30. Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Benji
Everything is fine.
Dawn is younger than my parents, but my parents don’t blink at her ripped-up jean shorts and cropped top under that hippy blouse. And Dawn lets them know that she knows that we’re married, but she doesn’t say a word about Milo or the wedding. Slowly, Gina relaxes.
Night falls, Thomas draws the short straw of putting the kids to bed, and the rest of us settle around the fire pit with a couple of bags of marshmallows.
We don’t have enough lawn chairs, so we drag the picnic table close.
Gina sits on the table behind me so there's room for everyone, bracketing me with her legs. It would be much nicer if it were just the two of us. It’s a struggle not to get ideas when her fingers twine in my hair.
So I burn marshmallows for her. That’s how much I love this woman.
Dawn lights up a joint, and Gina’s fingers drop from my hair. Pretty sure I hear her groan. But my mom readily accepts the joint, taking a hit off it like the former art major she is.
Gina relaxes again.
Conversation flows. I don’t even need the contact high to feel like everything will work out. This weekend could’ve been a disaster, but while we’re not out of the woods yet, we’re halfway there.
Sure, Pamela and Joelle know, but I trust them. They won’t run to Diana. Who knows, maybe they’ll devise a way to ensure the wedding never happens that doesn’t land Gina in trouble with Diana.
The joint finally makes it to me, and while I doubt Gina wants it, I twist to look at her as I offer it up.
Her lips purse and her head tilts a little. She tentatively takes it.
“Have you done this before?” I ask her quietly. She’d mentioned accidentally eating one of her mom’s brownies as a teen, but that’s different, and she’s older.
“Once, with Lou,” Gina admits with a sheepish grin. “I fell asleep at the bar.” Right. Lou is the woman who owns the dive bar. Or used to. I’m not really sure and I haven’t met her yet. She’s still out of town.
I hand Gina the joint. When she’s done, I pass it back to Dawn on my left, who smiles approvingly at her daughter.
“Duck Benji!” Elliot yells from a lawn chair off to my right. I turn toward him in time for a marshmallow to bounce off my nose.
Everyone bursts into laughter, even Gina. I grab the marshmallow and whip it at my stupid brother, but I’m smiling too.
“Who showed you that?” I ask.
“Thomas,” Elliot answers, wiping tears out of his eyes. “We were scouring your socials for any pics of Gina, and you were tagged in that clip.”
My mother giggles her high-pitched, stoned giggle and chucks another marshmallow at me. It falls woefully short, landing in the grass outside the fire pit. She whisper-shouts, “Duck,” about five seconds too late, which sets everyone off again.
“Oh god,” I mutter, “this is turning into a repeat of Aunt Leslie’s sixtieth.” It was a birthday party that went down in total family infamy.
“We should play fuzzy duck,” Natalie says, her eyes wide as she holds up the bag of marshmallows.
“It’s chubby bunny,” Thomas corrects her, which leads to a heated discussion over which game involves stuffing marshmallows into your mouth and which game is a drinking game.
Ultimately Thomas concedes that saying ‘fuzzy duck’ with a mouth full of marshmallows would be just as challenging as ‘chubby bunny’.
Smart choice, given the rising threat in his wife’s voice.
Gina continues to toy with my hair and massage my head. Maybe it’s my second-hand high, but her touch feels more and more sensual, all slow and focused. I want to get her back to her cabin so I can feel that touch in other places.
As night deepens, the laughter quiets, but it never feels uncomfortable. There’s one moment when Dawn launches into a complaint, wholly out of context, about Diana changing dates to suit her whims, but I get up and quickly stuff a marshmallow in her mouth.
My mother snickers. “Chubby duck.”
That sets off the final round of laughter. Not long after that, Dawn calls a friend to give her a ride home. One by one, my family heads to bed. Soon, it’s just me and Gina. She pulls a small but powerful flashlight from her pocket, and we walk down the road.
Well, I walk. Gina stumbles.
“I’ll piggyback you if you can keep the flashlight steady.”
“God, I love you.” Her words tumble and slur, but we manage to get her on my back, and she mostly holds the flashlight steady enough. The dirt roads around camp are well maintained, but they’re still dirt, and it would suck to sprain my ankle again.
Gina rests her head on my shoulder, her hair tickling my neck. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this lie.”
“It’s okay. I understand why we have to do this. But we’re getting close to Diana’s place, and the lights are still on, so shhh.” This is the most direct way to get to Gina’s cabin, but maybe I should’ve taken my chances going the long way.
