Stop Ghosting Me, page 18
Six years? There’s no way….
The pounding of my pulse in my thumb is just about as erratic as my thoughts right now. I jerk away from Ginger’s hand with another curse and glare at Penny.
“Bullshit,” I whisper, barely able to speak over the lump in my throat.
Jesus, it feels like someone has my neck in a vise.
“If only it were.” Penny shakes her head at me. “She’s all talk, that sister of mine.”
“That’s probably why she’s so moody all the time. I’d be a pain in the ass if I hadn’t gotten laid in six years too,” Ginger says, handing me a new sign that I don’t even bother taking, because I’m too busy trying not to lose my goddamn mind.
“Why are you telling me this?” I mutter.
And why does it suddenly feel like someone just shoved their fist into my ribcage?
She hasn’t slept with anyone in six years?
That can’t be a coincidence.
She misses me all the time….
Fuck!
“That isn’t even the best part. The question you should really be asking us is… why did she have that one-night stand six years ago?” Penny smiles at me, leaning to the side to rest her hand on a sign that says Honk if you think Ben has a micropenis.
Don’t ask. Don’t you dare fucking ask, Ford. This is Sidney’s personal business that has… everything to do with me, shit!
“Fine, why?” I spit out, rubbing my fist against my chest when it starts to feel like it’s caving in.
Ginger leans closer to me, lowering her voice. “Because we did a background check on you, jackass.”
Oh, shit.
“It’s insulting you actually thought we wouldn’t.” Penny shakes her head at me. “Some strange guy from out of town sniffing around my sister, and he suddenly makes her all mopey when he ghosts her? You’re damn right we did some digging after you skipped town that first year. Don’t worry. We only told her one teensy, tiny, little thing a month after you left.”
“Just the part about you being engaged before you showed up here,” Ginger inserts.
“Thought it would perk her up, since, you know, she claims she’s not a relationship girl, and there you were, a big, strong, handsome man who does relationships. Definitely not her type.”
Goddammit.
“I have never seen her throw back so much tequila.”
“I didn’t even think her stomach was big enough for that much alcohol.”
The girls spend a few minutes laughing about Sidney singing karaoke that night, while I consider throwing the hammer in my hand through Ben’s front window.
You would think being friends with someone for six years means they know a lot about your history. As much as I wanted to tell Sidney everything about myself that first night we spent together, I didn’t want her to look at me differently. I didn’t want her to think I was anything but the hero who got her out of jail right in the middle of a panic attack. I never told Sidney I was supposed to be walking down the aisle the month after I met her. I told her I didn’t do relationships, she told me she only had flings, and then she never asked about that part of my life again.
“She’s known about that this entire time?”
Why didn’t she ever say anything? Why didn’t she ever call me out on it?
“Not how it ended. We figured that was your story to tell her. It’s one of the other reasons we’ve allowed you to live and continue making my sister mopey,” Penny lets me know, showing me a rare look of sympathy that makes my skin itch. “So, yeah. Now we’re getting to the fun part. Sidney found out you’d been engaged before, and Sidney did not like the idea of you being engaged before. We overheard her telling Callie that you actually do relationships; you just don’t do them with someone like her.”
“Ta-da! The grand finale!” Ginger throws her arms up in the air and waves her hands around, while I think about bending over and throwing up in the grass.
Jesus Christ, the hits just keep right on coming from these two. I have been fucking things up since the day I met her.
“We almost made our presence known and beat the shit out of her for even having those thoughts.” Penny shakes her head in disgust. “But then Sidney proceeded to drink her weight in tequila, which is always a good time to watch, so we forgave her. And that led to her trying to fuck you out of her system.”
“It didn’t work.” Ginger shakes her head.
“He was a gym teacher. Of course it didn’t work. He was cute, but he smelled like stale coffee and never took his whistle off from around his neck.” Penny scoffs before turning to look at me again. “Like I said, my sister is all talk. She thinks she doesn’t do relationships, but she doesn’t do flings either. She’s had three.”
It suddenly feels like someone just walked up and kicked my legs out from under me.
