Chapter 38
THE PUBIC ENEMY
Cricket
Four days before Lav’s birthday party, Heath takes me out to lunch.
It’s our first date off the property since that night at the Pubic House, and we’re back today.
Unlike last time, I order a salad.
Not because anyone cares that I’ve gained a few pounds since I arrived, but because the vegetables sound good.
Also unlike last time, my date has pink hair.
“I cannot believe you did this without me,” I say to him as I ruffle his mane after we’ve ordered.
“Lav and Dori ambushed me last night.”
I got called over to the event space to help with prepping gift bags for all of the guests. The last of the supplies arrived, so we knocked it out to take one more thing off the to-do list, hence me not seeing him last night.
I grin at him. “Well, I love it. I thought Dori was doing stuff with the barrels you found, but this is even better.”
We have a dozen barrels of usable wine. Four different varieties.
Pip’s agreed to let us sell it.
Ginny’s doing market research on the new branding we’re discussing.
It won’t be enough to pay off the mortgage and Mabel’s loan for the roof, but it’ll buy us time.
“Glad she finally found where she fits,” Heath says.
“The more I work with her every day, the more I think about how I don’t know if it would’ve been harder or easier for me to get through”—I glance around, but just like last time, no one’s watching us—“to get through what happened if I’d been barely out of college instead of when I’d been mostly successfully adulting for eight years. ”
“You definitely bounced back faster than she did,” he murmurs.
“There was this guy who kept encouraging me.”
He shakes his head. “Not me. It’s the whole place.”
“And you’re part of it.”
“Don’t discount the work you’ve done for yourself.”
“Couldn’t have without all of the support.”
He grunts at me.
I grin.
I’m not all the way there on working through my viral moment.
GrippaBeav’s legal team has told us that their final determination is that the Cheeky Beaver channel doesn’t break their terms of service, so they won’t be taking it down.
Mabel says she’s getting closer to finding out who’s behind the channel so that her lawyer friend can send a strongly worded letter, or so that Mabel can do some other things you don’t need to know about if that doesn’t work.
And while I haven’t been on the internet myself beyond texting friends and watching cute or funny videos of babies and cats that they occasionally send from various social media channels, Mabel’s kept me updated when new Cheeky Beaver videos go up and when those new videos lead to the original video making the rounds again.
But I’m here.
I’m in public.
I’m not afraid.
And I’m with the most amazing man I’ve ever known.
Our food arrives, and we both dig in.
The volume of voices around us swells as more people come in for lunch, but we’re safe and secluded in our booth, catching each other up on stories about Lav and Pip and having a nice date out in town.
I sigh in happiness as I finish my salad. “If you’d told me two months ago that life would go on and I’d start to feel like—like the thing didn’t happen, I don’t think I would’ve believed you.”
“Been there myself though. It fades. People forget. Other people do other stupid things. It’s the cycle.”
“But living through it is different than knowing that’s the cycle.”
“And that dumb fuck with the GrippaBeav channel bringing it back into the cycle every couple weeks,” he mutters.
“Yeah, but overall, it’s nice to feel like myself again. Like a better me, even. And to feel safe in public. I like it here. I’m beyond grateful that Ginny invited me.”
He looks out at the rest of the room, and his smile fades into a scowl.
“That is her,” a guy says nearby. “I’m telling you, it’s the beaver lady.”
My insides turn to ice as I hear my mother’s voice. You were saying, Cricket?
I duck my head. “They didn’t just say that,” I whisper to Heath.
“Holy shit, it is the beaver lady,” a second voice says.
Heath tosses his napkin on the table.
“Don’t,” I wheeze out, but he’s already in motion, moving to the men at a table not far from us.
The men who are aiming their phones my way. They’re probably forty-five or fifty, both of them, dressed in jeans and button-downs, one of them wearing a cowboy hat.
Everyday guys.
Staring at me and whispering about me, bringing all of the chaos and terror flooding back inside me.
My heart pounds.
My mouth goes dry, except it feels like my teeth are sweating.
Teeth can’t sweat.
Oh my god.
I’m having a stroke.
“Put. That. Down,” Heath growls.
If everyone in the entire building hasn’t turned to look at him now, I will eat my own underwear.
I’m stuck between wanting to hide my face and needing to watch.
He shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m glued to this chair and my mouth doesn’t work and I can’t help him.
“Dude, do you know who that chick is?” Cowboy Hat says.
“She showed her va—ulp.”
“Mind. Your own. Fucking. Business.” Heath’s pulled the guy out of his chair and is dangling him by the collar.
Whispers spread like fire through the room.
My face is so hot that the tear that slips down my cheek feels like ice. I slink lower in my seat and angle my face down so that my hair is a curtain.
“Put him down,” Cowboy Hat says.
“Delete. The. Pictures,” Heath says. “And then get the fuck out of here.”
“You can’t tell us what to do.” Cowboy Hat takes a swing at him, but Heath catches his fist, still holding the other guy six inches off the ground, and does some twisting thing that has Cowboy Hat bent double and panting.
It’s terrifying and comforting at the same time.
He’s going to get arrested.
