Page 57 of Wreck Me

“The price of progress?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw him drop his head till he was practically talking to his shoes. “Yeah. What I used think of as that. But I only felt worse and worse. Even after completing the deal that I’ve been centering my whole life around for a decade, I felt nothing. I took a class on art history, because I’d loved hearing you talk about it, but it was just words and pictures. Vince made us go on a trip together, just the two of us, to Morocco for a week. It's been at the top of my travel list for a while, but all I wanted to do was sit in our hotel room till our return flight. It was like all the happiness had drained out of me, all the color.”

He lifted his head and rubbed his hands together, as if steeling himself for what he needed to say next. “And, finally, I realized—youwerethe color. I’d been living a grey life, and you turned it periwinkle and lime green and fuzzy pink. You made tree limbs crack and angry dogs sweet. You made my long-lost mom use my name again! There was no place I could travel, no amount of money I could earn, that could bring your magic back into my life. Only you could do that. And so…” His voice trailed into silence.

She sensed he was hoping she’d look at him, but she didn’t comply. The blue, blue sea was much safer in this moment than his deep brown eyes.

“…and so,” he continued, his ordinarily sure voice collapsing into a quiver, “if you have any feelings for me at all, can we try again? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m shooting my shot here because I’m in…I’m in...I’m hopelessly in love with you and otherwise, well, otherwise, I don't know what I’ll do.”

Ginny’s mind swirled to the erratic beat of her pounding heart. At the beginning of this, Nico had offered to be pushed off the cliff, but it was she who’d ended up balanced on a knife’s edge – would she retreat or let herself fall into depths she couldn’t begin to imagine?

She’d loved her parents so deeply, and one day they upped and vanished, leaving chasms of pain that would never completely heal. Accepting Nico’s offer risked opening a brand-new chasm, and she wasn't sure she could handle the fear that brought. But for the past two months, she’d been in that chasm anyway, hadn’t she? By day she managed to scrabble up and cling to the lip of it, using all her energies to keep her head just above ground level, but every night she fell back in, into his arms, into his kiss.

She stood but kept her back to him.

“I get it, I get it,” he said, sounding utterly defeated. “I hurt you too much. You’re the one person I want most in this world to protect, and I did the complete opposite. The house offer still stands, of course, and…”

He was still talking, but his words became a mumble in Ginny’s ears. She had her decision. Whatever else he said now didn’t matter one whit.

In one fluid movement, she spun toward him. Placing a hand firmly on his broad shoulder, she pushed him back just far enough to be able to slide onto his left knee. With both hands, she grabbed his face, blinking her green eyes into his brown ones. “Shut up and kiss me, ya big stupid cucumber.”

He did, and to her eternal surprise, instead of falling, she soared.

His eyes searched hers as their lips parted. “Do you forgive me?”

“I’m working on it.”

He nodded toward the lot. “And do you want to build the house together?”

She took in the lines that had angered her minutes ago, but that now represented the foundations of a whole new chapter in her life, a very periwinkle and lime green chapter. “We’re going to have to. Those walls aren’t going to fill themselves with love.”

They leaned in for another kiss but were interrupted by a commotion of yelling.

“No, don't go up there!” they heard Sadie say in a high-pitched, desperate tone.

“I will see itright nowbecause I am herreal estate attorney!” came Monique’s bellowed reply.

Tearing headlong into the middle of the lot, Monique pulled up short when she spotted Ginny and Nico cozily sharing an oversized and unusually colored antique chair in the middle of the South Malibu hills. Veins Ginny never knew her older sister possessed bulged from her neck and forehead. Monique sent them a death stare so powerful that, had time travel existed, it could have single-handedly wiped out the dinosaurs.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?”

27

Six months later.

Ginny aimed her small paintbrush at the head of the silvery nail head marring the otherwise pure periwinkle of the brand-new trim surrounding their brand-new kitchen bay window. “There! Our house is done!”

From behind her, Nico wrapped one arm around her waist as he rested his head lightly on her right shoulder. “She’s a beaut. Everyone’s going to love her. But she still needs one more touch up.”

Ginny scanned the remaining window frame. “Really? Where?”

“Turn around and I’ll show you.”

He released her so she could turn, then used a paint-tipped finger to daub a bit of periwinkle onto the tip of her nose.

“You!” she exclaimed as she laughed.

He kissed her, then rubbed her nose against his, taking some of the paint for himself. “We wouldn’t want our day to be perfection, would we?”

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