Chapter 30
HOW TO TEST YOUR BOYFRIEND
Declan
I get back to the apartment after running into town to talk to a guy about being a blacksmith for a day, and everyone’s waiting for me.
No, not everyone.
Adelaide’s not here.
Neither’s Shade.
Or Lavender, which makes sense, since it’s a school day.
But everyone else—from Heath to Pip and all of the full-time residents here—are camped on the patio under the porch, arms folded, waiting.
Fuuuuuuuck.
I look at each of them in turn, even Heath and Cricket’s cat, who’s on her leash, and their chickens, who are all gathered in the corner of their pen closest to us, squawking ominously.
When I glance at Ginny, my heart thumps so loudly I’m surprised it doesn’t make an audible sound.
She’s biting her lip and hugging a soft blue shawl around her shoulders. “Did you do it?” she asks bluntly.
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but my mouth goes dry and my pulse tries to set an Olympic record as worst-case scenarios go through my mind.
Leaked video.
Rumors.
Lies.
Secrets exposed.
Her mother knowing something she shouldn’t.
The wine.
Oh, fuck.
Did someone sabotage the wine?
“Much as I hate to say it, that’s not the look of a man who did it,” Olivia murmurs.
“Hate to agree with you, but I do,” Heath replies.
The cat hisses at me and the chickens cluck louder.
“You eat a bad turnip, son?” Pip asks me.
Mabel pulls a familiar envelope out of her back pocket and waves it at me.
“Oh, shit, is it counterfeit?” I say. “I left my marker. Didn’t you test it with the marker?”
“I told you he didn’t do it,” Ginny says to Mabel.
“Maybe he’s a good actor.”
“Do you know how hard it is to fail screen tests as a professional athlete? He failed them at least a half dozen times for sponsorship opportunities.” Ginny winces and looks back at me. “Sorry.”
I’d smile, but I’m still having a panic attack about something being wrong with the money. “Truth’s the truth,” I tell her.
“So how’s it work that he’s doing documentaries?” Dori asks.
“No, I can see it,” Cricket says. “He was really bad when we were faking our meeting in the cellar, but he’s a natural when he can be himself and roll with things. Some people are like that.”
I straighten. “Really bad? I was bad but not really bad.”
The cat shakes her head like she’s laughing, and the light catches something sparkly in the fur on her face that I haven’t noticed before.
“Reality bed?” Pip says. “I didn’t know it was that kind of documentary.”
“No, he’s really bad at acting, Aunt Pip,” Mabel says.
Cricket grins. “Truth’s the truth,” she parrots back to me. “And it’s actually good that you were bad. People will wonder what was wrong with you that day and talk about the show more. Mysteries are fantastic for ratings.”
My heart’s still sprinting. “What’s going on? What’s with the…accusations?”
“We found a new envelope of cash,” Cricket tells me. “And most of us think it’s you.”
I hold my hands up. “If you want money, make me a business proposition. I don’t play games.”
“Does Shade have money?” Ginny asks me.
“Shade has a high-maintenance boyfriend who doesn’t like when he’s traveling. He’s not leaving anonymous cash donations. He’s spending all of his money on appeasement gifts.”
Everyone looks at Mabel.
She frowns at me. “I didn’t discover that in my research.”
“You wouldn’t,” I tell her.
“Why not?”
“None of your business.”
If word got back to Eddie that Shade’s dating a producer at a rival company, there’d be hell to pay.
I only found out by accident, and only because we’ve spent so much time together filming.
“Point is, he wouldn’t do it,” I say.
Mabel’s eyes pinch, then relax. “They want the chardonnay named after them.”
“I don’t know what to tell you about that. You didn’t ask for the money, and if they insist on being anonymous, then it doesn’t matter what they want, does it?”
She studies me like she’s looking for what I’m not saying.
“Cricket deserves the chardonnay. And Cheeky Beaver Chardonnay is epic,” I argue. “It’d be stupid to change it.”
Mabel slides a look at Ginny.
“I told you he didn’t do it,” Ginny says again.
I lock eyes with Ginny, and her smile does me in.
My pulse slows, my muscles unclench, and I draw a full breath.
“The anonymous donor wants the zinfandel named after them, not the chardonnay,” she tells me.
Fucking test.
I scowl at Mabel, which makes Ginny laugh.
“What?” I say to her.
“It’s just nice to see you making your dick face at someone else.”
I love this woman.
My heart, my soul, my next life and the one after that and the one after that into infinity—they all belong to her. I’ve been hers since the big bang and I’ll still be hers when the universe collapses back on itself.
But I can’t have her in this lifetime without wrecking the longest friendship I’ve ever had. Probably without blowing up this new post-hockey career that I’ve been hoping would get me back in the game too.
“You ask Walter if he did it?” I ask the group.
“Walter can’t do it anymore,” Pip says. “He’s not circumcised, and he got an infection, and—”
“We have not asked Walter,” Mabel interrupts. “Thank you for the idea. We’ll ask him.”
“Good,” I say. “We making wine today, or are we still being dicks?”
“We’re cleaning the barn and the fermentation building,” Dori says. “Hope you’re ready to get dirty in the name of getting clean.”
My gaze subconsciously drifts to Ginny again.
She blushes.
She’s thinking what I’m thinking.
That we could get dirty together.
One weekend of Ginny is not nearly enough for me.
“Where’s Flow?” she stammers.
“Haircut,” I reply.
“Again?” Olivia says.
“She has a screen test tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t do that to poor Flow,” Ginny says. “She deserves her privacy and her anonymity.”
“You can have that discussion with her yourself and see how it goes,” I tell her.
She smiles wider. “It would be my pleasure.”
I fall harder in love.
Half of our audience smirks at me like they know it.
“Get to work,” Heath says. He kisses Cricket on top of her head. “Late for a job. I’ll be home with Lav later.”
“Love you,” she says to him.
He smiles back at her and kisses her head once more.
Raw envy digs into my chest.
I want that.
I want to be able to say love you to Ginny without sending her spiraling into a catastrophic whirl of fear and insecurities and doubts.
I want to play hockey again and know that Ginny’s in the stands wearing my jersey and cheering for me.
I want our lives to line up.
I want Alex to understand that things happen.
And I don’t see how any of it’s possible. Not long-term.
But she’s stayed with me in the apartment here the past two nights, and we have a date this weekend.
So that’s what I’ll cling to.
The moments I get.
The memories I’ll cherish.
And hopefully, when she looks back on me being here, she’ll be glad for the time we had together.
Hopefully she’ll be stronger when I’m gone because I was here.
If I can’t have her—and for all the hope this past weekend has given me, I know in my heart that she’ll never see me the way I see her—then I hope I at least made a positive difference in her life.
It’s what you wish for the people you love.
She pauses next to me as the group starts to scatter.
“I knew you didn’t do it.” She slips her hand into mine and squeezes.
Lightning crackles up my arm, straight to that hopeless organ in my chest.
I squeeze back, but she’s already pulling her hand away.
I love you, I think to myself as she hustles to catch up to Mabel, skirt bouncing.
Hair bouncing too.
I give myself a minute to live in the memories we’re making of kissing, touching, sex, whispered confessions, smiles and laughs and arguments, but then I pull myself up and head for the barn.
There’s work to do.
My excuse to stay here that will end far too soon.