Page 92 of While You Were Trending

I don’t feel any better when we hang up.

Maybe it’s that I’m lying to the guy who’s been by my side since I was eighteen.

Or maybe it’s that I don’t like how hung up he is on the past.

He’s a good dude. Leads with his heart most of the time. Works hard. Loyal to a fault until he has reason not to be.

I get why he’ll never like Ginny.

But I dislike it when I think about how long I’ve been lying to him about my own feelings.

About how I don’t feel like I can tell my best friend the truth about his ex.

And that’s on me as much as it’s on him.

Can’t solve it today though, so instead, I open a browser on my phone and search for the nearest pottery place.

The way Ginny ran out of the sorting room earlier today like she was allergic to grapes—it brought out an old memory of the first holiday party after Alex and I went pro.

The wives and girlfriends were giving her a wide berth. I heard one of them whisper to another that she wondered if Ginny was going to turn over the table holding the chocolate fountain, and then I realized Ginny’d heard it too.

She fled the room.

Alex didn’t notice.

I told the two women who’d been whispering to not judge Ginny by stuff she did under orders as a kid, then headed to the bar and had more to drink than I should’ve.

I didn’t check on her.

Not on purpose.

I did leave the party though and accidentally followed in her footsteps, finding her a few blocks away, staring into the window of a pottery gallery with a look of desperate longing on her face.

Like she wanted the mugs and plates and bowls in the window to be her friends.

I’d been just drunk enough to want to hug her and kiss her and tell her she deserved better, but sober enough to stop myself and text Alex instead that his girlfriend was hanging out solo down the street from the party.

Watching out for her the only way I knew how. The only way I could.

Here, she doesn’t need me to watch out for her.

Here, she has her friends. The family kind of friends.

But I’d still like to know that she’s okay.

That she’s not feeling left out.

Left behind.

Maybe she was triggered by the cameras and I’m overthinking this.

Cricket steps out of the fermentation building, and I flag her down.

“All done for the day?” I ask.

She stifles a yawn and nods. “We should be able to finish tomorrow. And then we cross our fingers that the storm coming in isn’t heavy.”

There are still four varieties to pick.