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Gavin blew out a frustrated breath, tears burning the back of his eyes and he took a minute to gather himself. When he looked up at Ginny, he noticed her teary eyes and the downward curve of her mouth as she stared at him. He was clearly still hurting her and he hated himself for it. A tear slipped down her cheek and Ginny wiped it away, making his chest ache for what he was doing to her.
“I’m sorry, Nia,” he whispered, not trusting himself to speak any louder. The comfort in calling herNiawasn’t lost on him either. “When I’m around you, it’s still pretty hard to ignore the way you make me feel. It’s a combination of lust, frustration and love, and I don’t know what to do with it.” He saw Ginny move in his periphery, but didn’t turn to her. “I’ve spent the last twelve years moving on, meeting other people. But the truth is, I didn’t really want you gone. When you waltzed back into my life, I realized that I could never have walked away from you. And I don’t want to.”
This time he did turn to her and found Ginny standing inches away, eyes on him and her hands linked together. Even in the midst of crying, she was so fucking magnificent. Tear tracks were evident on her cheeks and Gavin hated himself for making her cry. He sighed, cupping her face to brush his thumb along the line her tears had left. Ginny put her hand over his and dragged her fingers down to wrap around his wrist, her eyes never leaving his.
“I don’t want to walk away either,” she said softly and Gavin released a stuttered breath, his eyes slipping shut. Ginny’s fingers tapped against his pulse and then her hand moved down his arm to rest on his elbow. Gavin opened his eyes and found her standing closer, the dark gold flecks in her wet orbs twinkling as he stared at her. “I never meant to hurt you the way I did and I’m sorry too. For not being upfront about what I was ready for, for leading you on and mak—”
Gavin pressed his thumb to her mouth. “It wasn’t your fault. Should we have talked about it? Sure. But do not apologize for leading me on, because you didn’t. My feelings for you are on me. I don’t think there’s a single person in the world who wouldn’t have fallen in love with you. Then or now.”
Ginny sucked in a sharp breath and Gavin dropped his hand from her face, effectively breaking their contact. Neither of them moved away though. Their food was long forgotten, Mama Renata and Cedar ignored and the view totally irrelevant as they stayed close to each other.
“I’m still sorry. What we had wassogood and I loved every minute of it. I was just…in this phase of my life where I wanted to live large and have a good time. And you got caught up in that. I kept telling myself that when I finished college, I would find my forever partner and we’d start a family and I’d leave my wild child days behind me. Except…” she trailed off, chewing on her bottom lip. Gavin’s brain snagged on the ‘start a family’ comment, but before he could ask her about it, Ginny was speaking again. “Wefell apart and I was so confused. I tried to contact you, tried to understand what happened. But you cut me out and I get it now, I understand why you couldn’t talk to me. But you broke my heart too, Gavin. You were one of my favorite people, so when you left, I was devastated.”
He flinched and dropped his eyes to the ground, hating how both of them had hurt each other through all this. How they’d never stopped to think about the other person when everything happened. Gavin knew that if he had a chance to do those summers again, he’d do it differently. In every version of his life, he would choose Ginny, but he would have made it clear that they were so much more to each other than just fuck buddies.
“Then my parents got divorced and god, it was so fucking messy. Cyrus turned out to be an absolute asshole and my mother was left in shambles. Believing in love has been hard since then. Finding a partner, starting a family? It all sounded like such a joke.” A pained laugh came out of her and Gavin ached to wrap her up in his arms. “I spent the last few years being a wild child again and it’s been fun. Because if my parents, who I thought were completely in love with each other, couldn’t hold onto their marriage…how would I, right?”
Gavin shook his head, ready to tell her that her parents’ mistakes didn’t mean she would suffer the same thing, but Ginny held a hand up. “I know, we’re not the same people and maybe I’d have better luck than my parents.Maybe. But there’s this niggling in the back of my mind that makes me wonder if I’ll do something stupid and fuck it all up. Daddy issues? Mommy issues? All of the above?”
