31. Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Gina
Benji’s hand disappears from my bra, and he holds my T-shirt up to cover me. I’m trembling as I take it from him, clasping it to my chest as I look from stunned face to stunned face.
“Gina!” Diana’s voice is shrill, her eyes wide like over-inflated balloons.
We stare at each other, every second ticking by in excruciating slowness.
I can feel Happy Lake slipping through my fingers. I need to say something. Explain this, somehow. There are the right words to salvage this, but I have no idea what those words are. The truth? Another lie? And every second that slips by steals power from those words.
“I can explain,” I finally say, but my voice comes out cracked.
Benji shifts so that he’s on the edge of my peripheral vision.
He doesn’t touch me, but he doesn’t put any distance between us, either.
He’s waiting, letting me decide how to play this, letting me know he’ll be there for me regardless.
I love him even more for it, but my heart is breaking along all the fissures I’ve tried to patch up and gloss over.
Diana crosses her arms, one eyebrow grimly raised.
I need to do this. Save Happy Lake for Milo, even if Diana hates me forever. He’s counting on me. But I don’t know how. So, in the end, I drop my head and shut my eyes tightly against the building tears. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry ?” Diana asks, her voice rising. “You’re getting married tomorrow—what were you thinking?”
I swallow, looking up at all the faces in the room. A mix of disappointment and hungry curiosity stares back at me. Within the hour, all of Havenwood will know I’m a cheater or a fraud. “Can we talk in private?” I ask, but my voice is too small.
“Clearly, you weren’t thinking,” Diana continues like she never heard me, picking up speed and volume as she goes. “I thought you were better than this, Gina. I was counting on you.”
Not as much as Milo was. My shoulders slump, and I want to curl in on myself. I take a half step back and feel Benji’s hand. His touch is gentle on my back.
“This isn’t who you are—what’s gotten into you lately? You’ve been acting like a teenager. No,” she shakes her head. “Even as a teenager, you were better than this. What would your grandmother say if she were still here?”
That I’m no better than my mother after all. Other, less flattering things, too.
“What’s going on?” Milo demands, startling Benji into dropping his hand from my back as he eases around us into the cabin. “I heard shouting.”
“Did you know?” Diana demands.
Horrible understanding blooms in his dark eyes as he takes in the shirt I’m clutching to my chest, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Your fiancée has been having an affair.” There’s an accusation in Diana’s voice as if she’s blaming him for this. Not a hint of kindness or compassion. “With her second cousin.”
That stupid fucking lie. The eyes of everyone in the room widen again.
“We’re not related,” I say.
Milo draws a deep, ragged breath. “Gina.”
It’s a warning to shut up, but what am I supposed to do?
I don’t want all of Havenwood to think I’ve been sleeping with a cousin—even a second cousin.
But correcting that little lie opens up the question of how we knew each other in the first place, and I don’t know how to do that. “I’m sorry, Milo.”
His snort is derisive, and he turns to walk out.
“Wait,” I call, reaching for him. If he walks out that door, our friendship will be beyond all hope of repair. “Don’t go,” I plead. “I need you.”
He pauses, his dark brown eyes so cold and hard. You fucked this up. You fix it.
I sniffle and brush away an escaping tear. The universe isn’t done fucking with me because heeled boots clomp up the steps behind me. My mother slips around Benji and me, a bottle in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says in a rush. “I’ve brought the vodka!” She holds up the bottle, but noticing the grim vibe, and maybe the shirt I’m holding over my front, lowers the bottle. “What’s going on?”
“Your daughter has been cheating on my grandson,” Diana says coldly.
“Oh, fuck,” my mom says, thrusting the vodka at Diana and spinning around to crush me into a hug. “Are you okay, baby?” she asks me.
“You knew,” Diana says in mild shock.
“Of course, I knew,” she shoots back, “I’m her mother.”
