Chapter 12
THE TRUTH IN OUR STARS
Ginny
Long after dinner and sunset, I slip out of the house, kick off my shoes, and head into the vineyard fields, hands in the pockets of my dress, watching the stars come to life overhead as I drift farther from the lights.
Being under the stars, the scent of ripe grapes around me, the feel of grass and dirt between my toes—this is one of the things that helped me heal the most when I got here.
Not physically, but emotionally.
And not just from suddenly being known as the wedding wrecker, but a lot of my subconscious wounds from childhood too.
The sun will put on a brilliant show as it rises tomorrow morning, and I’ll drink coffee out of my favorite mug and my mother won’t be here because Cricket’s chickens are better than trained attack dogs and Cricket herself is a miracle worker.
I’ve spent half the day thinking I, too, should go find a private spa and hide for a while, but I’ve now lost three clients due to my video circulating again.
I can’t afford a private spa.
Especially with how tenuous our financial situation has been here at the winery these past few months.
But none of that matters in this moment.
In this moment, I have the stars and the earth and the grapes, and all is well.
Except for the part where I’m tripping over someone sprawled on a strip of grass between two sections of the fields.
I squeak as I fall across a body, the deep oof beneath me telling my ears the same thing that the scents of cinnamon and leather and bad memories are telling my nose.
And that’s before the low moan of pain telling me I fell somewhere bad.
Somewhere very, very bad.
“What are you doing?” I yelp as I try to scramble off Declan.
“Breathing,” he gasps out.
“Why are you breathing in the dark?”
“Pretty—stars,” he grunts.
I finally succeed in removing my body from his, but I hover nearby, confused panic making me lightheaded enough that instead of standing, I sink back on my ass. “Did I break you?”
“No,” he moans. “I’m—I’m okay.”
I pull my knees to my chest while I listen to his labored breathing and watch in the darkness for any signs of movement.
“Serves you right for sitting in the dark,” I mutter.
“Really does,” he agrees, his voice still pained.
If this had happened five years ago, I would’ve been running to get him ice and apologizing incessantly and calling the team’s training and medical staff to ask how to treat a knee to the balls.
And honestly, if I’d done it to Heath, I’d probably have the same reaction, though he’s a former EMT, so he wouldn’t need a team’s staff to know what to do.
And he’d know what to do for Declan right now too if I wanted to text him.
But helping and apologizing to Declan?
The man brings out the worst in me now.
And I don’t hate it.
He huffs and hisses and catches his breath, and I sit there not exactly enjoying it, but not feeling as bad as I would’ve before.
He ruined my happy place.
His breathing evens out, and after three long, loud breaths, I get the creeping sensation up the back of my neck that tells me he’s looking at me in the dark.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
The way that question irritates me…
But not because it doesn’t sound sincere.
More because it does.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?” he says quietly.
“No, actually, I’m not okay. But I was before you decided to do your human speed bump impersonation.”
I start to rise, but he reaches out an arm in the darkness and stops me. “Stay. Look at the stars.”
“I was looking at the stars.” And now, even if I go to another field, I’ll know that he’s out here too, doing the same thing.
“Did you eat today?”
“What?”
“Did you eat? You used to skip eating when you were stressed.”
This man exasperates me in ways I haven’t been exasperated since before I turned eighteen and got the hell out of my mother’s travel trailer.
“What is this? What’s all of this nice Declan stuff?
You have your contract. You can film here.
You got to see Mabel’s secret lair and we keep giving you gifts of unexpected chaos.
You don’t have to keep kissing up to me. ”
“I’m not kissing you. Kissing up to you.”
Everything inside me tightens as those damn goosebumps make another appearance. “Just because we knew each other in the past doesn’t mean you owe me anything. You don’t have to be nice to me. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
I hate being blunt like this.
Hate it.
I want to be happy and embrace every moment and live my life on my terms, surrounded by people I believe when they tell me they love me.
But with Declan—well.
He made his feelings about me abundantly clear when I was dating Alex, no matter how much I tried and tried and tried to get him to like me, and I don’t trust his motives now.