Ginny snorted, but her eyes were still sad and Gavin didn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders, tugging her into him. Her arm slid around his waist and Gavin sighed as he held her. Ginny pulled back slightly to look at him as she said, “When you reappeared in my life, I was both shocked and excited. Because here was this man I’d once had the best summers of my life with, but you wereawful.” Both of them laughed, this time it felt and sounded genuine. “It also sent me down memory lane and I knew that we had the best time then, and I wondered if we could ever get that back. Without the hurt, of course. Because we never wanted to hurt each other, we just did andugh, it was the worst.”
Her fingers curled into the back of his Henley and Gavin smiled sadly as he watched Ginny’s expressions go through the motions.
“I’m not perfect, Gavin, and I’m sure we’ll fuck up more times than we probably even understand. But—” she put one hand on his chest, right over his heart “—I want us to try this again.”
“What?” he asked, eyebrows definitely hitting his hairline.
“You and me. Do it the right way this time. And it’ll be just us, nobody else.”
His heart was pumping so fast and hard, he was certain Ginny could feel it against her palm. “There’s never been anyone but you, Nia.”
Ginny nodded, the hand on his chest coming up to rest on the side of his face. “I know that it’s going to be work, but I think we owe it to ourselves to see what this is, right? All that crackling sexual tension and incredible sex has to amount to something.”
“The sex really is incredible.” Gavin smirked and dropped his forehead to hers, his hands pulling her flush against him. “We’ll do this your way. Just like you want it: you call the shots.”
Ginny laughed and tilted her head to brush her mouth against his. “You really know the way to win me over, Little Rhodes.”
Their lips connected in a slow, passionate kiss, arms tight around each other. And as the sounds around them came back into focus, Gavin realized one very real thing—he’d belonged to Nia long before he’d even realized what any of that meant.
CHAPTER20
It had beena long time since Ginny felt this kind of happy. She’d felt the happiness that came from completing a successful wedding or event. The happiness that followed another brand collaboration to get more plus size products out into the world. The incredible joy from a delicious orgasm. She’d never really thought about this happiness before either, but now it coursed through her veins.
Happiness because of someone else.
When Gavin had showed up at the office, Ginny didn’t know what to expect. She wasn’t surprised when he attempted to brush away her attempts to talk about their past. But she was definitely pleased when he initiated the conversation over Mexican food.However, that was the hardest conversation Ginny’d had in a long time. It was way overdue, but talking about the past and digging that deep into their hurt had been an experience she never wanted to repeat.
The way he held her, though.Thatshe wanted to repeat again and again.
It was different from the way he held her during sex, different from how he wrapped his arms around her when they were younger. Gavin held her lovingly, with a firm but light grip, just to let her know that he had her. He’d even mumbled ‘I’ve got you’ when the kiss broke and he buried his face in her neck.
The flutter in her chest had caught her by surprise too, but she loved being adored by Gavin.
After wiping away all the tears, Ginny and Gavin returned to their food. It didn’t even matter to her that everything had gotten cold, because she was in a good moodandshe was starving. They spent the rest of the evening talking about the shelter and Gavin invited her to come by on a cleaning day so she could hang out with all the animals. Then he drove her home because she insisted that she’d get a ride share to work the next day.
Except, in the morning Gavin showed up in his truck to pick her up. And after a not so chaste kiss in front of the Wildes Events + Weddings building, he drove off.
In the days that followed, they found a way to see each other. Sure, she was swamped with work and brought Copper into the office with her every morning so her kitten wouldn’t be home alone. One day, Gavin showed up with a tiny bouquet of flowers, stole a kiss and let Cedar and Copper nuzzle for a second before rushing out. Another day, she swung by the shelter to drop Copper off because she was going to be on location most of the time. When she came to pick her kitten up, Ginny found Gavin flat on the couch with Cedar between his feet and Copper curled up on his chest.
