Ginny nodded. “Worth it.” She smiled proudly, despite her present humiliation.
But Ryan looked down, grimacing.
“Ry?”
He shook his head from side to side before finally meeting her gaze.“I’m sorry, Gin.” He pivoted and whispered, “I just… I can’t.”
With tears filling her eyes, but no argument, Ginny watched as Ryan strode away from her and stepped out onto a bustling, sunny Main Street, back into the fray of the Sugartree Summer Sunshine Festival, leaving her alone with an apology she didn’t want.
1
JUST THE WAY YOU ARE
BRUNO MARS
2 YEARS LATER
“Throw that bag in the closet, and then y’all just go ahead and grab the barbeque from the counter. I’ll be ready in a minute.” Ginny stuffed the last of her laundry in the dresser, promising herself she’d perfectly organize every single drawer once her sisters left the apartment.
Her apartment. Her loft. All to herself.
“Gin!” Georgia hollered from around the corner. She’d been steadily unpacking the kitchen and, Ginny suspected, slowly eating all the coveted Duke’s BBQ macaroni and cheese before she or Caroline could get their hands on it. Ginny thought she might just kick her sister to the curb if Georgia so much as touched the corn dog with Ginny’s name on it before she got a bite.
Muffled anddefinitelyeating something, Georgia asked, “So, are you gonna bring Danger to the wedding this weekend?”
“Are you eatin’ my corn dog?” Ginny snarked while carefully stacking her folded towels into the single linen closet, thenturning to arrange her books on a shelf Dakota had installed the year before.
“No, Virginia, I haven’t touched your precious corn dog… Stop evading.”
“Ya know,” Ginny said to herself and her boisterous sisters, “I think I should invest in some autumn candles. Pumpkin… cinnamon… apple pie—”
“How ‘bout one that smells like a tall, dimple-chinned, supermodel with a man bun and a heart of gold?” Caroline interrupted.
“I’m not bringing Danger. He already has plans.” Ginny rolled her eyes. Danger, or Daniel as she later learned, was a man she’d met in a senior level English lit class. One date and one public indecency citation later, they’d gone their separate ways, romantically, but had managed to become really good friends. He was awesome, despite their failed first and only date. And to his credit, his family had begun calling him Danger as a child. As ridiculous as it was, he really did consider it his true name.
Ginny’s sisters, happily married and now mothers, loved to shamelessly ogle the long-haired, Henry Cavill look-alike. Something their incredibly secure husbands found juvenile yet somehow charming.
“Ohhhh,” Caroline squealed from her spot on the plaid couch. Ginny could only see her sister's mismatched-sock feet kicking in the air over the head rest. “That man is so dang handsome, Gin. I don’t care what his name is. Ya should probably give him another chance.”
“I’m not gonna do that,” Ginny said, throwing a mustard yellow pillow at Caroline’s face on her way to the kitchen, where she butt-bumped Georgia away from the mac and cheese. “You have zero self-control.”
Georgia laughed. “With mac and cheese or Danger?”
“Both,” Ginny answered, scooping a bite from the container.
“I’m just sayin’,” Caroline continued, joining them with a fork of her own over the mac and cheese, scooping a bite and then stuffing it into her cheek as she talked, “he’s always hangin’ around, and you always seem to be in his office when I come by.”
“I am not always in his office, Caroline,” Ginny defended herself. “We’re friends.”
Georgia squealed, “Oooohhhh, this is getting juicy. Caroline, hand me a sweet tea. I need somethin’ to sip on.”
Caroline grabbed the requested tea for Georgia then hoisted herself onto the tiny countertop, letting her legs dangle. “I saw Gin in Danger’s—Mr. McDuffey’s—office twice last week and then again on Monday.”
“How they let a man who was so unhinged over a pie-eatin’ contest—that he felt compelled to strip half-naked in the street—become an elementary school counselor is beyond me. But, please, do continue.” Georgia sipped her tea through a pink straw and smiled deviously over it.
“I have not been there that often!” Ginny flicked Caroline in her smug cheek then took a bite of the corn dog she considered a prize for having this conversation with her sisters. “And they let that man be a counselor because he earned it. With two degrees. He’s brilliant, and he’s great with the kids. Plus Danger and Ryan, your best friend and our elementary school physical education teacher—who also stripped half-naked, may I remind you—have made amends. They’re totally friends now.
“I’m just friends with Danger. We hang out sometimes, and I brought him lunch. That’s it.”
