Chapter 4 #2
When Alex told me he’d asked her out at the start of our senior year of college, I expected a spoiled, out-of-touch former reality TV star.
I’d seen some episodes of On the Rhodes, her family’s reality series, and even knowing that those shows were scripted, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d be just as much of a brat in person as she was onscreen.
But out of touch is the last thing she’s ever been, Alex’s first wedding aside.
When he and I were drafted to the same team in Indianapolis, she worked with the team’s coordinator on our behalf to get us a two-bedroom apartment and furnishings.
Alex and I both wanted to save as much of our salaries as we could while we were still used to living cheaply, and we’d always been good roommates, and there was a bit of a superstition factor involved too.
Like maybe we wouldn’t play as well if we weren’t sharing an apartment.
Living with Ginny wasn’t ideal, but I was at least used to it. She’d lived with us most of our senior year anyway.
When I went down with an injury my rookie season, she baked me cookies.
Healthy cookies.
High protein. Low sugar.
She’d invite me to join them for movie nights on days that we didn’t have games, and she’d grab my favorite snacks from the store when she was getting Alex food.
She’d pick up my suits from the dry cleaners along with his, and she always made my favorite meal on my birthday.
She was nice to any woman I’d bring back to the apartment, and the one time it turned into more than a one-night stand, she introduced my girlfriend to the team’s other wives and girlfriends.
When Alex and I decided it was time to get our own places, she still invited me for dinner—more often than he did, it seemed—and she offered to watch my new dog when we were on the road.
And I never reciprocated.
Ever.
Didn’t want it to look like I was hitting on my buddy’s girlfriend because I didn’t know how to interact with Ginny and not have it written all over my face that I was madly in love with this woman who had a funny laugh and a generous spirit and a quick brain and the worst taste in music and who made the best lemon cookies I’ve ever tasted in my life.
It was immature and stupid, but that’s how I handled liking her.
She pushes the rolls away. “I don’t need bribes.”
I go back to the pot. “Not a bribe.”
“Then what is this?”
“Just looked like you needed it.”
“Is this pity?”
“No, it’s—”
It’s an I love you present.
Pathetic, right?
I don’t even know her anymore.
Can’t love someone you don’t know.
“Why would I pity you?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, and this time, when I glance back at her, she’s not squinting like she’s studying me.
She has her head lowered, her shoulders sagging, and she looks so fucking sad.
“Because I made a complete fool of myself, and anyone who’d do something that stupid deserves to be pitied for how pathetic it was,” she says.
“Your mother isn’t your fault.”
“I wasn’t talking about that wedding.”
“Ah.”
She snorts softly.
“People do crazy shit for love,” I say.
“I sent a letter apologizing to Alex and his—his wife. It wasn’t enough, but I know what I did was wrong, and I’ve been sorry about it for years.”
I swallow hard.
She wasn’t wrong when she said that Alex was making a mistake. He went from brokenhearted over Ginny dumping him to standing at the altar with his high school sweetheart in three months. They didn’t make it to their first anniversary.
Not because of what Ginny did.
But because it was a rebound for both of them, and they’d both grown and changed since their high school dating days, and they were more in love with the idea of reuniting than they were with each other.
“When I knew you, I never saw your heart in the wrong place,” I say.
She snorts again, this time like she doesn’t believe me, then falls silent.
I finish with the stockpot while second-guessing if I’m saying the right things. Hell, I’m second-guessing if I’m breathing right.
Being around Ginny—it makes my pulse race and my knees go weak and my lungs malfunction.
If anyone else is still in the building, I can’t hear them.
It’d be like Ginny to send them away so they wouldn’t witness her telling me to eat dirt and get the hell out of here.
Still being as nice as she can be when she doesn’t owe me shit after the way I treated her in college and those years after.
“When you film here—”
I jerk around, almost dropping the pot instead of setting it on the drying rack, and she pauses.
Shouldn’t be surprised at the when you film here. This is exactly what the Ginny I used to know would do.
Always trying to do what’s right, until the one time she didn’t.
She pushes her sunglasses back up her nose. “I’d intended to be gone before you arrived to make us both more comfortable, but whatever. I don’t want to leave. So when you film here, I have my own additional requests.”
She lives here.
I knew it.
And she has requests.
Not restrictions and rules. Not contract add-ons.
Requests.
Don’t do it, my brain tells my heart. Don’t fall for her again. This isn’t a second chance. This is a job.
