Chapter 13 Apology Adjacent
APOLOGY ADJACENT
RIPLEY
I still can’t believe I said that.
Not the helping grandmas comment. But the You’re not my type zinger I fired off earlier today.
It’s been weighing on me all afternoon as I worked, and it weighed on me through dinner with Grandma.
Banks helped with the meal, slicing green beans from the garden while I made a salad, and Grandma whipped up a summer squash and quinoa dish.
But then he took off to run an errand, reasoning I was safe and sound during dinner in my house.
As I’m cleaning up, scraping the remains of the salad into the compost bucket on the counter, I sigh.
“All right, that’s your fifty-ninth sigh tonight,” Grandma says as she loads the dishwasher.
“You’re counting my sighs?”
“Actually, I lost track somewhere between the salad and the madeleines. My point is—out with it.”
I wash my hands free of compost, then check the window. After I confirm Banks hasn’t yet returned, I meet Grandma’s kind eyes as she leans against the counter, patiently waiting.
But I’m not sure where to start. Yes, the comment’s been weighing on me.
I’m not a mean person. I was just frazzled but also still embarrassed.
The way he stood me up hurt so much. Even though I understand his reasoning, it’s taken me a while to forget the embarrassment of opening the door and saying spank me to a stranger.
Especially when I thought I was saying it to a man who understood me. A man who liked my humor, my mouth, the things I said. A man I could finally share some of those secret bedroom desires with.
I’ve never said “spank me” to anyone. Not to Eric Patrick, certainly. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it never seemed like his thing? But that night, I wanted to say it to Banks. Because I wanted it. Because I felt his want. Because I felt both safe with him and turned on.
The irony.
I haven’t told a soul what happened that night, not even Bridget or Chloe. But if I don’t tell someone, it’s going to eat away at me the next few weeks during the shoot. I won’t be able to focus on work, or running this place, or making sure Haven has everything she needs.
“Grandma,” I begin, readying myself to speak plainly to the woman who took over the task of being my parent when my own died one night on a snowy road when I was only fifteen. “I met him before.”
She sets down her towel and leans against the counter. “The baking bodyguard?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice wobbly. “And it was a total mess.”
“Oh, sweetie. Why?”
“We met at a bar,” I say, then I tell her the whole story.
Well, I give her the PG version. “And then we were going up to my room, and he never showed.” She blinks, eyes big and full of surprise.
“But the clerk brought me a letter Banks left, saying he’d explain, and I felt so stupid.
All I could think was it was something I’d said.
For close to a month, that’s what I thought.
He’d lost interest in me. Or he’d been lying to me.
Or he was playing me. Or he was looking for an excuse all along and he found one.
But it all came down to the same thing—he didn’t like me after all,” I say, my I can handle the world attitude sliding off my shoulders like a coat shed at the end of the day.
“Because how could he truly be into me if he’d leave like that? ”
“Oh hon, why would you think someone wouldn’t be into you?” she asks.
I give her a look. “Have you seen my track record, Grandma?”
“We all have track records.”
“But mine’s kind of a pattern,” I say, folding and unfolding the stack of cloth napkins on the counter.
My ex isn’t the first man to go poof in a cloud of smoke.
This guy I was seeing five years ago turned out to have been cheating on me the entire time before I found out when an alarm went off on Chad’s phone—pick up flowers for Samantha.
His name was Chad, though, so it served me right.
“A pattern’s only a pattern till you break it. I had such a thing for bad boys in leather jackets when I was younger,” Grandma says, a little wistful, shaking her head in amusement.
“What’s wrong with leather jackets?”
“Nothing, but they were all bad men who didn’t know how to treat a woman till I met your grandfather,” she says with a fond smile for the man she loved madly for many years till he died of a heart attack when I was ten.
“Didn’t mean something was wrong with me.
I didn’t know what I wanted and what I deserved till I met Russ. So why do you even think it’s you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know,” she says.
I dip my face so she can’t see me. “Because I’m bossy and difficult,” I grumble.
“You’re not difficult.”
I latch on to what’s unsaid as I lift my face. “But I am bossy?”
“You are the boss. You run a business.”
I’m the girl who knows how to get things done. The person who doesn’t back down from a challenge. Banks said as much the night I met him. But maybe he didn’t like those things after all. “I’m not the sweet sister like Haven. I’m the know-it-all. I’m the too independent one. I’m the pushy one.”
“And I love you both madly,” she says.
I believe that with my whole heart, but I’m on a roll, dammit, and nothing is stopping me. “And then I think I was kind of mean this afternoon,” I admit.
“Why? What did you do?”
I wince. “I said to his face that he wasn’t my type.”
She gives me the look—the look that says you didn’t do your best. “Apologize then,” she says.
“I don’t want to.” I pout.
“You do have to work with him over the next few weeks,” she points out.
This whole situation gets messier by the minute. “I just want to move past that night.”
“And why can’t you? Is it because…he’s exactly your type?”
Way to see inside my soul, Grandma.
I close my eyes, a whoosh rushing through my body. That man drives me wild and turns me inside out. “It’s hard to be around him.”
