Chapter 37
MISTER CONGENIALITY
Ginny
If I thought I might’ve liked Declan before, watching him let Cherry Slapstick and Peppermint Sinbin put him in drag makeup and a dress onstage has completely ruined me for any chance of denying just how down bad I am for him.
And the improv show the queens put on as they—and Cherry’s wig—decided what his look needed to be?
And that Declan rolls with while matching their witty banter beat for beat?
Absolutely priceless.
“I’m so sorry my camerawork is shitty,” I say to him as I join him and the two queens backstage after the show. “It’s hard to film when you can’t stop laughing.”
He grins at me, his lips bright red and well-defined, the contour on his cheeks making him look like his already chiseled cheekbones are sharp as glass, and his eyes—I giggle, then snort, then giggle and snort more until I’m coughing.
His eyebrows take up half his forehead, and where Cherry and Peppermint’s eyebrows are high and exaggerated and match, Declan has one brow that looks like a caterpillar on steroids, and the other is an homage to all of the women who overplucked in the nineties without realizing eyebrows don’t grow back.
“So you had fun?” he asks me in the voice he uses when he mimics his brother.
“Stop mocking me.” Cherry whips off her wig, pets her once, kisses the lips, and then sets her on a wig stand.
“Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” Declan replies, still in his drag queen voice.
“Foxy went there, and Foxy’s never going back,” Peppermint says.
She pulls off her wig too, unzips her dress, and blows out a breath. “I need to quit eating so much bread or let these seams out.”
“Lucky your boobs still fit,” Zander says in his normal voice. “Ginny, help this man take his makeup off. He’s just like our mother. Scrubs too hard, and then his face swells for days.”
Declan pulls off his dress—a fluffy oversize yellow dress that looks like it came off the set of an eighties horror movie about murdered prom queens—leaving him in nothing but his slacks and shoes.
I catch myself biting my lip while I eye the broad expanse of his chest, the tight muscles in his arms, the bed of chest hair and his flat copper nipples, and try as I might to order myself to look away while we have an audience, I don’t want to.
I never want to.
His body is just—it’s glorious.
Every inch of it.
Including my favorite inches.
“Oh my goddess, have some respect for the wardrobe.” Cherry grabs the dress Declan’s discarded, then pets it. “I’m so sorry you had to touch that hairy beast, my darling. The sacrifices you make to entertain an audience.”
I finally make myself look away from Declan’s chest to Cherry, who’s also pulled off her dress. “Did you plan this?” I ask.
“We never plan anything,” Peppermint says, though she’s using a much, much deeper voice now.
Back into being Lou, Zander’s best friend since kindergarten.
“We’ve had this dress traveling with us for ten years, and this is the first time we’ve gotten to use it,” Zander says.
Declan rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “Only because you put me in hot pink and then neon green first.”
“You’ve done this before?” I ask him.
“Not since we hit the big time,” Zander answers for him. “What was that bar we were at the first time he did it, Lou?”
“Bumblebee Barracuda,” Peppermint—Lou—supplies.
“Three people showed up, and Declan was two of them,” Zander says.
“He hasn’t gotten any better at improv,” Lou says.
“Worse, if you ask me,” Zander replies. “Ginny, he’s taking his makeup off himself. For the love of goddess, stop him, please. Or don’t, and send me pictures tomorrow.”
I look at Declan again, who’s still crinkly eyed and clearly amused.
Steady and confident in who he is and what he believes in any situation.
Unafraid of what people will say when pictures and videos leak.
And they will.
It’s inevitable.
And he’s smiling at me, holding out a makeup removal cloth.
My legs are unsteady as I sink onto the stool beside him.
Fingers too.
I know what I’m feeling.
I’ve felt it before, and I’ll undoubtedly feel it again.
I know the dangers of trusting it.
But I’m not who I used to be.
I’m stronger.
Smarter.
And I’m with a man who doesn’t need me to perform to be lovable.
“His singing voice is terrible,” I say to Zander and Lou, hoping the lie can calm my flaming nerves and distract me from the panic building inside me at the idea that I want to let myself fall in love with Declan.
That I want to ask him to stay.
I couldn’t promise him I won’t get neurotic and scared that he doesn’t really see me or love me back.
But he knows me. He’ll know I’m scared.
And if he—if he wants me back, he’ll love me through it.
“Are you insane?” Zander says to me while Lou gasps. “He sings better than Waverly Sweet and Bro Code and Half-Cocked Heroes put together. He could be the entire Vienna Boys’ Choir all by himself. If the world ran out of harps, they’d ask Declan to be the harp instead.”
Lou snorts at me. “Don’t mock the voice. I like you, but the voice is off-limits.”
