Chapter 15
Fifteen
GIA
What the hell is Jake’s problem?
She was getting whiplash with how he’d been acting. One minute he was hot and the next minute he was cold. Had she misread his intentions all along? Was he only looking for her forgiveness because he wanted to repair their friendship?
Does he only want to be my friend?
Her stomach soured at the thought—being friend-zoned by Jake didn’t sit right with her. It made her feel like a lovesick teenager with a crush on her brother’s best friend all over again. She hated it. Did she want more from Jake?
No, of course not. That ship sailed a long time ago.
Gia was a different person now. She was a grown woman and more experienced. She knew what she wanted out of a relationship. Being in a one-sided relationship was not what she wanted. Or needed.
In fact, Jake was the opposite of everything she wanted. So much so that she had been intentionally dating men who didn’t remind her of him.
Blond hair and blue eyes?
Nope. Not a chance in hell.
A charming smile that sent butterflies into a frenzy?
Absolutely not.
A wicked tongue that made her toes curl?
An unfortunate consequence.
“Uh oh. You’re stress cleaning again.” Minh’s amused voice announced her looming presence where Gia kneeled, scrubbing at a stubborn stain on the kitchen floor. “What’s your deal?”
Tuy?t Mai stared at Gia from her position on her mother’s hip, as if she were assessing her too.
Blowing out a breath, Gia sat back on her haunches and shook her head.
“I am not stress cleaning.”
“We watched you scrub at that spot for the last ten minutes, and you had no idea we were even watching you. Oh, and you had a very… scary look on your face the whole time.” Tuy?t Mai nodded her little head. “And you were talking to yourself. Scary stuff.”
“I was not.” Gia scoffed, pulling the gloves off her sweaty hands.
“Were too.” Minh grinned when Gia only rolled her eyes at her in response. “Come on, I’ll make us lunch.”
“Where’s Thuy Mai?” Gia groaned at how her joints ached as she moved to stand. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been kneeling on the floor.
“Out back. She decided she was going to help with weeding because apparently it looked fun.” Gia smiled at Minh’s shrug. “Her words, not mine.”
“Hey, weeding can be fun.”
“Pfft. Not my idea of fun, but go wild. I’m sure Mom appreciates your green thumb bringing those flowers back to life.”
“They just needed some pruning and TLC.” Gia put her sponge and gloves on the counter while she washed her hands. Once dry, she reached for Tuy?t Mai, who practically leaped into her arms.
“Want to go see the pretty flowers, pretty girl?” Gia hugged Tuy?t Mai to her chest. Gia grinned at Tuy?t Mai’s enthusiastic nod, making her dark hair bounce with the movement.
When they got to the backyard, Thuy Mai was swinging on the swing set. She beamed an infectious smile at Gia when she spotted them.
“Auntie! Come play!”
At Th?y Mai’s beckoning, Gia smiled and helped Tuy?t Mai into the adjacent bucket swing. She pulled her back for the count of three and let the toddler go as she swung forward. Once Tuy?t Mai built up momentum, Gia plopped down on the swing next to Th?y Mai.
Pumping her legs, Gia brought herself as high as she could get.
A childish glee filled her, one she hadn’t felt in a long time.
An elation at being able to defy gravity, even for a moment.
Up this high, it almost felt like she was soaring.
If she reached her hand out, she could touch the stars.
But inevitably, gravity would force her back down to earth. Against her will.
Much like her life, she was always reaching for the stars.
Chasing after the next best thing, the next high, or the next life-changing job.
The chase motivated her. She was laser-focused on getting the job and doing what she needed to keep it.
She knew how easy it was to replace her if the powers that be deemed her unnecessary.
Or, worse, her lines or entire scenes would get cut from the project completely.
Unfortunately, like clockwork, the inevitable fall always brought her crashing back down to reality. The harder she chased, the harder she’d fall, until it felt like her insides were a deep crater filled with all her failures.
There was nobody to catch her every time she fell.
Nobody who cared enough to tell her to stop chasing the next thing and be happy with the opportunities she had.
If anything, the lack of reasonable advice likely contributed to her self-destructive behavior.
