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Gavin felt like he was swimming upstream with her and he thought they’d finally had a breakthrough with their relationship the night of the fundraiser. He didn’t want to upset the balance. The way he felt about Ginny always had a way of overwhelming him and in the recent past, he behaved badly because of how complicated they were.
Gavin also understood why Ginny thought they needed to talk aboutthemand the whole mess from the past, but he didn’t want to go down that road for fear of losing her completely. He knew that if she forced him to talk about it, Gavin would admit a lot more than he was ready to talk about. How he felt so hurt at being discarded and had feltused. He never wanted Ginny to know all of the things he went through when it came to their history.
Which was why he wanted to focus on thenowand forget about the past. All of that was behind them and they were different people now. She was Ginny—even though she got so breathy and her eyes darkened when he accidentally called herNia—and he was a much older and slightly more mature version of Gavin. Their younger selves needed to stay where they were.
Ginny left him to order their food while she buttoned up her coat and played with Cedar. He watched, hands in his pockets, as Cedar bossed Ginny to get the ball from the back of the truck and then ran around fetching and bringing it back. The whole time, Ginny looked so happy and Gavin’s heart raced at the hope that maybe one dayhecould put that joy on her face again.
Being in love with Ginny as a teenager had been scary and overwhelming. Realizing that he was still in love with her as an adult was unsettling. Because he’d learned from the past, right? Except, his heart didn’t give a shit about how it was ripped to shreds all those years ago. It was pressing so hard against his ribs, aching to leap out of his chest and waltz over to Ginny. None of that pain mattered when he was watching her have the time of her life with his dog.
“Are you together or not?”
Gavin shrugged at Mama Renata’s question. “It’s complicated.”
“Es complicado,” she mimicked and huffed, slapping his arm. “Children these days make things complicated. You love her or you don’t.”
“That’s not what you asked. I do love her. I’ve always loved her. But we have…history.”
“So you must talk about it. If you don’t tell her how you feel, how will you know howshefeels?”
Gavin glanced at Mama Renata. “I know how she feels. I won’t go as far as to say we’re friends, but I know she doesn’t hate me anymore.”
“I don’t believe that she hates you or sees you as afriend, cariño. Maybe it’s complicated for her too.”
He turned to Ginny, just as she let out a squeal of laughter, falling back with Cedar collapsing beside her. A smile tugged at his lips as his dog snuggled into Ginny’s side for a minute before both of them pushed to their feet.
Maybe Mama RenataandGinny were onto something. Talking about it could ease the tension in his chest and answer some of the questions in his head. He didn’t know how she felt about him, because she was keeping that really close to her chest. But the necklace and the fact that she’d come out with him that night was a good sign, right?
“Food’s ready!” someone called out and Gavin grabbed the loaded tray from the service window as Cedar bounded to the back door. He came around the side and found Mama Renata filling a bowl with food for Cedar, before sitting down to join his dog for her meal. He walked to his truck, where Ginny was dusting off her dirty hands. But when she saw the food, her eyes widened.
“Are you feeding an army?”
“Yup,Iam the army. I was really busy, so I missed lunch.” He walked past her to the back of the truck and Ginny took the tray from him so he could flip open the tailgate. “Let me get you something to clean your hands.”
Gavin walked around to the passenger side and from the glove box, pulled out wet wipes and grabbed the blanket from the backseat. Ginny was already seated on the tailgate, tray beside her, as she stared out at the view. Mama Renata had picked a really good spot to set up her food truck. It was off the main road and you could only find it if you’d been there once already. There were no signs and it didn’t show up on your GPS. And he’d parked his truck in the best location, with a view of Wildes as the sun was setting. Ginny was framed by the pinks and blues in the sky, and Gavin itched to take a picture of her like that.
Instead, he pulled out a few wipes and handed it to Ginny. Spreading out the blanket, Gavin climbed onto the back of his truck and took a minute to watch Ginny as she wiped her hands clean. Beautiful would never be enough to describe this woman. She was spectacular. Even wearing a coat that covered her up pretty much all the way.
“Okay, what are we eating?” she asked, snapping Gavin out of his thoughts.
“Pork birria, dip them in the sauce. Mama Renata’s selection of tacos youmusttry, a triple enchilada and loaded nachos. There’s also churros for dessert, but I’ll get them hot when we finish.”
Ginny nodded and filled one of the paper plates with food. Gavin watched her with a smile and did the same, making sure to dip his birria in the sauce before taking a bite. The sounds of nature mixed with Mama Renata talking to her staff were the only noise around them. His eyes found their way to Ginny quite often and Gavin couldn’t help but smile at how much she was enjoying her food. The sounds of her humming in appreciation made Gavin chuckle, but it was the bit of sauce that he noticed on her chin that really drew his attention.
Putting his food down, Gavin reached out with his clean hand and brushed his thumb against the corner of her mouth and down her chin. He felt Ginny’s eyes land on his face, but he was too captivated by her tongue slipping out to wet her lips. When his eyes did meet hers, Gavin was so thrown by her stare. He pulled his hand away and it took everything in him not to lick his thumb clean.
Instead, he said, “You’re right. We should talk about everything that happened.”
Her eyes widened and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What changed your mind?”
“Mama Renata has a way of making me feel like an idiot when she calls me out on my shit.”
“She should teach me how to do that.” Ginny laughed and set her plate down. “Do you wanna go first?”
Nope, not in a million years.Despite the protests in his head, Gavin nodded. How did you begin to tell the woman you lovedwhyyou walked away from her twelve years ago? And how she broke your heart into the tiniest of pieces without making her seem like the villain? Because he knew that it wasn’t fair to hold her responsible for all of this. Looking out at the view, Gavin gave himself a few more minutes and then slowly forced the words out.
“You were the first girl I’d ever had any kind of feelings for, so when I saw you with the blonde, my first reaction was to be angry. I believed that what we had was something good andserious, but seeing the two of you together…seeing the expression I thought only I could create on your face, it broke my heart.” He paused to clear his throat and slid off the tailgate, giving Ginny his back. “When I saw you at Frankie’s, I felt like the whole world was caving in on me. You’d think that after twelve years, I’d have gotten over you, but I didn’t. Which I took out on you when you came by the shelter that day.”
He turned halfway, so he could look at her briefly. “Fuck, I said so many awful things. Iwasawful and you didn’t deserve that. All my feelings from when I was sixteen came flooding back. And you were right. So fucking right. My feelings for you were not your problem, but I couldn’t take responsibility for that. Someone else had to be at fault.”
