Page 27 of While You Were Trending

Good for her though. “Given how much of a dick Eddie was this morning, I can understand that requirement.”

She pulls herself off the stool, her movements stiff. “Thank you.”

“Want to take those rolls with you?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

She squints at me, then puts her sunglasses back on. “I hate it when you’re agreeable. I don’t trust it.”

Yeah.

That doesn’t sting either.

Except it does.

But despite saying she didn’t want them, she takes two rolls from the bag before she leaves the kitchen.

Like she’s accepting a peace offering that I probably shouldn’t have made.

My life would be infinitely easier if Icouldforget Ginny Rhodes exists.

But I can’t.

And I won’t.

5

BOY STORY

Ginny

“I need to stop coming here,”Ten says to me as we lounge together on the main house porch before dinner. We’ve been looking at the early preview wedding photos that Caro sent from the official—and only—photographer.

The photos from before our mother tried to burn down the barn.

Before Declan Fox became a hero at my house by locating a fire extinguisher and putting out my mother’s flaming hat and the smoldering remains of the skirt he ripped off of me.

“Can’t handle that Mabel’s immune to your charm?” I tease my brother. Neither one of them will tell me why they have issues, but it’s been obvious since the first time he visited me here that they do.

And my brother’s the kind of dick who’ll poke and prod, while Mabel’s the kind of friend who loves me despite my brother being a dick.

“Fuck Mabel. I’m getting too old to keep getting this drunk.”

I snort in amusement, then grab at my head.

I’m not fully recovered myself.

“How do you do it?” he asks me. “How do you live here and not get completely plastered every day?”

“Are you serious? Do you get plastered every day?”

“No, but if I lived where there are barrels and barrels of fucking good wine, I would.”

“If you lived where there’s a Pip, you would, you mean.”

My brotheradoresPip.