Chapter 25
WOMAN ON THE OUTSIDE
Ginny
I’ve watched Declan with fans before, but tonight, with Adelaide—this is different.
They’re standing at an old wine barrel that they’re using as a table, and he’s listening intently while Adelaide tells him stories about her mama and this road trip she’s been on to do all of the things her mama always said they’d do when she retired.
I keep catching myself rubbing a hand over my heart as I eavesdrop from just outside the barn.
There’s something incredibly unjust that I traveled with my own mother for years and will be in therapy for the rest of my life over it, while Adelaide’s mama died too young to do all of the things she wanted to do for herself and with her daughter.
And there’s something even worse about the cocktail of emotions messing with my heart and my libido.
Appreciation of Declan’s kindness.
Gratitude on Adelaide’s behalf that she’s getting this moment for her mom.
Jealousy on my behalf that she’s getting all of his undivided attention.
Frustration with myself over the jealousy.
I have no business caring what Declan does or doesn’t do, but I can no longer deny that I like him.
I like him a lot.
More with every passing minute, and not just because seeing him shirtless is turning my insides to jelly.
Is he even bigger than he was when I knew him?
His arms—and the slope of his shoulders—and his broad, hairy chest—and his flat stomach—and the complete attention he’s giving to my new friend while I’m surrounded by the unique cinnamon and leather scent infused into his shirt—
I’ve gone from embarrassing terror over a bug smaller than my pinky fingernail to a bundle of hormones.
“You grew up in South Carolina?” he’s saying to Adelaide.
She nods. “Lived there all my life. My mama too.”
“She didn’t cheer for Carolina?”
“She did, but my daddy went to Minnesota, so he followed all of the players who came from there, and after he passed, Mama took it up in his honor.”
“Lot of superstars come out of Minnesota.”
“Including you.”
He quirks one corner of his mouth and shakes his head. “Nah, I was just a tagalong.”
“She saw the article you wrote for that one sports journal about getting traded.”
“Ah.”
“She believed in making the best of every situation too. She appreciated that about you. And then the teddy bear thing—that done did it. Mama would’ve loved the devil himself if he delivered that many teddy bears to children’s hospitals.”
Declan blushes.
He actually blushes. “Giving back’s important.”
“You deserved better than the way that team let you go.”
He lifts a broad shoulder. “All good. I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t.”
“That’s what my mama would’ve said too. That I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gone on our trip without her.”
I finger the hem of Declan’s shirt while I watch them. The fabric’s softer than the expensive sheets my mother always insists she needs to keep up appearances.
And I’m not paying attention at all to anything Cricket and Mabel are saying beside me.
I should be paying attention.
We got early concepts for a winery logo from one of our former residents who does graphic design for a living, though we’re still debating what we want to rebrand as.
“How long ago did you lose her?” Declan asks.
Adelaide’s eyes get shiny, but she doesn’t cry again. “About four months ago.”
He squeezes her hand. “I’m sorry for your loss. For the world’s loss. Not every mother is as amazing as yours sounds.”
“She was the best.”
I force myself to tune back in to Cricket and Mabel’s conversation, and I realize they’ve both fallen silent while they look at me, then at Declan, then back to me.
Caught.
“I was just saying that Cricket had a brilliant idea,” Mabel says. “We’re going to ask for a new logo that has a beaver wrestling a one-nippled dildo underneath wedding bells.”
My eyes bulge out, and I look at Cricket, who cracks a smile nearly immediately.
“You okay?” Cricket asks. “You seem distracted.”
I shoot another look at Declan and Adelaide.
As if I needed to confirm for my friends what has me distracted. “I’m watching for spiders,” I lie.
As if Olivia and Heath didn’t sweep the barn for every spiderweb for me while everyone else got food.
Mabel adjusts her glasses. “Do you have an opinion on Five Minutes of Shame or Accidentally Infamous for our winery name?”
That I do have an easy opinion on. “Who wants to drink shame wine? And why would we want that word in our faces every day? Accidentally Infamous is my choice.”
“Have you decided if you want a wine?”
I shake my head.
“No, you don’t want a wine, or no, you haven’t decided?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Take your time,” Cricket says. “As you’ve told me yourself…once it’s out there, you can’t get it back.”
I’ve been here over four years.
Cricket’s been here not even four months, and she already has a healthier attitude about how she went viral than I’ll ever have about my moment.
But hers was an accident during a routine part of her job.
Mine was karma for trying to do something terrible.
“Oh, no, Mama didn’t follow Alex McMaren,” Adelaide says. “She said he was too full of himself for how good he was. No offense. I hear you’re friends.”
“None taken,” Declan says with a light smile. “He’s getting as good as he thinks he is though.”
Adelaide doesn’t look at me.
Neither does Declan.
“She didn’t like the first lady he married either,” Adelaide says. “And she liked his latest wife even less.”
My spine snaps straight.
Alex got divorced?
And then remarried?
My heart dips like I’m on a roller coaster.
I interrupted his wedding, and now he’s divorced?
