Page 208 of While You Were Trending

Where I belong.

Where I’ll always come back to.

For all eternity.

41

FOUND FAMILY MATTERS

Ginny

I arrivedat Makepeace physically battered, emotionally broken, and with my heart and my life in complete shambles.

But this house, this winery, the vineyards, my found family here—they healed me.

Mostly.

Declan?

Declan’s been the missing piece.

And it’s obvious more than ever now that he’s gone.

“Hey, Ginny.” Cricket pops her head into my office and smiles at me. “Do you have lunch plans? Heath and I are going to the Pubic House. Dori’s coming too. And maybe Samantha and Olivia.”

The Pubic House.

It’s impossible to keep from smiling when she calls it that. The first time she went to the Foxwood Public House, the L was out on the neon sign.

It’s been known as the Pubic House around here ever since.

“I’m good,” I tell Cricket. “But thank you.”

Her brows bunch together, worry coming through her brown eyes.

“I’m good,” I repeat. “Promise. We didn’t break up. We’re supporting each other in our passions.”

She beams at me. “I’m so happy for you, Ginny. And also absolutely here anytime you need to have feelings when you miss him. Oh! Is that a new mug?”

I smile and lift it for her to see. “Declan made it.”

“Ginny. That’s thecutest.”

It’s clunky and the handle is weird and it has black and white and orange splotches, just like Flow, and I love it. He put one of his other mugs in the mail for his mom when we picked them up from Verona yesterday afternoon.

And then he was gone.

Flying across the country to try out for a hockey team.

Make another documentary.

Be as comfortable on camera as I am at home with him and my family of friends.

My phone buzzes on the desk, and I smile as his name lights my screen with a text message.

“He’s headed into the arena for his physical,” I tell Cricket.

Flow whines at my feet.