So me being blunt isn’t a lingering side effect of anything else about my day. Not about my mother. Not about the leak. Not about the clients who told me they’ll be going elsewhere for marketing services.
This is completely about Declan and me and our own ugly history.
“I liked you,” he says.
“What?”
“I liked you. In college. After college. When you were dating Alex. The whole time. I liked you.”
“Are you drunk? Did you find our secret stash of wine?”
“I liked you, Ginny.”
“You’re getting what you want. No need to rewrite history. We both know you hated me. And I’m not going on camera for drama for your show.”
He huffs. “I’m not saying this right. I liked you. Liked you-liked you in ways that a guy shouldn’t like his best friend’s girlfriend.”
If I get any more tense, I might petrify my own muscles. They’ll find me here tomorrow as a new rock in the fields. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not. You were always nice. Always included me without complaint. Never made me feel like I was second best. And you were—you were so much more than I thought you’d be. After the show. I thought you’d be spoiled and obnoxious and have unrealistic expectations and demands—”
“Like my mother?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Yes. Like your mother. But you’re not like your mother. You weren’t ever like your mother. You were—you were smart and self-aware and creative and generous and enthusiastic about practically everything, and you were—you were everything I’d ever wanted in a girlfriend.”
I suddenly can’t draw a steady breath. Pressure builds in my sinuses and heat stings the back of my eyes.
There’s a ring of truth to his voice that’s tilting my world. “Why are you doing this to me tonight?”
“Because you deserve to know that you’re a good human being and you never did anything wrong. That I—that I know I was an asshole. I know I was rude to you. I did it because I liked you. Not because I hated you. I never hated you. I liked you more than I could handle.”
“So you pulled my hair instead of being nice.”
“No. Not like—not like that. You were dating my best friend. I wasn’t a dick to get your attention. I was a dick to keep you at arm’s length. So I wouldn’t—so I wouldn’t cross a line I couldn’t uncross. And lose both of you.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why can’t you let things be? Do your stuff here and leave?”
“Because I want you to know it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault.”
It’s the worst thing he could ever say, and now he’s said it to me twice today.
Being on On the Rhodes—everything was always my fault.
The things my mother and the directors and producers made me do for the enjoyment of millions of strangers—it always looked like it was my fault.
I was the youngest. The most immature. The easiest to manipulate into doing something for the cameras.
Convincing Ten to sneak out late at night to get me gummy bears from a grocery store.
Ruining Caro’s dress before the high school prom she and Ten were invited to attend, since we were homeschooled nomads and didn’t have our own high school for our own prom.
Dropping the cake Mom had made for the twins and ruining their birthday.
Telling my siblings what they were getting for Christmas.
Throwing myself to the ground and screaming in a ValuKart because they were out of my favorite Halloween candy, like I was four instead of fourteen.
Ten was the troublemaker.
Caro was the beautiful perfect angel.
And I was the brat.
The attention was fun for a while, but then suddenly I was a fifteen-year-old with braces and glasses and pimples, a late bloomer who wasn’t a cute brat anymore.
Mom and the producers insisted that making me an easy villain was good for ratings.
But the longer the show went on, the more the people outside of it gave me side-eye and a wide berth and whispered whenever I was recognized in public.
The world believed every bad thing was my fault.
Being told anything isn’t my fault, by someone who would barely give me the time of day for the years that I dated his best friend—it slices something deep, deep inside of me that I always tell myself I’ve worked through until someone rips that wound open again.
Even my having my video go viral and knowing it was probably my mother’s fault didn’t yank the rug out from under me like this.
My mother—I expect selfish, immature behavior from her.
But Declan?
He might’ve been a dick, he might’ve scowled and left the room any time I walked into it, he might’ve given me short, curt answers to every question I asked, but he was never outright cruel like this.
And him having the audacity to say the one thing I needed to be told by my mother, when he’s the next person in line that I’ve always thought hated me the most?
No, thank you.
I climb to my feet. “Thanks,” I say, even though I don’t mean it.
“Ginny—”