He ignored them. Mostly. “Yeah,” he said, not looking away from Ginny as he held up a middle finger at his employees who’d helped him commit several felonies over the past few days. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
She smiled, and the warmth of it spread throughout his torso, settling comfortably in his chest and feeling right the way nothing else ever had.
Ginny made coffee in her small kitchenette while Shepherd settled on her massive sofa. It was one of those giant sectionals, and it took up more space in the apartment than anything else. She had a slim TV perched precariously on a warping entertainment center that must’ve been rescued from a street corner. Inside the clear glass, there were stacks ofX-FilesDVDs and books. On the walls were mostly paintings of plants—flowers in bloom, cacti in front of a full moon—but there wasn’t a single real plant in the entire space. The lone chair that wasn’t part of the couch was placed off to the side of the TV and covered in clothes. Clean or dirty, Shepherd could neither tell nor care.
He stretched his legs, rested his head against the cushions, and tried to tell himself it was OK to relax. The threats had all been dealt with. The bikers had surrendered. Deandra was saved. Charlie was … off being a menace somewhere else.
There was nothing left now but him and Ginny.
Which, according to the spike in his pulse when she came over carrying the coffee, was not exactly arelaxingthought. Feelings were stupid. It was dumb that he had them. It was dumber that he hadso many.
Ginny sat beside him on the massive couch, tucking her legs underneath her, her knee grazing his thigh.
She raised her mug in cheers. “We did it.”
Shepherd tapped his against hers, the ceramic clunking. “Yippee.”
“I am going to clean your car. So. Good.” She grinned over the rim of her drink. “You’re gonna be like, ‘Wow! Whose car is this?’”
Shepherd chuckled. The coffee was delicious, freshly made with cream but no sugar. He focused on the act of drinking it, blowing to cool it off, sipping it slowly, so he could ignore the way Ginny was looking at him and the way his blood pressure was responding.
“Shepherd,” she said. “This is important. OK? I … I know when this all started, I asked you to be my fake boyfriend. You ended up having to do so much more than fake-boyfriend stuff, and all for my mom who I don’t even like, and I’m just, I’m so, so sorry about that, but—”
Shepherd had stopped breathing sometime around the word “important.” But that didn’t seem to matter anymore. She was breaking up with him. Ending their fake relationship. Fake breaking up? It felt real enough.
“Stop,” he managed to say. It came out more like a whisper. “Just stop for a second. I have something to say.”
Ginny nodded, patiently waiting for him to submit his closing arguments before rendering her final verdict.
Shepherd took a deep breath. Rolled his shoulders back. This was it. The last chance he’d ever have to make his case.
“I did do a lot for you. So many things I never would’ve planned for in a million years. But the truth of it, Ginny? I would’ve done so much more for you.”
His grip tightened on his coffee mug, the warmth in his hands grounding him into the terror of the moment. This was real. This was happening. If he could face down bikers with guns with nothing but a bluff and a bag full of batteries, he could do this. He would do this. And then he would walk into the sea and never return.
“My whole life, I’ve made sure to plan for everything. For any eventuality. But you, Ginny, you are pure chaos.”
He blinked. His lashes were wet, but he looked at her anyway.She was staring at him with wide-eyed fascination, her mouth open in a perfect circle, her breathing shallow.
Shepherd reached for her hand with trembling fingers. She didn’t pull away. His thumb rolled over her knuckles as he forced himself to keep going. “How can I put that on a numbered list? How can I quantify the hope you’ve brought me—even in the horrible, scary moments? That being with you has made me stronger and braver and better than I’ve ever been?”
A faint shimmer of tears glimmered on her cheeks.
“That maybe,” he said, not letting go, “maybe I can face anything as long as it’s with you?”
He raised her hand to his lips, pressed a soft kiss on her knuckles. “I want our fake relationship to become real, Ginny. Because it already is the most real thing I’ve ever had.”
She touched his cheek, her palm lingering against his burning skin. “You’re such a dork, Preston Shepherd.”
He leaned into her touch, a painful influx of hope making his heart feel far too big for his chest.
“But you’remydork, OK? You are my dork. And I love you so much.”
His ears rang. Either from panic or hope or maybe an impending heart attack; all three were viable options at this point.
Ginny pulled his hand towards her face, kissing the inside of his wrist, right over his jumping pulse. “I realized that I was in trouble, that I was falling in love with you, when you took Lex to that father-daughter dance at school.”
He breathed, but only to say, “That was back in May. That was … that wasmonthsago, Ginny.” The memory of that night filled his mind’s eye. Lex had refused to wear a dress, instead opting for a tiny pantsuit that made her look like she was either a TV pastor or the prime minister of a nation that didn’t have any hang-ups about female leaders. She’d insisted on pizza and soda both before they left for the dance and after they came back. Ginny had been working, of course, and she’d praised Lex’s choice of outfit, but Shepherd hadn’t realized she’d been paying attention to him.
