Page 6 of While You Were Trending

“I’m a widow,” she moans.

“That’s no excuse to be a dick to one of your kids.”

“I’m a widow, and you’re calling menames.”

Ginny drops her head, shoulders hunching in as she hugs herself. “I’ll go get my brother.”

And there it is again.

That overwhelming urge to pull her into my arms and hold her tight and assure her that she deserves so much better.

“Where’s she staying?” I ask Ginny, angling my head toward her mother.

Fuck getting help.

I’m removing Freida Rhodes from this wedding myself.

Ginny shrinks smaller, like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like she’s waiting for me to make a snarky comment about her not being able to manage her mother and about it ruining my night at this wedding.

The wedding I didn’t even want to come to.

I wanted to get here tomorrow or Monday. Not today.

But my producer insisted I come for the networking opportunities, and so here I am, unsuccessfully avoiding Ginny and unsuccessfully attempting to help when I’m the last person in the world she has any reason to trust.

My heart twists in my chest.

Who the fuck am I to lecture her mother about being nice to Ginny when I was an absolute ass to her for four years too?

“I’ll take her there,” I say. “So you can stay and enjoy the wedding.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I can’t leave my baaaaaby,” Freida bawls. I’ve backed against the pole that I was hiding behind, and Freida’s wrapping herself around my legs.

“Then you shouldn’t have gotten high.” I look at Ginny again. “Hotel somewhere?”

A thousand needles prick at my chest as she makes eye contact with me again.

All of her distrust—I deserve that.

“My brother and I will handle this,” she says stiffly.

“I don’t mind.”

“It’s a family matter.”

And I’m not family.

Never was. Never will be.

Because I handled my crush on her in the worst way possible for all of those years.

I pinch Freida’s elbow at a pressure point and get her to the floor again. “Stay,” I order again.

But as I say it, something else registers.

A new smell.