Diana snorts. “Maybe if you had acted like her mother—”
There’s a gasp, starting with my mom but echoing around the room. She drops me and whirls on Diana. “This is your fault,” she snaps. “Not mine.”
“My fault?” Diana echoes, hand to her chest.
My mother draws herself up tall, as I remember her doing every time she got into it with her mother. “You have to control everyone in your life. Nobody is as good as you. Nobody knows what they’re doing like you do. You push and push and push until no one wants to be anywhere near you.”
Diana gasps. My mom’s talking about Christine. Milo, too, in a way. But Mom knew Christine. They went to school together, even if they weren’t close.
“Mom.” I touch her shoulder, but she only pats my hand.
“You made these kids think they weren’t enough on their own. Made them feel they had no choice but to do what you wanted, to make you happy. Did you ever once stop to ask them what they wanted?”
“I asked!” Diana says defensively. “I have always been here for Gina while you were off pretending you didn’t have any responsibility for raising your own daughter.”
That elicits another round of gasps from the room, and I have a sinking feeling that this entire confrontation will be all anyone talks about this summer—that and me sleeping with my supposed second cousin.
I groan, but the only one who hears me is Benji, who leans forward to whisper in my ear. “Do you want me to do something?”
I shake my head. Anything he could do would likely make this worse.
“Gina isn’t your do-over,” my mom shoots back. “Stop putting all the pressure on her. Did you even ask your grandson what he wants? Or did you make Gina speak for him because you’re too scared to get to know him?”
All the red drains from Diana’s face.
I grab my mom’s arm. “You aren’t helping.”
“I’m trying,” she hisses back.
I glance at Milo. “Help me,” I plead. He’s the only one who can right now. My mom is making things worse, and Benji might be willing, but this isn’t his mess. It’s mine and Milo’s.
Milo meets my eyes and looks away.
I’m standing here clutching a shirt to my chest, my life in tatters, and he won’t say a thing in my defense.
Because I do the work, especially where his grandmother is concerned, and I’m done.
I face Diana, square my shoulders, and say, “Milo and I aren’t together. We never have been.”
There’s a long silence as confused glances pass around the room. My heart is pounding, and I’m too scared to look at Milo.
“This whole thing is a lie?” Diana asks, her anger giving way to a wounded look. “But the two of you have been dating for years.”
“We haven’t. I just stopped correcting people because it didn’t seem to matter.
” I slip my hand into Benji’s. At my light tug, he steps forward to stand next to me.
“I’m with Benji.” I chance a glance his way, and he smiles reassuringly.
“Actually,” I squeeze his hand to give myself strength.
He squeezes back. “Benji and I are married. Since Vegas.”
More gasps from the room. Diana looks appalled.
“For what it’s worth,” I add, “he always thought we should tell the truth.” I don’t know if Diana’s expression is about Benji or my lies, but I don’t want her to take any of this out on him.
“Why?” Diana demands. “Why the hell were you and Milo prepared to get married tomorrow when you were already married to someone else?”
Milo finally looks my way, his expression hard as he shakes his head slightly, warning me against telling this final truth.
But he doesn’t offer up another lie. He leaves it to me.
I turn back to Diana. “It was the only way you’d sell us Happy Lake.”
Her jaw drops. “So you lie to me? You let me spend hours—thousands of dollars—planning this wedding rather than talk to me about it?”
“I’ll pay you back the money,” I say. Maybe I should point out that I never asked her to take over the planning, and she’d steamrolled me when it came to paying for everything, but not now. It will only make this worse. “Would you have sold it to us if we hadn’t? If you knew we were just friends?”
Diana shakes her head. “I thought I knew you,” she says, pushing past my mother and through the wide gap between me and Milo. The screen door slams behind her.
Silence hangs heavy in her wake, but I’m all too aware when all the eyes that followed Diana out the door refocus on me, Milo, and Benji.
For a heart-breaking second, I wonder if I could get used to Vegas's lights, noise, and climate. If Benji would want to go back. Because I think I just lost my home.
