Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Gianna
“Hi, Claudia. Welcome to Gianna Knows Things. What do you need to know?” I ask, pulling the microphone closer to me. “Let me remind you that I’m not answering any questions about Drake until the end of the show. Please don’t ask about him and make it weird.”
Because she will ask, and she will make it weird. They all will. And so far, they all have.
I woke up this morning to headlines that Drake was cheating on me with a model from Argentina.
His face is plastered everywhere alongside a beautiful woman with a body capable of stopping traffic.
He saw it before I was out of bed and called me to explain that he knew her once upon a time and hadn’t talked to her in years.
Even if he had, he hasn’t spoken to her since he met me, so how is it any of my business?
Unfortunately, the world thinks it’s their business, and I can’t log on to Social without seeing post after post speculating on my emotional downfall. Fun times.
“Thanks for taking my call, Gianna. And for what it’s worth, I’m Team Gianna. Real girls stick together.”
I close my eyes. Lord help me.
“But what I need to know is who to trust,” Claudia says. “My friends or my heart?”
“I’m gonna need a little context, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. So I’ve been dating this guy for about five months now.
I’m in love with him. He checks all the boxes, and I gave him a thorough interview before we even started dating to make sure that I wasn’t wasting my time.
He had potential, so we started seeing each other, and I fell madly in love with him.
The problem is that my friends hate him. ”
“Ouch. Do we know why?”
“Not really. One says he has bad vibes, which—what does that even mean, right? The other says he’s controlling, and that I’ve changed since we started dating, which I don’t understand. But we’re supposed to grow up and learn and evolve, aren’t we? So even if I have changed, that’s growth.”
Claudia already knows the answer. Her boyfriend needs to go. She’s just hoping that by some miracle, I’ll agree with her, and she can use that as justification when her friendships fall apart.
Francine gets one less Christmas present for putting this call through.
I take a deep breath. “Let’s start with your friends. How long have you known them?”
“I’ve known both since middle school. I’m twenty-three now.”
“Are they in relationships?”
“Yes, they both have boyfriends.”
“What are their relationships like?”
“Good,” she says. “One just got engaged, and the other is seeing a guy. It’s pretty new, but she seems happy.”
“All right. Tell me about your guy. What’s he like? What do you do together?”
“He’s gorgeous,” she says, her voice loaded with excitement. “He’s from a nice family. He loves dogs and has two rescues, Tequila and Sunrise.”
My brows pull together. For being so in love with someone, the best thing you can come up with is that he’s from a nice family and has two rescues … with those names? Not that he tells her that she’s pretty, that he’s nice, or that he loves her and takes her on trips to see the actual sun rise?
Not a good start.
“What is he like to you?” I ask.
“Oh, he’s great. We hang out in his shop a lot because he works so much.
He’s a mechanic and owns a shop with his best friend.
He takes me to Zeroes every Friday for date night,” she says, as if taking her to a biker bar is the sweetest thing in the world.
“He had this big party planned for my birthday, but he got sick the night before, so he had to cancel. I was so touched that he took the time to do that for me. Guys don’t do that. ”
Apparently, he doesn’t do that either, Claudia.
This is as bad as I figured it would be, and the only good thing about it is that it proves my intuitions are correct.
None of this passes the vibe check. Her friends are undoubtedly seeing the big red flags waving in the air—the same ones that I see all the way over here—because they’re not looking at it through an emotional lens.
Claudia’s guy is in this for himself. Every choice from where they hang out to where they go on dates—it all benefits him. Maybe he has good qualities, but she’s not sharing them with me. And canceling her party because he can’t go?
Drake would never.
“I have two best friends—shoutout Astrid and Audrey— and because they’re my best friends, I value their opinions.
I believe they want what’s best for me. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my best friends.
So if they were telling me that they noticed a change in me for the worse, I’d think about that.
If they had concerns for my happiness, I’d listen.
Because who wants more for me than my girls?
Real girls stick together. Isn’t that what you told me? ”
Claudia sighs. “Yes, and you’re right. I do listen and trust them. But if they were really my best friends, wouldn’t they try to like him? Because they’re not giving him a chance.”
