Ripley strides into the kitchen, nose up in the air, drawing a deep inhale. When her gaze lands on me in the bumblebee apron,sliding a tray into the oven, she sighs like she can’t believe it. “And you help grandmas too?”
Not her type, my ass. I flash a smile right back at her. “You bet I do, sweetheart.”
13
APOLOGY ADJACENT
RIPLEY
I still can’t believe I said that.
Not the helping grandmas comment. But theYou’re not my typezinger I fired off earlier today.
It’s been weighing on me all afternoon as I worked, and it weighed on me through dinner with Grandma. Banks helped with the meal, slicing green beans from the garden while I made a salad, and Grandma whipped up a summer squash and quinoa dish. But then he took off to run an errand, reasoning I was safe and sound during dinner in my house.
As I’m cleaning up, scraping the remains of the salad into the compost bucket on the counter, I sigh.
“All right, that’s your fifty-ninth sigh tonight,” Grandma says as she loads the dishwasher.
“You’re counting my sighs?”
“Actually, I lost track somewhere between the salad and the madeleines. My point is—out with it.”
I wash my hands free of compost, then check the window. After I confirm Banks hasn’t yet returned, I meet Grandma’s kind eyes as she leans against the counter, patiently waiting.
But I’m not sure where to start. Yes, the comment’s been weighing on me. I’m not a mean person. I was just frazzled but also still embarrassed. The way he stood me up hurt so much. Even though I understand his reasoning, it’s taken me a while to forget the embarrassment of opening the door and sayingspank meto a stranger.
Especially when I thought I was saying it to a man who understood me. A man who liked my humor, my mouth, the things I said. A man I couldfinallyshare some of those secret bedroom desires with.
I’ve never said “spank me” to anyone. Not to Eric Patrick, certainly. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it never seemed like his thing? But that night, I wanted to say it to Banks. Because I wanted it. Because I felthiswant. Because I felt both safe with him and turned on.
The irony.
I haven’t told a soul what happened that night, not even Bridget or Chloe. But if I don’t tell someone, it’s going to eat away at me the next few weeks during the shoot. I won’t be able to focus on work, or running this place, or making sure Haven has everything she needs.
“Grandma,” I begin, readying myself to speak plainly to the woman who took over the task of being my parent when my owndied one night on a snowy road when I was only fifteen. “I met him before.”
She sets down her towel and leans against the counter. “The baking bodyguard?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice wobbly. “And it was a total mess.”
“Oh, sweetie. Why?”
“We met at a bar,” I say, then I tell her the whole story. Well, I give her the PG version. “And then we were going up to my room, and he never showed.” She blinks, eyes big and full of surprise. “But the clerk brought me a letter Banks left, saying he’d explain, and I felt so stupid. All I could think was it was something I’d said. For close to a month, that’s what I thought. He’d lost interest in me. Or he’d been lying to me. Or he was playing me. Or he was looking for an excuse all along and he found one. But it all came down to the same thing—he didn’t like me after all,” I say, myI can handle the worldattitude sliding off my shoulders like a coat shed at the end of the day. “Because how could he truly be into me if he’d leave like that?”
“Oh hon, why would you think someone wouldn’t be into you?” she asks.
I give her a look. “Have you seen my track record, Grandma?”
“We all have track records.”
“But mine’s kind of a pattern,” I say, folding and unfolding the stack of cloth napkins on the counter. My ex isn’t the first man to go poof in a cloud of smoke. This guy I was seeing five years ago turned out to have been cheating on me the entire time before I found out when an alarm went off on Chad’s phone—pick up flowers for Samantha. His name was Chad, though, so it served me right.
“A pattern’s only a patterntillyou break it. I had such a thing for bad boys in leather jackets when I was younger,” Grandma says, a little wistful, shaking her head in amusement.
“What’s wrong with leather jackets?”
“Nothing, but they were all bad men who didn’t know how to treat a woman till I met your grandfather,” she says with a fond smile for the man she loved madly for many years till he died of a heart attack when I was ten. “Didn’t mean something was wrong with me. I didn’t know what I wanted and what I deserved till I met Russ. So why do you even think it’s you?”
