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Oh, my heart. This poor man. “I’m not. I’ll never record anything you say without your knowledge and express permission. I promise.”
He looks down at his hands on the kitchen table. “I paid that bitch a cool million.”
“Wow. An expensive life lesson.”
“Yeah. Honestly, the whole thing screwed with my head. Before Stephanie, I’d already had a hard time trusting people. Women, especially. I was always positive they were out to get something from me. But after Stephanie, my paranoia with women went to a whole new level. Ever since then, I’m just super careful. Always on guard.”
Oh, my heart. I rise from my chair and go to him. I slide into his lap and touch his cheek. “I’m sorry she messed with your head.”
“I’ve never told anyone about her,” he whispers. “Well, other than my lawyers.”
I press my forehead against his. “Not even Josh and Henn?”
“No. I was too embarrassed to tell them. I fucked up. Royally. In the end, it was my fault for being so stupid and reckless.”
My heart feels like it’s going to burst from my chest. I feel so close to him right now, so connected. So much so, I feel the need to reciprocate. To tell him something I’ve never told anyone, as well. “I’ve got my own Stephanie Moreland,” I whisper, my heartbeat increasing. “I’ve never told anyone this story. But it’s something that’s made it really hard for me to trust. Something I can’t stand thinking about. Something I want to forget.” I swallow hard. “But I want to tell you about it. I want to tell you, because I feel really close to you right now.”
He strokes my hair and looks deeply into my eyes. “You can tell me anything, Georgie.”
I open my mouth... determined to tell him the thing I’ve never told anyone. Ever. But I close my mouth, too nervous to begin my story. “I think I’m gonna need some liquid courage to do this.” I motion to my beer. “Something a bit stronger than that.”
Chapter 18
Reed
We’re sitting on barstools at the bar in my game room. Holding our second shots of Patrón.
“On the count of three,” Georgina says. And when she counts us off, we both throw the tequila back.
“Beer chaser?” I ask.
“Hell yeah.”
I grab bottles for both of us from a mini-fridge behind the bar, and she takes a long swig as I resume my stool.
“Okay. I’m ready to tell you my story now,” she says, shaking out her hands. “I can’t feel my face or toes.”
I laugh. “You don’t have to tell me this story, you know.”
“I know, but I want to.” She takes another long swig of her beer. Laces her fingers together on top of the bar. And exhales. “In high school, I wrote for the school newspaper the first three years. And I absolutely loved it. At the end of my third year, Mr. Gates, the teacher who supervised the paper, selected me to be editor-in-chief for the next year, over this total brainiac guy who’d also wanted the position. I was so freaking excited and proud to be selected, I could barely keep it together. I’d worked my ass off for three years, unlike the brainiac guy. He was way smarter than me, but he’d just phoned it in.”
“Hustle beats talent, when talent doesn’t hustle,” I say. I grab her hand. “Although you’ve got both talent and hustle, so never mind.”
She squeezes my hand. “Thank you.” She pauses. “As it turned out, some of the kids at the newspaper—particularly, this group of mean girls—didn’t think I deserved the editor position. So, they started a rumor that Mr. Gates had only selected me because he wanted to sleep with me.”
“Oh, Georgie. Those girls were bitches.”
She looks down at her beer, and it’s immediately clear those mean girls aren’t, collectively, her Stephanie Moreland, like I was just thinking. No, apparently, there’s more to this story. I wait, my pulse thumping.
“I just tried to ignore the rumors and gossip and put my head down and work harder than anyone else, you know? I was so embarrassed they’d say that. I just wanted to work extra hard to prove them all wrong about me. To show them I had deserved the promotion.” She looks up from her hands. “And then, one day, in the middle of my senior year, when I was working after school in the newspaper room, all by myself... Mr. Gates came in... and he...” She takes a shallow breath. “He cornered me, and he... pinned my arms behind my back, and he... he kissed me.”
I’m flooded with rage. Disgust. A fierce urge to protect. I need to fix this. Protect Georgie. Kill that motherfucker.
Georgina wells up. “He said all this crazy stuff about me teasing him and flirting with him. He said I wore sexy clothes to turn him on. But I swear I didn’t!”