He’s defending me, and he’ll get arrested for it, and then it’ll make the news, and his in-laws will hear, and—
“Is she famous?” someone whispers.
“It’s the Cheeky Beaver lady,” someone else whispers.
“She’s a normal person who gets to have a normal fucking lunch. Understood?” Heath growls at the room at large.
“Problem, Heath?” a woman with dark curly hair and a Foxwood Public House polo says.
“These two are taking pictures of my date.”
“Public land, asshole,” Cowboy Hat says.
He’s still bent double and panting under the pressure Heath’s putting on his arm.
“Private bar,” the woman replies. “We don’t take pictures of people in here. Get out.”
Heath drops the first guy and releases Cowboy Hat.
The woman looks in the direction that the last it’s the Cheeky Beaver lady came from. “Everyone’s welcome here unless they’re dicks. You gonna be dicks too?”
I stifle a noise as I realize Cowboy Hat’s preparing to hit Heath, but Heath’s on it.
He moves so quickly, ducking and then tossing the guy over his shoulder and sending him sprawling onto the floor between two tables, that I almost don’t believe it actually happened.
“Jesus Christ, am I gonna have to get my taser?” the woman says.
“Up to them,” Heath says, hooking a thumb at the guy on the floor and his friend, who’s trying to drag Cowboy Hat to his feet.
Heath looks back at me, and the look on his face—half shame, half rage—my breath leaves me again.
You okay? is the silent question.
I swipe my cheeks and nod.
Cowboy Hat gets to his feet and hustles after his friend, both of them leaving the bar.
They’re going to post pictures of me.
They’re going to tell the world they saw me here.
My anonymity—my safe place—it’s gone.
All of the shame, the fear, the embarrassment—it’s all back.
Like it never left.
Like I haven’t dealt with it at all.
What if I’ve ruined the wedding?
What if people figure out where I’m living?
What if I’ve just screwed over the winery too?
“Cricket.” Heath’s suddenly kneeling at the edge of my bench. “Breathe, baby. Look at me. Breathe.”
Breathe.
I don’t know how to breathe.
“Right here, Cricket. Look right here.” Heath points to his eyes.
I stare into them, my fingers tingling, dots dancing in my vision.
“Am I dying?” I gasp.
“No, angel, you’re panicking. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here. Nothing bad’s happening. I’ve got you, okay?”
He does.
He has me.
He has one arm around my waist, and he’s breathing in and out slowly, and it’s impossible to not breathe in and out with him.
One inhale.
Stare into Heath’s eyes.
One exhale.
Stare into Heath’s eyes.
Breathe with him.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. “That’s it. Good job.”
“Will they—”
“I will hunt them to the ends of the earth and make their lives hell if they try.”
I believe him.
I do.
“Okay, sugar?” the woman who had Heath’s back asks me.
I shake my head and nod at the same time.
Heath smiles at me. “That’s my girl.”
My girl.
I’m his girl.
I am his girl.
My fingers and toes are still tingling, but the shame and embarrassment are fading behind the giant wall of love that he’s built for me, dissipating almost as quickly as they rose up.
My eyes sting, but this time, it’s gratitude. “Thank you,” I wheeze out.
He kisses my forehead, his hand gentle against the back of my neck while he draws soft circles in my hairline. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
My avenging angel.
I love him so much my heart might burst.
“Nothing to see here, folks, and I’ll remove anyone else taking pictures or videos,” the woman says.
I blink up at her beyond Heath, and I realize I recognize her.
But how do I—“Rachelle?”
Her face breaks into a warm smile. “Had a feeling you’d seen the wall.”
Rachelle.
Went viral for ranting about how those tissue boxes with the plastic strip on top were the worst design ever.
She stayed at the house. At Makepeace.
“You—you stayed but you didn’t?” I ask.
“Went and fell in love with a local,” she says.
She slides a knowing look between me and Heath that has me almost smiling.
“You wanna go?” Heath asks me.
I look around the room again.
People are still watching me. Us. Me.
I want to be brave.
I want to tell him I don’t care if they watch.
But I still do.
I’m better. I am.
But I don’t have to be perfect.
I don’t have to be all the way over it.
I get to be scared and vulnerable and want to leave places that make me feel unsafe.
I don’t have to buck up and face it like my parents would’ve told me to do.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He nods.
Doesn’t say a thing about the dessert we were planning to order or getting a to-go box for the half-eaten potpie he wanted to finish for lunch tomorrow.
Just gathers me up in his arms and lifts me out of the seat.
“Send me the bill,” he says to Rachelle.
“Pfft. Entertainers get free food.”
He scowls at her.
She smiles back. “Don’t go too fast. I’m sending you home with dessert.”
“You don’t—” he starts gruffly, but she looks at me, with my head laid against his shoulder and him gripping me tightly, and then he sighs. “Thank you, Rachelle.”
“Like I said. Entertainers get free food.”
“I like her,” I murmur to Heath, who’s still holding me.
“Thought you might.”
“Was she before or after you?”
“Just after.”
I’m tired.
I’m so damn tired now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“If I hear you apologize one more time for something that’s not your fault, no orgasms for you tonight.”
“Thank you for—for slaying dragons for me.”
“Absolutely anytime, angel. Anytime.”