It was an endless cycle. One she knew came out of her desire to feel less alone in this life.
Losing the other half of her soul was not something she could ever get over.
Yet this time, when she swung back down to earth, she was met with the delighted laughter of her nieces. Their sparkling energy was contagious, making her heart feel lighter for the first time in a while. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She laughed at being carefree and childish.
Maybe she didn’t have to go through life alone. Or maybe she needed to stop reaching for the stars, because when she came back down, she was met with the pure, unadulterated joy of two little girls who, not too long ago, didn’t even know her.
For all they knew, Gia was a stranger, but they welcomed her into the family without hesitation. Since being back in Willowbrook, against her better judgment, she had been feeling more at peace than she thought possible.
During the day, she kept herself busy by helping around in the garden or at the restaurant.
If she was actively avoiding a certain blue-eyed hunk, it was not something she would acknowledge out loud.
Gia was a lot of things, but a coward was not one of them.
So what if she was making more of an effort not to be in any places she thought he might be?
Even with her efforts to avoid running into Jake, she still couldn’t escape him. Not really. He followed her wherever she went.
Like earlier, when she’d gone to the bookstore to check out what they offered.
Apparently she had only missed him by a few minutes, because the women sitting in the café could not stop talking about how hot Jake was as a single father.
While Lana, the bookstore owner, watched with amusement, Gia was horrified to overhear the explicit things they wanted to do to Jake.
At one point, one woman exclaimed it was too bad Marley was too old to need a nanny, because she would sign up to be Jake’s live-in nanny in a heartbeat—so long as she got paid with some hanky-panky time.
It should have been funny. After all, Gia certainly had no claims to Jake.
Neither was she interested in any form of hanky-panky time with the very person who had broken her heart.
So why then did hearing the other woman talking about wanting to sleep with Jake make her see red?
She fought back the urge to stomp over there, yank on the woman by her messy bun, and assert her claim over him like some cavewoman. Instead, she settled for glaring at the two twittering idiots and kept her fists at her sides so she wouldn’t act on her impulses.
Thankfully, the women didn’t notice Gia’s attention—but Lana, who had been watching from her vantage point at the counter, had. She’d met Gia’s glare with an amused expression before averting her gaze and pretending to clean a spot on the counter with a rag.
A flush crept across her cheeks. Gia yanked the closest book off the shelf and hid behind it.
She was being absolutely ridiculous, yes. But jealous? Definitely, one thousand percent not.
Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, pulling her attention away from the moment. A message alert lit up her screen.
Alex
Hey, hot stuff. Where are you hiding? Come over!
Thumbs hovering over the screen, Gia debated her response for longer than necessary. Alex had been texting her sporadically over the past week. Most of them she ignored, but now she was feeling bad for dismissing him.
Gia
Not hiding, just went home to see family.
She’d left the bookstore with a new romance book about a basilisk and a prince fighting over a woman.
When she’d gotten home, her parents had been watching a Chinese drama dubbed in Vietnamese. No doubt her mother picked it, since her father was playing on his phone.
After greeting her parents, Gia moved to go upstairs to rest, but stopped when her mother beckoned her into the room. Trepidation filled her as she dragged her feet to the living room.
She paused at the threshold, meeting her mother’s expectant gaze.
“Gia Huy, what are you doing with that boy Jake?”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Taken aback by her questioning, Gia leaned her body against the doorjamb to brace herself for the conversation. She was completely unprepared for this line of questioning.
“Jake. You need to marry him.”
“What?”
“He’s a good boy, Gia Huy.”
“He’s not a boy, Mom.” Gia tried not to squirm. Talking about Jake with her mom was not on her bingo card for this year.
“Not a boy. Man. Big and strong. Rich, too. Good job. Nice head of hair. You marry him and give me more grandbabies.”
Sputtering, Gia could not come up with a response.
“I am not going to marry Jake!”
“Why not? You got a boyfriend?”
“Well… no.”
“So, marry Jake. We like Jake.”
“Well, I don’t like Jake.” Gia rolled her eyes, realizing her mistake too late.
“Why don’t you like Jake? He was always your friend.”
Freezing, Gia tried not to panic. Of course, she couldn’t tell her parents what happened between them.