My heart flips my brain off and leaps anyway.
“Like what?” I ask.
“I will not appear on video. And don’t try any technicalities with me.
No video on your phone. No video using a camera.
No video with webcams, integrated into a computer or not.
No video on any kind of device. No audio either.
You can’t use anything with my voice or my picture or any video with me on it in any way. ”
“Understood.”
“You will not invite my mother to join us.”
Ginny’s wrong that I’ve always hated her, but she’s right that I’ve always hated her mother.
And I don’t hate people. “I’d rather gnaw on a hockey puck without my teeth.”
“And you can’t tell—” She grimaces. “You can’t tell Alex I’m here.”
“No reason to.”
“Because of the contract, I acknowledge that you’ll be in the main house on occasion. Stay out of the office. Stay out of the den. Don’t go up any stairs. And only be there when you absolutely have to be, or when I’ve expressly invited you.”
“Noted.”
“Don’t talk to any children you see.”
“There are children here?”
“Do not talk to any children you might see, and don’t ask questions about anything beyond wine production stuff.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up again.
Something’s off.
Not right.
My suspicions from earlier come flooding back. What the fuck are they doing here?
“Are you in trouble?” I ask her quietly.
“Am I—what?”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No, I’m not in trouble.”
“If you are, I can—”
“I’m not in trouble, Declan.”
“Something fucking weird’s going on here. All of the privacy, the NDAs, all of the don’t talk to kids and stick to the wine—are you stuck here? Is someone holding you hostage? Is this a cult? What the actual fuck’s going on here?”
She stares at me for a long moment, then she pulls her sunglasses off, and she heaves a sigh. “It’s not a cult.”
“Then…?”
“You realize you’re the outsider here? Asking us for something? I don’t have to tell you a thing.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s a cult. You’re in a cult.”
“It is not a cult.”
“If it walks like a cult and talks like a cult, it’s—”
“It’s a commune, and it’s none of your goddamn business.”
A commune. The fuck?
Who lives in a commune? “Is this some kind of re-creation of On the Rhodes when you and your mom—”
“There is no discussing my history. Or my relatives. Or anything with me at all. Mabel and Cricket and Dori will take care of assisting you with anything you need.” She winces and grabs her head. “And stop making me mad. I’m still too hungover for that.”
In my experience, Ginny is practically never mad.
Alex could bring his gear bag home packed with dirty laundry and let it sit in the sun for three days, and when Ginny noticed, she’d smile, roll her eyes, and wash it for him.
Whenever he’d have a party, she’d clean up without complaint. Not even frustrated sighs.
She made dinner.
She did the dishes.
She kept up with her own classwork, then later, after we graduated and were drafted and moved to Indianapolis, she found a marketing job and kept up with it too.
And she was always smiling about it.
But I make her mad.
I could always make her mad when I tried hard enough.
And she was the only one.
I never made anyone else mad.
Not the way I made her mad.
“Okay. It’s a commune. You don’t exist here. I keep to myself, get my shit done as fast as possible, keeping everything a secret, and then I leave. That about cover it?”
It’s something more than a commune.
I will be thinking of Ginny existing every moment of the day.
I will be listening in at every opportunity to find out why she’s here and what’s actually going on beyond the wine.
And I don’t want to leave as fast as possible.
I want—no, I need to make sure Ginny’s safe.
I’ve always wanted to make sure Ginny’s safe, even when I didn’t want her to know that I was watching out for her.
Even when it’s not my business. When I should let her go.
I’ve thought about Ginny Rhodes every single day since the first day we met, and no matter how much I tell myself to let go, there’s not a scenario in the world where she won’t always occupy a part of me.
“And the location fee just went up by twenty percent,” Ginny adds.
I almost smile. The Ginny I used to know would’ve never.
Good for her though. “Given how much of a dick Eddie was this morning, I can understand that requirement.”
She pulls herself off the stool, her movements stiff. “Thank you.”
“Want to take those rolls with you?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She squints at me, then puts her sunglasses back on. “I hate it when you’re agreeable. I don’t trust it.”
Yeah.
That doesn’t sting either.
Except it does.
But despite saying she didn’t want them, she takes two rolls from the bag before she leaves the kitchen.
Like she’s accepting a peace offering that I probably shouldn’t have made.
My life would be infinitely easier if I could forget Ginny Rhodes exists.
But I can’t.
And I won’t.