“Because you want him to swoop you up and carry you up the stairs?”
My eyes fly open. “Grandma!”
“I’m seventy-five. I’m not dead.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Why do you think I’m trying to go to Paris to see Laurent?”
“To make croissants,” I say immediately. Innocently.
The saucy minx winks. “Sure, if that’s what you call it these days.”
I cover my face. She comes in for a hug, and I breathe it in, letting her comfort me. Maybe I needed this. No, I’m sure I did. I’m glad I got the truth off my chest.
After we finish cleaning up, Banks’s car crunches on the gravel driveway, and a few minutes later, he knocks on the door, then strides in.
“How’s it going?” His dark eyes find me immediately, roaming up and down like he’s assessing me. They linger on me a little longer than is necessary, and my stomach doesn’t just flip. It cartwheels.
Attraction is such a pesky thing. Especially when it’s written all over your face, and I’m sure mine is a billboard.
“It’s all good. I’ll show you to the cottage,” I say, because at least I can be a good hostess, even if I’m having a hard time apologizing.
The bed’s already made up in the cottage, so there’s not much to do. It’s a big one-room cottage—a studio essentially. But I bring him an extra blanket, another pillow, and some fresh towels.
After I set the towels on the bathroom counter, it’s probably time to leave. Instead, I point to the shower door. “You need to let the water run for a few minutes to heat up,” I say.
“Good to know.”
“If you want a hot shower, that is,” I add. I really should go.
He crosses his arms. His broad chest somehow looks broader. “I love a hot shower,” he says, his voice a little lower than usual.
“Me too,” I say.
His eyes darken as he adds, “I’ll probably take one in a few minutes.”
I swallow roughly, grabbing on to the counter so I don’t melt into a puddle of hormones. I’m picturing this man stripping down to nothing, the water sliding over his strong body and down his pecs, his abs, his thighs.
How far does his ink go? Does it extend up his arms, over his biceps, across his chest? I try to undress him with my eyes, but unfortunately, they don’t have X-ray powers yet.
“So, yeah. Enjoy,” I say, and it’s late. The stars are winking in the sky. It’s been a long day. I need to give him some space now.
“I will,” he says. “Enjoy it, that is.”
Just say you’re sorry, then go. “I should go,” I say.
“See you in the morning. Let me know what’s on the agenda tomorrow, Ripley,” he says as he walks me to the door. My gaze strays to the tablet on the nightstand. A sheet of paper pokes out from it, like it did the night I met him. Looks like he’s still doing origami. This time he’s made a cat.
It’s my last chance to do the right thing. I reach for the knob, then try. I swear I try to say sorry about what I said earlier.
But instead, the words that fly out sound a lot like, “You’re good with your hands.”
I mean, it’s close to an apology.
The farmhouse is quiet as I get out of the shower a little later and pull on sleep shorts and a cami. My grandmother lives in the garden-level suite—her own apartment in the house.
I’m up on the top floor with my dog. When I slide into bed, Hudson sits dutifully on the floor, wags his tail, asking to join me. I pat the mattress. He jumps, springing onto the bed, ready to slumber.
I settle into bed, grabbing my phone to text my besties.
I see Bridget and Chloe pretty often, so I don’t want to run into them on the street with my hot, hulking, too-handsome-for-words bodyguard without letting them know I have one.
They’d give me a hard time about not telling them first. Best to warn them.
Besides, I’m still feeling all twisted up about… everything.
Ripley: Things I didn’t have on my bingo card for today—getting a bodyguard.
Chloe: WHAT?????
Bridget: Details!
I grumble as I type out a quick explanation about Haven, and Chris, and the film.
Chloe: So basically, you’re living the dream.
Ripley: What dream?
Chloe: The regular-girl-gets-a-bodyguard dream.
Ripley: I don’t think that’s a dream.
Bridget: You’re wrong, Ripley. You’re just wrong.
Ripley: So much for getting any sympathy from you two.
Chloe: I’ll see if I can bring you a cup of sympathy tomorrow. Ideally, when he’s striding next to you, wearing aviator shades, a snug T-shirt, and a broody expression.
Ripley: Are you seriously already having fantasies about my bodyguard? You haven’t even met him.
Bridget: Irrelevant. Also, yes. She is and I am.
Ripley: Regular girls with bodyguards get no sympathy.
Chloe: You got that right.
After I thank Chloe for her treat-culture tips, explaining how it helped with Ramona, I say good night, put my phone down, then grab a book from the two William gave me. One is for my sister, and then there’s this one for me—a thriller that promises to keep me turning pages well past my bedtime.
But I can’t focus on the story even as the hero races down the city block, hunting for the one spot where he can possibly lose the guy who’s chasing him.
I’m too busy thinking of tomorrow. And the next day and the next. How the hell am I supposed to spend all this time with my sexy bodyguard who even my besties are drooling over from a distance? I’m not sure there’s enough room on my farm for him, my attraction, and me.
Then, I devise a plan to shake him. And I can’t wait for tomorrow to come.