Chapter 29
SCREAM (LOUDER FOR BETTER REASONS)
Cricket
I am a disaster.
A happy, satisfied disaster, but still a disaster.
I told Heath I love him.
Twice.
During sex.
He didn’t say it back.
Not that I expected him to—we’re not dating, and honestly, how’s a guy supposed to believe a woman mid-orgasm?—but that insecurity and fear that I’ve had since never feeling like I measured up in childhood is lingering once again in my head and my heart.
Is he taking me out to dinner because he feels obligated?
Do women say I love you during sex with him often enough that he doesn’t think it’s a big deal?
Does he love me back but can’t say it because of his no-dating rule?
Right, Cricket. Right.
As if me saying I love you during sex is my biggest problem right now.
No, not problem.
Obstacle.
Yeah. I have a bigger obstacle to overcome now.
“How many people are usually at this bar?” I ask Heath as he steers us into the town about ten minutes from the winery. The street is lined with quaint buildings—some stucco, some pink, some brick, some stone.
It’s like Makepeace, except with wooden sidewalks and more buildings and more cars and more people. We can’t see the rolling hills and the gentle mountains that I’ve become accustomed to seeing every day. Not here in Foxwood.
“Fewer the earlier we get here,” he replies. “Gets crowded by about seven.”
It’s five fifteen.
The streets aren’t overflowing with people, but they’re far from empty.
It’s the most people I’ve seen in over a month.
And I’ve done this to myself.
I’ve chosen to leave the winery.
“They’re mostly tourists,” he says.
“Are we going to a tourist bar?”
He glances at me. “Seriously?”
I rub my hands down my pants, making the subtlest scent of sex waft into the air. The way I want to ask him to turn around and take me back to the winery and make me scream his name a few more times instead of having dinner— “Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“We can go back. Dori has Lav. I can cook.”
I shake my head. “No, I—I want to do this. I need to do this. If I’m staying, then I’ll be part of this community eventually too.
And I want to stay. I’ve been helping Ginny and Mabel sort through potential investors since her last lead canceled on her this week, and I’ve been studying grapes and vineyards and I even talked to Winona when I saw her in the fields about helping with the crews to learn more.
Did you know she’s close to retirement age?
She doesn’t look old enough to be close to retirement.
But I guess it makes sense since Walter and Pip are about the same age.
Except men often have kids later than women do, and she could’ve been the product of a second marriage or they could’ve had fertility issues, and—”
“Cricket.”
I bite my lip. “I’m talking too much.”
“Talk all you want. But we don’t have to do this tonight.”
“When you say talk all you want, do you mean that because you’re practicing patience, or because you truly don’t mind?”
“I like your voice.”
I gape at him.
I know I have a nice voice. I wouldn’t have made it as far as I made it with my last job if I didn’t. But the look he slides my way—he means it. He likes my voice.
He likes hearing me talk.
Warmth spreads through my chest.
And my vagina too.
“I want to do this tonight,” I say in a rush. “Rip off the bandage.”
“Shouldn’t rip off a bandage. It can reopen the wound.”
“Scars are tougher skin.”
He squeezes my thigh as he turns us down a side street. “Say the word if you want to leave. Anytime.”
“Which word? Do we need a code word?”
“Priatitties.”
I snort with laughter, and he grins.
“Lav’s really smart,” I tell him. “Even my nieces and nephews didn’t talk as clearly as she does when they were seven. Actually, they still might not, and Belle’s youngest—my nephew—just turned ten a few months ago.”
“Most of her closest friends have always been adults.”
“And her imagination—you must’ve read to her a lot.”
“Things have been…tense most of her life. Reading to her helped her calm down. Escape the world. So yeah. We’ve read a lot of books.”
“But things aren’t as tense now?”
He shakes his head. “Things are good. Things are finally good.”
Two turns later, he pulls us into the parking lot.
We’re across the street from a residential area, with an art gallery in a stucco building on one side of the parking lot, and on the other, a two-story building with brown wood siding and a small neon sign with one letter out that makes it look like this is the Foxwood Pubic House.
I giggle.
He grins, sexy as hell with the way he flashes his teeth at me.
“This seems fitting,” I quip.
“Shit. I didn’t think about that.”
“No, no, really. Someday I’ll tell my grandkids about how I flashed my beaver, went into hiding, and then made my public re-debut at a Pubic House.”
He barks out a laugh, then leans over the console to press a hard kiss to my mouth. “You’re one of a kind, Cricket.”
