Page 52 of Guy's Girl
“Go wash up.” She slides a knife into the soft flesh of an avocado. “By the time you’re done, this will be ready, and we can get the night started.”
***
Avocado is green. Cilantro is even greener. Onions are clear white, almost see-through, almost nothing at all. Ginny would love to be see-through. Ginny would love to be nothing at all.
Through the open doors, burgers sizzle and the boys laugh. Finch’s laugh—short and clunky, like tap shoes—shakes her insides.
Or maybe it’s just the shock of seeing Adrian.
With the blade of her knife Ginny scoops up the pile of minced onions and dumps them into the bowl.Focus. Don’t think about Adrian. You’re in enough of a romantic mess as it is. Focus on plucking the cilantro, on bunching the leaves into a bundle thick enough to slice.
As she wipes off her knife, she glances out the window at the boys. Finch is already looking at her. Her stomach flip-flops.
Ginny has become a master at suppressing her desire to be with Finch. Totrulybe with him. She has to, if she doesn’t want to lose him. She keeps her desire at a simmer, low-level bubbles at the very base of her stomach. Well below her heart.
But every couple of weeks, the water boils over. Her Anxiety gets bad, and Finch holds her hand and looks at her with those big driftwood eyes and tells her everything is going to be okay, and her feelings for him bubble forth so violently that she’s quite certain she’ll drown in them.
None of that, unfortunately, changes the fact that he’s still with Hannah.
It all came to a head the week before this trip. They met for lunch in Madison Square Park as usual. Finch was talking, something about radial fractures. Ginny was staring at Madison Avenue, having a minor panic attack and not listening to anything Finch was saying.
Midway through a sentence about plaster casts and bone realignment, Ginny turned to Finch and said, “I love you.”
Finch stopped. Stared. “What?”
“I love you.” Ginny sipped her cold brew without ice. “I don’t want you to say it back because I know you can’t, but I just needed to tell you. That’s all.”
Then she stood up and walked the four blocks back to her office.
Ginny knew exactly what she was doing. She knows that Finch loves her back. She knows that he needs the right nudge to get him over the finish line, to give him the strength to break things off with Hannah. She knows that, when all is said and done, he’ll choose her.
And she has a strong suspicion that it will happen on this very trip.
***
Like a proper adult, Ginny sets the outdoor table for dinner. She lays out both wine- and water glasses. Cloth napkins and gleaming china instead of plastic utensils and floppy paper plates. She slices tomatoes and spreads them out in a juicy fan on a patterned serving platter. The others offer to help, but she waves them away, tells them to work on the steaks and drink some more.
As she sets down the last knife, Adrian emerges from the house. His hair is damp and glistening. He scratches the hard line of his jaw, the one she used to trace when they would lie together after sex. She pretends not to notice.
“Whoa.” Adrian walks over and lays a hand on the back of one of the chairs. “What’s all this for?”
“Our welcome dinner.” She smooths out a crease in one of the napkins. “First time in Budapest. Well.” She smiles up at him. “For Clay, Finch, and me, anyway.”
Adrian runs his fingers along the gilded lip of a plate. “This definitely isn’t the Budapest I’m used to.”
Ginny looks out over the sprawling estate. “This isn’t theanythingI’m used to.”
“No.” He follows her gaze. “I suppose not.”
They both fall silent, watching the sun sink lower over the valley below.
“Are you going to see your grandparents while you’re here?” Ginny asks.
“Of course. I’m spending two weeks with them after you all leave.”
“Are they still in that artist village—Zen-something?”
“Szentendre.” Adrian smiles, surprised. “You remember.”