“Just testing you to make sure you actually like him.” I make myself grin at them like my heart isn’t racing and the little voice that tells me to do bad things isn’t whispering let yourself fall in love.
Zander squints at me. “Are you okay?”
“Is a woman in denial ever okay?” Lou mutters.
Heat flushes my cheeks.
I busy myself with grabbing the micellar water, and I snatch the makeup removal rag without touching Declan’s fingers.
He rests a hand on my knee.
I jerk my eyes up to meet his gaze, and that soft smile, those crinkling eyes, the gentle squeeze of my knee—I’m okay.
I am.
He knows me.
The ugly parts of me.
The panicked parts of me.
The beautiful parts of me.
And he loves me.
He’s never said the words, but the bone-deep certainty that this beautiful man loves me stills something deep inside me that’s been on a hamster wheel chasing an elusive goal since I was born.
The goal of unconditional, pure love.
My eyes go damp. “You were so good up there,” I whisper.
“We’ve had a lot of practice,” he murmurs back.
“This was planned.”
“Going up there? Yes. What we did and said? All improv.”
I swipe my eyes, then clear my throat, and he does me the favor of not commenting on it.
“So you play hockey, recreate yourself as a social media star, get your own TV show, are comfortable letting your brother put you in drag, sing like that, and you’re funny?” I say.
He casually lifts a shoulder and gives me a smug smile. “Yeah. Basically.”
My stomach hurts from how much I laughed tonight.
My cheeks do too.
But I’m laughing all over again at this kind, big-hearted, patient, compassionate man who used to make me so insecure because of his own insecurities, but who sees me.
He sees me in ways that my best friends see me.
He always has.
I lean forward on my stool, cup his cheeks, and press my lips to his, giggling all over again at the scent of makeup tickling my nose.
He laughs too as he softly kisses me back. “So this is funny?” he murmurs against my mouth.
I stroke his cheeks, trace his ear, and lift my eyes to him. “I’m just—I’m happy.”
“Good.”
“I like you.”
“Thank goddess,” Zander said. “Somebody eventually had to.”
I jolt. I’d forgotten he was here. And then I’m laughing all over again. “Stop being an asshole,” I tell him. “Your brother’s very likable.”
“I don’t get straight people,” Zander says to Lou. “I would never forgive a man who was as big a dick to me as Declan was to Ginny.”
“Far more fun to write songs about them getting hit by a bus,” Lou agrees.
“And then go find the simp fish who want us for our fame instead.”
“Simp fish? I hear a song coming on.”
“Stop. You know I can’t write songs when I’m not wearing Fuchsia.”
“Clearly,” Declan says. “You never wrote songs before you had her.”
I smile at him again.
He smiles back at me.
My heart glows.
And with my panic receding, my body starts that low, humming tingle that I get whenever I see him at home.
When I know I’ll have him all to myself very, very soon.
I tackle the makeup on his face, leaning closer than I need to while I tell him all of my favorite parts of the show and he draws circles on my thighs with his thumbs, watching me.
“And you’re already trending,” Zander announces as I’m finishing removing Declan’s makeup.
Fear slivers through my midsection.
But more than fear, there’s irritation.
Annoyance.
Anger.
Yes, I made a mistake, but if I hadn’t been notorious already because of what my mother made me do as a kid, it wouldn’t have been half as bad.
It wouldn’t keep coming back.
I deserve to get to live my life in peace, dammit.
And I deserve to get to go out on a date with a guy who makes my heart do backflips.
Who makes me believe that I deserve love.
“Not you, Ginny. My attention-hog brother.” Zander smiles as he says it, also back to looking mostly like his non-stage persona.
“Big trending or small trending?” Declan asks.
“Small, but you’re not small anymore, so it might not stay small long. We should get to the hotel,” Zander replies with a glance at me.
“I’ll get the clipboard,” Lou says. “You two go ahead. I’ll follow with Ginny.”
I huff.
Declan slips his hand in mine. “You okay with that?”
I huff again. “Yes,” I grumble.
It’s the smart thing to do.
And honestly?
I want the privacy.
I want the privacy to go to a hotel with Declan without the world knowing about it.
I want him to be something that’s mine.
Something I don’t have to share with the world.
I lean in and kiss him, this time hard and desperate, holding him by the ears while I swipe my tongue over his lips and he groans softly into my mouth, then grips my nape and kisses me back.
Kissing Declan is like finding where I belong.
I already know I belong at the winery, but with Declan, it’s like—like I’ve found a secret door in my home that opens into a beautiful garden that’s been waiting for me.
Beautiful and new and all mine.
Except for the parts of him now owned by the world.
Goddammit.