“Show’s over,” my mom says in a subdued tone. When no one moves, she glances up from the bottle of vodka on the table and snaps, “Get the fuck out.”
Benji tugs my hand, and we step aside to let everyone file out the door.
Not a one looks at me, not until Pamela and Joelle.
They each squeeze my arm in solidarity, but there’s a quiet grief in how they silently do it.
Like they’re looking at a future they don’t particularly like and wondering if there’s anything left for them to do.
Then we’re alone. Benji drops my hand to rub my back lightly. My mother takes a bottle of vodka into the kitchen and starts looking for glasses.
“For fuck’s sake, Gina.” Milo finally says, rubbing his eyes. “You should’ve lied.”
“They caught us.” Obviously, as I’m standing here holding my shirt to my chest. I’m exhausted.
Everything is catching up to me all at once.
I pull the shirt over my head and think about hiding inside it like a turtle.
I don’t want to fight with Milo. I want to curl up by myself and cry.
“I didn’t know they were here. I panicked. ”
“You could’ve played the cheater. We could’ve pushed the wedding back to August. Faked some couples therapy. Fuck, we should’ve thought of that when she moved the wedding date up.”
I shake my head. Why would Diana still trust me enough to sell me the Lodge if she thought I’d been cheating on Milo? She’d never look at me the same again.
Telling her the truth was the only option.
“Right,” Milo says dryly. “Can’t have the town thinking you’re anything less than a fucking saint.”
“As opposed to what they’re thinking now?” I demand. The way gossip distorts the farther it travels from the source, by tomorrow, half the town will think I’m in a polyamorous relationship with Milo and Benji. The other half will be talking about how I married my cousin behind Milo’s back.
“At least we’d still have a chance to make Happy Lake ours,” Milo snaps. “But you blew it for a pretty face and a big—”
“I hope you fall in love one day,” I snap before he can finish that sentence. “And I hope it fucks you up and turns you inside out. I hope it puts you on your goddamn knees and makes you question everything. And I hope you realize how lucky you are before it’s too late.”
“Amen,” my mom says, closing the fridge and raising her vodka and iced tea.
We all ignore her.
Milo rubs his temple. “I fucking knew this would happen,” he mutters to himself.
“Even if we hadn’t been caught tonight, I would’ve called the wedding off in the morning.” As soon as the words are out, I know they’re true. I can’t do this for him. I haven’t wanted to do it for myself since I met Benji. Even before, if I’m honest. And I guess now I know who I am.
I am someone who makes mistakes.
Milo glares at me, dark eyes angry. “I thought you were my friend.”
Fury sparks in my chest. I have been nothing but his friend for years.
“And I thought you were mine,” I snap. “But you didn’t speak up for me once tonight.
You’re just like Diana, thinking you know best. Always inflexible.
We wouldn’t be here in the first place if you would talk to her.
Show her she can trust you. Using me was the easy way out. I’m done with that.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just blinks at me a few times and strides out the door into the coming night. Running away, like he always does.
Benji touches my shoulder, and I flinch. “Don’t,” I say softly.
He drops his hand slowly. “I’m sorry.” There’s hurt in his blue-green eyes.
Understanding, too. But my stomach still sinks.
I don’t like that I put it there, but I don’t want to be touched right now.
Not even by Benji. I’m devastated and pissed off and about a million other awful things, and I’m in control of none of them.
“I can’t—” My voice cracks. “I love you. But I need to be alone tonight.”
His lips manage a wobbly smile. “Okay.”
“Do you want to come to my place?” my mom asks.
Fuck. I do. I nod and turn back to Benji. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“I’ll be here,” he promises. “I’ll put a PopTart in the toaster for you.”
I laugh a little. “No pancakes?”
His eyes soften. “I’ll make pancakes.”
My mom holds up her vodka iced tea and the keys to her car. “Pick one.”
She hasn’t had more than a sip, so I take the drink and the break from being the responsible one.