thing.”
“It needs to become his thing,” she says, walking toward the door. “He has to engage with people. Or he’ll leave you to do all the hard work running Happy Lake while he plays with his axe in the woods.”
“He won’t.”
Diana gives me a doubtful look. “That’s how my parents ran Happy Lake.
My mother worked her ass off while my father spent his time fishing and drinking with his friends.
She always said ‘oh, that’s just the way he is’ while she ran herself into the ground trying to do the work of two people.
I don’t want that for you, or for Milo. He loves you, Gina. Talk to him. Get him to take on more.”
“I will,” I promise. There isn’t anything else I can say.
“Anyway, I came by to invite you, Milo, and whoever else is around to dinner on Tuesday night. I’ll throw something on the grill—nothing fancy. We could do it here if that would be easier for you.”
It is easier to force her company on Milo than drag Milo to her place. If she’s worried that we are drifting apart, we’ll need this to show her we’re not. “Here’s good. I’ll make a pasta salad and lemon bars.”
It takes a solid five minutes for her to leave after saying goodbye. I watch her through the window. Only after she disappears down the trail do I go into my bedroom. Benji is lying on his back, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
I sprawl next to him. “I need a full-strength margarita.”
“I’ll make you one in a minute. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I scooch over so I can lie with my head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around me, and we listen to the birds in the trees. “You are good for me, you know.”
He pulls me tighter, lifting his head to kiss the top of mine. “I know.”
I tickle him for that. He yelps, squirms, and rolls over me, pinning my hands to the bed over my head. I wrap my legs around his hips as he presses his forehead to mine. “How long until it gets dark?”
“Too long,” I say. “But tell me more about Vegas. Feed me margaritas and carnitas, and maybe I’ll propose again.”
“My answer is still yes,” he says, kissing me softly. “It’s always yes.”