“Can you really, technically count the guy she lost her virginity to during her senior year of high school the day before he left for college?” Ginger laughs.
My head feels like it’s underwater, and all I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears.
“True. It’s an even sadder number at two then.” Penny chuckles.
“We laugh every time she talks about it being her thing.”
“It’s not her thing.”
“If it even was a thing, it hasn’t been her thing since you came to town.”
“You’re her thing.”
“She just hasn’t figured it out yet.”
I don’t know if I’m dizzy from my head ping-ponging back and forth between these two, or because of what they’re telling me, but I definitely feel like I need to sit the fuck down before I pass out.
She’s been missing me for six years.
She’s been getting off on thoughts about me since the day we met.
She’s as much of a one-night-stand girl as Mother Theresa.
She hasn’t slept with anyone since the day she found out I’d been engaged.
Jesus Christ.
She’s scared. Not just scared, Sidney is petrified. I knew it would be a struggle to get her to consider an actual relationship with me. I just never expected to find out she’s felt some sort of way about me for six years, has lied all this time about being a no-strings-attached girl, and refuses to admit it now. Refuses to admit she wants something more with me, but she’s too scared to ask for it. Too scared to want it.
Shit. I should have seen this coming.
She doesn’t trust that I’m not going to leave or hurt her, and why should she? I’ve done an absolute shit job of proving it to her. She’s been so busy trying to make sure I can’t hurt her that she hasn’t been able to see what’s right in front of her. She doesn’t understand yet.
“Not that I’m not grateful, but why in the hell are you two telling me all this? Sidney is going to kill you both.”
Followed by my brutal murder for allowing them to tell me.
Ginger and Penny smile those evil smiles, and a chill actually runs down my spine just looking at them.
“Trick or Treat, bitch.”
There it is.
I knew they weren’t spilling all of Sidney’s secrets just to be nice to me. They’ve proven they really do love and care about her, but at the end of the day, they’re still assholes.
“You told me all this because of a damn game?”
“I’m pretty sure this means we are now the ultimate champions of Trick or Treat.” Penny nods happily. “She’ll think twice about messing with us again. It’s her own fault for getting all mushy and shit over a man.”
“This was way better than our original plan of getting her back for the roofies by soaking all her tampons in poison-ivy-infused water.” Ginger nods.
Jesus….
“We’re still gonna keep that one in our back pockets though, right?” Penny asks her. “Hey! Where are you going?” I’m already halfway down the driveway when she shouts in a whisper after me.
“Making sure your sister’s eyes are open.” I hear the two girls share a smacking high-five, and I pause to look back at them. “Take the damn van back from wherever you stole it and leave them money for gas.”
They’re still holding their middle fingers up at me in the middle of the yard when I pull away from the curb, but at least I didn’t get any arguments for once.
This is either going to be a Halloween dream, or a gory, bloody nightmare. It could really go either way in Harvest Grove.
Chapter 16
Sidney
“You two should really learn how to communicate.”
“Are you poor?”
Setting my giant Ziploc bag filled with change on top of Kenny’s desk, my head slowly turns, then tilts to look down at the unicorn standing next to me.
“It’s not polite to ask that.” I smile at the little girl who looks to be around seven or eight, while I stack all the dollar bills I’ve earned from my plants the last few weeks next to my now-emptied-out change jar. Totally not freaking out at all that my savings account is empty, and I really am poor.
“I have more money than you do from the Tooth Fairy.”
“Do you even have a job?”
“Your costume sucks.”
“Yeah, well, your costume sucks,” I fire back to the fifth Spider-Man in the room standing next to the unicorn, rolling my eyes that I’m getting snippy with a child.
“I think her costume is awesome!”
“Thank you.” I smile at the girl dressed as a minion. Grabbing a bag of Reese’s Cups off Kenny’s desk that hasn’t been opened yet, I walk right up to her. “It’s not a costume though. I don’t do costumes.”
And then I open up the bag of candy and dump the entire thing into her bucket, all while staring down the Spider-Man who insulted me.
Yeah, because this is natural behavior for a grown-ass adult.