Declan glances at me this time. “Knock it off, Ginny. He shouldn’t have had more than a single date with her, much less proposed and rushed to the altar.”
“I didn’t say anything,” I say.
“Your vibe did.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Oh, you didn’t know? She dropped him before they made it six months,” Adelaide tells me. “Mama always said that man fell in love as often as normal people need toilet paper.”
Declan swipes a hand over his mouth, dark eyes dancing. “That’s…a creative way to put it.”
Are they serious right now? “I dated him for four years.”
Declan’s gaze locks on mine. “He loves being in love. Loves it more when women make it easy on him.”
Mabel grips my elbow, but she doesn’t tell anyone to drop it.
“I had a friend like that back in Chicago,” Cricket says. “All she needed was the slightest bit of attention, and she’d latch onto him either until he dumped her, or until someone who seemed to like her more than her current boyfriend came along. She wanted easy love.”
I swallow hard.
I relate far too much to the slightest bit of attention part.
“Easy love.” Declan nods at Cricket. “That’s a good way to describe it.”
“Are you saying he didn’t actually love me?” I whisper.
Declan looks up at the darkening night sky. “No. He loved you. He just—had—has a certain perspective of what love is and how easily it should click.”
I let that roll through my mind. Some through my heart too.
I bent over backward to make Alex love me.
We worked because I gave and he took.
It was my goal—win and keep his love by being everything he wanted in a girlfriend—but I was constantly worried he’d wake up one morning and realize I was a fraud. A total sham.
Until the day I started wondering if he’d propose since we’d been together for so long, and my immediate gut reaction was a bone-deep certainty that I didn’t want to marry him.
I didn’t understand why I was so opposed to marrying him, but I knew instantly that I needed to break up with him.
“He loved that I made his life easy.” I don’t like the words coming out of my mouth, but they make sense.
And I did it to myself.
I look at Declan, who’s still shirtless, then down at his University of Minnesota T-shirt.
“I’m keeping this shirt,” I announce. “I like it.”
“Okay,” Declan says.
“I might tie-dye it.”
His lips twitch. “Flow would love to help with that. She’s a tie-dye expert.”
“I’ll use purple and pink and green.”
“That’ll look good on you.”
“It’ll probably get all over Flow.”
“She likes different hairstyles every now and again.”
The more agreeable he is, the madder I get.
And I don’t even know why I’m mad.
I just know I want him to fight me back.
To tell me I’m acting like a spoiled brat.
To completely lose his cool.
“And I want the rest of your ribs,” I add.
He doesn’t tell me there are still plenty on the smoker, like he should.
Instead, he offers me his plate.
Like he shouldn’t.
Cricket’s watching me wide-eyed. Mabel’s doing the same, but far more wary, and I realize all of the conversation inside the barn has stopped too. Heath and Lavender and Dori and Olivia and Samantha and Pip have all fallen silent.
Even Flow and Fluffy are watching us.
I grab a rib by the bone and gnaw on it, then turn around and march toward the house. “I’m going to bed,” I announce.
“Sleep well,” Declan says.
Flow trots along next to me.
Declan doesn’t call her back.
And that makes me mad enough to turn around and glare at him. “Stop being so damn agreeable.”
He tucks his hands into his pockets. “Okay.”
“Argh.”
“I hate your hair when you put it in a ponytail,” he says. “Is that better?”
I rip another bite of rib off the bone. “What else?”
“Wedge sandals are an abomination.”
“Quit quoting your brother.”
“Just because he said it first doesn’t make it untrue.”
“You have opinions on women’s footwear?”
“I do. And unlike my brother, I think high heels in general are an abomination.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re bad for your feet.”
“What else do you think?”
“I hate messes.”
“Like water on the floor?”
“Like empty chip bags and months-old magazines and half-done art projects and tissues littered all over bedrooms.”
Mabel makes a choking noise.
“You been snooping in our bedrooms?” Olivia says.
Declan shakes his head. “Just guessing after knowing Ginny as long as I have.”
This is good. He’s making me madder. I need to be mad.
Also, he’s making shit up now.
“I was a neat freak,” I declare. “And you know it.”
“You cleaned up for Alex, but you didn’t want to.”
“That’s a bold assumption.”
“You’d walk in the door after class and drop your bag right in the hallway, then head into the kitchen and leave the milk out, and drop towels on the floor in the bathroom and not pick them up until Alex looked at your messes, and then you’d spring into action cleaning everything like you thought he’d dump you if you didn’t. ” He shrugs. “Or so it seemed to me.”
My toes and fingers tingle.
Flow whimper-whine-howls as she collapses against my legs.
Declan’s not wrong.
Being a neat freak isn’t my default. I had to do it on On the Rhodes because we lived in a camper trailer and even the tiniest thing out of place would send my mother into a fit.
I did it with Alex—for Alex—because I’d been taught cleanliness was something you do for the people you love who’ll be mad if you don’t.
But Declan saw me.
He saw right through to not just what I did and what I wanted, but why I did it.
And that’s giving me a case of the shivers.
“I’m going to bed,” I repeat.
And this time, I don’t turn back.
Because I’m a chicken.