“Is that true? Or did they give him a chance, and he blew it? I don’t know the answer, but you do.”
She groans in a way that tells me that she knows the answer. I’m right, and he’s a dickhead. It’s all in a day’s work.
“You have two choices,” I say. “You can listen to your friends and consider their opinions, or you can say screw it and do what you want. But before you decide, think about a few things. Imagine the dates you’ll go on and the people you’ll hang out with.
What will late nights look like? Will he take care of you when you’re sick or become interested in the things you love so he can talk to you about them? ”
A soft grin kisses my lips as I think about Drake searching out the restaurants in Nashville that he thinks I’ll like best and how he asks me about my art projects. It’s kind of annoying how great he is.
“I’ll think about it. Thanks, Gianna.”
“No problem. Thanks for calling in.” Francine gives me the sign that the final caller of the day is waiting.
“Next on the line we have … Justin,” I say, reading off the computer screen.
“Hey, Justin. We’re not talking about Drake, so please don’t bring him up.
Other than that, what do you need to know? ”
“Hey, Gianna. I really, really need your wisdom right now.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
He takes a shaky breath that grabs my attention. “I’ve been seeing this guy for a while. Seven months and four days, to be exact.”
I smile at the exactness of the relationship.
“And he’s great. Or I’m pretty sure he’s great.” He pauses. “He was great before last weekend—that I know for sure. I think.”
“I take it something happened last weekend.”
He sighs, and his stress is palpable. Unlike a lot of my callers, he’s not jumping to his significant other’s defense right out of the gate, making them seem guilty from the start. I’m curious about where this is headed.
“Last Friday, he told me that he was going to see his sister for the weekend in Kentucky because she just had a baby. I couldn’t go because my boss thinks I need to show up for a full 40-hour workweek every damn week.”
I hear a smile in his voice, and I instantly like Justin. If his man is playing games with him, I might seek revenge myself.
“So he leaves Friday morning, and I pack him a cute little lunch for the road, and off he goes. I know he was there Friday and Saturday because he sent me pics of him with his niece, who, might I add, is the cutest baby in the world. And thanks to the trial between a pirate actor and blond actress a few years back, I know how to tell when a photograph was taken.”
“That’s where I learned that trick, too.”
“It was truly a public service. Anyway, fast-forward to Sunday when I’m out brunching with a bestie, and who is sitting across the room with another man? Him.”
Justin’s voice sounds calm, but I can hear the heartbreak just below the surface. Despite having never met Justin a day in my life, I’d fight someone for him. I trust my intuition, and it tells me that Justin is one of the good ones.
“Did he offer an explanation?” I ask.
“No, because I went home, packed my shit, and left.”
I lean forward, resting my arms on the table. This is complicated. His reaction—packing his stuff and leaving—is my normal suggestion. Don’t waste time on unworthy men. But something feels off to me about this, and I can’t put my finger on it.
“He’s blowing up my phone,” Justin says. “He showed up at my work last Monday but got my shifts wrong, and I wasn’t there. My inbox on every platform is loaded with messages from him, but I can’t get myself to read them.”
“Why?”
He hiccups a breath. “Because I know he’ll want to talk to me and I’m afraid I’ll either forgive him too easily or have my heart broken. It’s easier to live in the gray than plunge into the darkness, if that makes sense.”
Francine watches me intently from the sound booth. Curiosity is painted all over her face. The fact that I haven’t suggested a rebound fuck and we’ve been on the phone beyond the five-minute mark might be a record, and she’s clearly noticed.
I have, too, for that matter.
My entire platform is built on the premise that love is a choice and that too many of us make bad choices. Life’s too short to be unhappy, and it’s definitely too short to entertain bad people. So why does a part of me want to suggest that Justin hear him out?
The businessperson in me knows that I need to stay on brand.
Branding is such a massive part of marketing, and the execs haven’t filled the Thursday slot yet—something I’ve avoided thinking about lately.
Now that I’ve gotten a taste of life when people know your name, it’s terrifying.
There’s no privacy. You become gossip fodder.
Everyone has something to say, whether they know anything about it or not, and the thing I used to love most—social media and chatting with people—is the thing that gives me the most anxiety now.