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“I’ll walk you out, so we can discuss the…plan,” he said, picking up his pie.
Ginny forced a laugh and waved him away. “It’s fine, I can swing by the shelter later this week and we can discuss it.”
“I insist.” He didn’t give her a chance to refuse again and walked towards the front door as he dug into his pie. Gavin listened as Ginny said bye to his family again, teasing Spencer and flirting with Noah. He rolled his eyes as he slid on his coat and grabbed hers, handing it over as she joined him. His brothers stood at the end of the hallway, pointing at their eyes and then at him with serious looks on their faces. Did they think he was going to do something stupid? Flipping them off, he walked out behind Ginny and huddled into his jacket as he continued eating his pie.
“Look…we don’t actually have to do anything. It slipped out and I couldn’t take it back.”
“You should know Juniper Rhodes better than that, she’s going to want to be involved in this plan, even if it’s a surprise,” Gavin told Ginny, leaning against her car as he kept eating.
“This is literally the worst idea ever.” Ginny looked uncomfortable at the development and Gavin grunted in the affirmative as he continued eating. “Can’t you just tell her that it’s being postponed indefinitely?”
“Seriously?”
“Neither of us wants to hang out with the other, so why bother?”
“I never said I don’t want to hang out with you.”
Ginny arched an eyebrow, arms crossed over her chest. “Maybe tell your face that too, because right now, it looks like it wants to murder me.”
Gavin shook his head and looked away, because yes, he didn’t really want to hang out with her. He needed to understand his feelings for Ginny and more often than not, whenever they were around each other, he got really mean. But after his conversation with Bronte about possibly hiring Ginny and the fact that she’d dropped that idea on his mother, he couldn’t walk away now.
“Don’t worry about my face, it’ll get it together when necessary.”
“You’re serious about us working together.” She stated it so simply that Gavin shrugged.
“You plan parties and events and all kinds of fancy shit, so maybe you can really do something for the shelter.”
“Fancy shit,” Ginny scoffed and Gavin chuckled. “Fine. I’ll put something together and give you a call.”
“You will need to swing by the shelter later this week, to meet the staff and see my mother again.”
Shaking her head, Ginny pressed a button on her key fob that unlocked her car. Gavin took a step back, eyes fixed on Ginny’s face. This was a bad idea, he already knew it was going to backfire spectacularly, but if she could do something to help his shelter, Gavin was going to take it. He waited until she was seated in her car and then turned around and walked back into the house. Gavin didn’t bother taking off his coat, he finished his pie and slid the plate into the dishwasher. When he turned around, all four members of his family were standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him.
His mother tilted her head, frowning slightly. “You were always so in love with that girl. What happened?”
“I grew up,” he responded with a heavy sigh, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I have to head back to the shelter, but I’ll call you later this week, okay?”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you too, Ma.” Gavin hugged his father, exchanged fist bumps with his brothers and walked out to his truck. While he had no intention of going back to the shelter, Gavin was also not going home to be alone with his thoughts. Instead, he needed some advice and maybe admitting some truths to the three people who had always been there for him.
* * *
“So, you want to sleep with her”
“I think he wants tofuckher.”
“Then why does he scowl every time he says her name?”
“Maybe because it’s going to be a rage induced fuck.”
Gavin knocked back his fourth whiskey of the evening as his best friends discussed the kind offuckinghe wanted to indulge in with Ginny. Maybe he was wrong in thinking Jackson and Milo would give him any kind of advice. They’d met up at a dive bar not too far from Jackson’s new place and with country music playing in the background, Gavin told them about the last month with Ginny.
Except, they were still discussing if it was hate, anger or unrequited love.
In Gavin’s mind, it was all of the above.
His friends, as much as he loved them, could not see this objectively. They were now happily loved up and in committed relationships, not that they had ever been the kind of men to indulge in one-night stands. That had always been Gavin’s thing.