“You deserve better,” Gina murmurs, the beam of light dipping closer to my feet before jerking back up to a few steps ahead.
“So do you.”
She sighs. “We should tell her the truth. I only want one husband.”
“Shhh. Not now.” Not when I see Diana sitting in a chair on her screened-in-porch with a book in hand. It’s too late to turn around. She sees us approaching and stands.
Shit.
The spring on the screen door loudly stretches as Diana opens it and steps onto the small deck. “Benji? Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, fine,” I call out cheerfully. “Sorry if we disturbed you.”
“Is that…is Gina okay?”
“Sorry, Diana,” Gina says sleepily, lifting her head and waving the flashlight.
“She’s overdone it, that’s all,” I say because Gina doesn’t sound sober.
And if she were sober, she wouldn’t be on my back.
Her head wouldn’t drop back to my shoulder, her lips dangerously close to my neck.
She mumbles something about lies and husbands, but if I can’t make out what she’s saying a few inches from my ear, there’s no way Diana can hear her from twenty feet away.
“That’s not like her,” Diana says hesitantly.
I’m almost to the point where we’ll disappear around the cabin, so I stop and hoist Gina higher. “All the stress,” I say. It’s perfectly true. My girl is stressed.
“Do you want to take my car?”
“No thanks, Mrs. Gustafson. I’ve missed too many leg days.”
It’s hard to see Diana’s expression in the dark, but she looks doubtful. “It’s Diana,” she reminds me, sounding like she’s thinking about something else.
“Right. Sorry, Diana. I’d better get her home. See you tomorrow.” I don’t stick around for a response.
Thanks to the spa package Gina and Milo gifted her, Diana is away on Sunday.
Gina and I spend the morning helping Milo clean out the cabins of the guests who checked out while Briar works the lodge.
It gives me a good chance to check some of the nooks and crannies for Gina’s lost rings, especially after Joelle pulled me aside and told me she overheard one of the two Nevada men on the phone.
Not clear enough for anything to be incriminating, but she said it sounded like they were here on business.
I don’t find the rings anyway. I need to borrow Wade’s metal detector again, but there’s no time.
Gina and I spend the afternoon with my family on the lake, but she has wedding business with Cheryl in town, so I’m on my own for dinner with my family.
I fall asleep Sunday night beside Gina, and all our secrets are still safe.
Morning comes bright, golden, and warm. My family checks out and heads to their vacation rental, Diana none the wiser.
They aren’t going far, and having them half an hour down the road is still really close, but I’m a little bummed. I wish they could stay here so I could drop in for breakfast with Gina, or we could play a few rounds of cornhole or sit around the fire after work.
Once they’re out of sight, I hold my hand up for a high-five. “We did it,” I say.
Gina slaps her palm against mine and smiles wryly. “Sure did.”
“It was good, right?”
She nods. “It was. Now we just…” the smile fades from her face.
Have to survive tomorrow. Gina suggested I take my family to Duluth for the day. It’s the only way to ensure they don’t randomly pop up at the lodge mid-wedding.
In a way, I’m relieved. I don’t want to watch Gina walk down the aisle to Milo. I don’t want to hear them say the words to each other that we said that night in Vegas. I don’t want to watch him kiss my wife. But I want to be there to support her, to help in any way I can.
“We can do it,” I say confidently.
“I want to believe you.”
“Believe me. Let’s manifest this shit.”
Gina laughs, and while it doesn’t erase the worry from her eyes, it’s a step in the right direction. Even though we’re outside in full view of anyone who happens to come along, she slides her arms around me for a quick hug. Then we get to work cleaning. When that’s done, it’s all wedding business.
Setting up for her wedding has to be the worst job I’ve had to do. I’d rather clean the amenities block with my toothbrush. Gina is off to put together centerpieces with Cheryl and Diana, leaving me and Milo to put up the marquee.
If I’m feeling shitty about the whole thing, Milo looks ready to throw up. He’s quieter than normal, his usual grumpy expression replaced by something resembling a man walking to his death with many regrets.
“You okay?” I ask once we have the frame up.
He doesn’t answer beyond a withering glare, and I guess he doesn’t have to. He’s not okay. Maybe even if I hadn’t messed everything up for him by marrying Gina in Vegas, he still wouldn’t be okay.
We get the marquee up without too much difficulty. But when we come back from a break, there’s a problem.
Someone took it down. And removed the stakes.
Milo has extra stakes, so we set it up again. Then, the flooring. The lighting. No breaks because we caught sight of Pamela and Joelle nearby. I’m pretty sure they’re the saboteurs.