It’s not I love you, and it’s not I want you to be my girlfriend, but I’ll take it.
He’s basically kissing me in public.
Where anyone could see.
And that makes my heart glow.
Inside, the young man at the host stand doesn’t do a double-take at the sight of me or at the sight of me here with Heath.
We’re two anonymous people out for dinner on a random Thursday night.
Anonymous.
I like this. I could get used to being a nobody again.
Being a nobody sounds amazing.
The young man grabs two menus and leads us to a high-backed booth with dark cushioned benches and a print of rolling vineyards hung over dark wood paneling.
The lights are dim, giving an extra feel of privacy. After my eyes have adjusted, I glance around.
Identical high-backed booths line two walls, and a smattering of tables takes up the space between the booths and the polished bar along a third wall.
Stained glass lamps hang from iron rods in the plank wood ceiling, and a staircase is visible across the room.
Maybe six or seven other tables are occupied right now, plus two people are at the bar.
No one’s staring at us.
Or even looking our way.
I gradually relax into the booth, feeling weirdly normal.
Like my viral moment never happened at all.
Heath and I talk about everything under the sun. He makes me laugh, and he teases me about inconsequential little things, and I make him laugh with tales about some of the stories I covered over the years.
We don’t talk about the winery’s financial struggles or the fact that this isn’t a date or about Mabel’s latest unfortunate non-update from GrippaBeav’s legal team or the latest Cheeky Beaver video or how I could technically move out of Heath’s basement and into the mother-in-law house next week after Caro and Mike have come and gone.
None of the things that keep lingering in the back of my brain as reasons that this might not last.
“You’ve lived a fascinating life,” he says to me as our food arrives.
A massive hamburger for him, and brussels sprouts and cheesecake for me.
Because there are no rules.
I can have brussels sprouts and cheesecake for dinner if I want to.
“It wasn’t boring,” I reply.
“You think you’d be happy staying in one place and not exploring more fascinating subjects?”
If we save the winery.
It’s the lingering question that he doesn’t ask, and so I let myself live in a world where we do it as I take a bite of cheesecake.
And sigh happily.
I should have cheesecake with my dinner every day.
“Everything’s fascinating if you look hard enough,” I tell Heath. “Look at our little community. Lav’s always fighting dragons. You and I have gotten drunk together and broke a building and you caught me…” I pause and glance around the room.
“Yeah. I caught you,” he says, and I don’t feel the need to finish.
Not with the way his gaze has gone feral and protective and interested.
Don’t cause a scene, Cricket.
Last thing I need tonight. Or ever again.
“Mabel’s super cagey about her projects, so I know there’s a story there—” I say quickly.
“You don’t want to know.” He tilts his head. “No, actually, you do want to know.”
I grin.
He leans closer. “She makes furry costumes.”
“I knew it.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. I did a lifestyle piece that my boss refused to air about people who are into being furries once, both the sex kind and the cosplay kind, and I’ve seen Pip open the boxes with Mabel’s supplies from time to time. Just put it all together.” I tilt my head. “Does Mabel…?”
“No idea. Didn’t ask. No judgment if she does, but it’s not my business.”
“See? We might only be a few people, but we’re fascinating. And there’ll be more new people with more stories, and not just about how the internet ruined their lives. Therefore, no, I won’t be bored.”
I pop a brussels sprout into my mouth, and I sigh in happiness again.
These things shouldn’t be so good.
It’s probably the frying. And the toppings.
Bacon and cheese and balsamic drizzle make nearly everything better.
Huh.
I top my cheesecake with some of the bacon, cheese, and balsamic, and try a bite.
Heath stares at me.
“It’s good,” I say with my mouth full. “Wanna try?”
His lips twitch like he can’t decide if he’s horrified or amused, and he finally settles on a smile. “I stand corrected. Your life will never be boring, no matter where you are or who you’re surrounded by.”
“Thank you for bringing me out. I—this feels normal. Like I didn’t have anything to be afraid of.” I gesture to the room. “No one’s even looking at us.”
He tilts his head at me with a soft smile of I told you so.
He didn’t.
Not exactly.
But he wouldn’t have brought me somewhere I wouldn’t feel safe.
“How are you honestly so good at basically everything you do when I can hardly pour coffee without spilling it some days?” I ask him.
He barks out a rough laugh. “I’m not. It’s all a facade.”
“Lav doesn’t think so.”
He pauses mid-bite, his eyes meeting mine, and there it is.
That naked vulnerability that I sometimes see in him.
The question of if he’s doing a good enough job.