“He’s not who I thought he was.”
It’s the truth.
“Well. You two need to work things out and give me my grandbabies.”
“Mom! I am not going to give you grandbabies!”
“That’s not very nice, Gia Huy.”
Gia pushed off the doorjamb and stomped upstairs. The conversation was over, as far as she knew.
Why her mother seemed so persistent in pushing her and Jake together, she didn’t know. She’d never said anything of the sort when they were younger. In fact, she had always felt like Jake was off-limits since he was Thao’s best friend and, well, white.
Gia assumed her traditional parents would have wanted her to marry a young, successful Asian man, like all Asian parents dreamed of. Preferably a doctor, but lawyers were high on the list of acceptable professions as well.
So, at least Jake checked off one of those boxes.
Despite trying to read her new book, Gia could not stop inserting Jake’s stupid face as the hero in the book she was reading. Unfortunately, it was doing strange things to her libido that she did not want to acknowledge.
A while later, she was scrubbing the kitchen floors with an old sponge while wearing smelly gloves. According to Minh, she had a murderous gleam in her eyes.
A frustrating turn of events, since she had been trying purposefully to avoid Jake.
“Auntie, auntie! Play on slide!” At Tuy?t Mai’s pleading, Gia slowed to a stop on her swing. She had nearly forgotten where she was and who she was with for a blissful moment. The present returned with shocking clarity. With it came the painful memories of what had brought her back to her hometown.
Though it had never been far from her mind, she kept herself distracted enough to keep the memories at bay during the day. Nighttime was a different story. Thankfully, the uncomfortable mattress prevented her from falling too deep in her sleep, but often enough the nightmares still found her.
Waking up in her old bedroom was disorienting.
The brief moments before she remembered where she was were always harrowing.
The phantom fingers of her demons were still trying to drag her back under, back into their depths disguised as sleep and rest, while her consciousness fought to keep the demons at bay.
Reminding her of where she was. Of who she was.
And, most importantly, that she was safe.
Safe in Willowbrook.
Words she never thought she’d ever hear until the last couple of weeks, but the truth behind them was undeniable.
The small, idyllic town surrounded by the towering peaks of Mount Luna felt magical.
The mountains themselves formed a physical barrier from the outside world.
Despite its majestic sights, Willowbrook rarely brought in many visitors or tourists.
It seemed unfathomable that such a postcard-worthy town could go unnoticed by the rest of the world, as if there were some magical shroud keeping it hidden.
Gia could relax thanks to the safety provided by her family and the good people of Willowbrook. And yes, even Jake had a hand in making her feel safe, even going as far as walking her home the other night.
Okay, she could admit to herself it had been a sweet gesture. Gentlemanly. Romantic, even. If she had been interested, of course.
But she was definitely not interested. Like, at all. Not one bit.
“Catch me if you can, Auntie!” An insistent hand tugged at hers, pulling her attention back to the present before taking off in the fenced-in backyard.
“Oh, you better run! I’m gonna eat you!”
Gia’s grin widened as she listened to the girls’ resounding laughter. It was impossible not to feel joy when surrounded by such innocence.
Not for the first time, Gia wondered what was waiting for her back in LA. There was nothing but an empty apartment. She didn’t even own any real plants. Besides Alex and Gemma, she hadn’t heard from any of her other friends.
Do they even know I left?
Even more troublesome, who was she if she wasn’t the starlet? Was she the small-town girl chasing after two little girls and laughing, or was she the self-important celebrity with a contact list of A-list celebrities who hadn’t even noticed she was missing?
Was she just two sides of the same coin? Or did she have to choose who she wanted to be?
Sooner or later, the reporters would catch wind of her lost contract. How long could she really hide out in Willowbrook before someone found her?
Did she want to bring the vultures into this small town where outsiders rarely visited, much less bloodthirsty paparazzi trying to make a quick buck with pictures of her in compromising positions?
No, she would need to leave before that happened. Gia made a mental note to call Kim later and get a feel for what was happening back in LA. She was the only person Gia trusted at the moment. And the only person who knew where she was hiding out.
Tomorrow, she’d formulate a plan. But today, she had two girls to catch.