“All right, kids!” Kenny claps his hands together, shouting from behind his desk to the twenty or so children in Halloween costumes filling the small sheriff’s station. “The next five can go on into the jail cell and see what it’s like to be a real criminal!”
The unicorn and Spider-Man finally walk away from me to change places with the handful of costumed kids who are currently moving back out of the cell.
Every Friday during the month of October, tourists with kids in town can take them around to all the businesses and go trick-or-treating. I absolutely love being on the schedule at the bar on Fridays so I can pass out candy in between waiting on customers, but I’m kind of glad I had today off. I’m clearly not in the mood to deal with anyone right now.
Tossing and turning the last few nights will do that to a person. I’ve become a walking nightmare. Ford has been suspiciously busy the last few days since movie night, and I’ve been trying not to take offense to it. Finally seeing him this morning at the Jav-A-Lantern was fine. We were fine. I should feel fine. I hugged him like always. Listened to him complain about something that annoyed him, like always. I even made a joke about how I was glad he was still alive after dealing with Penny and Ginger a few nights ago, to get him to crack a smile, like always.
But that comment suddenly made everything not fine. The sexual charge that’s been in the air ever since we kissed suddenly reached epic proportions as we stood there staring at each other, waiting for our coffee orders, until it felt like my skin was melting off.
In the blink of an eye, that stupid, teasing smirk was back on his face though, and he was suddenly holding a couple of fingers up in front of me, asking me how many I saw. He made some weird comment about wanting to check on my eyesight before grabbing his coffee from one of Callie’s baristas and walking out, saying he had to take care of something.
It’s fine. Everything is fine.
I’m really starting to hate that stupid word.
“This is a very exciting day for you guys to be trick-or-treating at the sheriff’s station!” Kenny announces. “This lady right here is the one and only Sidney Tanner, whose name you probably saw on the chair in the jail cell. Sidney spends a lot of time in jail, because she’s a bad person who breaks the law. Don’t be like Sidney.”
All the kids stare at me with wide eyes, while I shoot Kenny an annoyed glance.
“Have you killed anyone?”
“Do you have a gun?”
“What’s it feel like to make someone bleed?”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “No, I’ve never killed anyone. That… that’s not something to be proud of.”
“That’s boring. You’re boring and not a real criminal.”
“I’m not boring. I—”
“Are you seeing anyone?” a preteen dressed like a vampire steps closer to me with a smile entirely too mature for his painted face.
“Eew, no.” I grimace, taking a step back.
“I thought you and Ford were together?” Kenny asks in confusion.
“Who’s Ford? Is he a handsome prince? Can we see a picture?” a princess asks from the middle of the crowd.
My heart starts beating faster, and I have to wipe my sweaty palms off on my dress.
“No… I… no” is all I can mumble when an image of Ford riding a horse to storm the castle and rescue me gets stuck in my head and won’t go the hell away.
“Shouldn’t you be married by now, or at least have a boyfriend? You’re old.”
I gasp, narrowing my eyes at a cheerleader over by the door.
“I’m not old. I’m twenty-six.”
“Gross. That’s almost thirty. You’re old.”
“I bet she has a bunch of cats.”
“I have one cat, and she talks, so there!” I shout to a ghost. “Also, the 1950s called, and they want their stereotype back.”
“We don’t even know what that means.” The cheerleader rolls her eyes at me.
“Exactly. Because you’re just a tiny little baby child who doesn’t understand how life works.”
Kenny quickly reaches across his desk and grabs my arm, making me realize I was actually starting to lunge toward a ten-year-old.
“I thought you liked kids,” he whispers.
“I do. I just don’t like these kids.”
Good God, what is wrong with me? This is all Ford’s fault for messing with my head.
One of the parents from the group waiting outside finally opens the door, ushering the kids back outside to move on to the next business.
“So, what brings you here this afternoon, other than wanting to fight some children?” Kenny chuckles as he takes a seat behind his desk, pulling open the top drawer to look for something.
I push the Ziploc of change and the stack of bills across his desk. “Just paying my fines from October Eve. Sorry it took me so long. I kept planning on stopping in, and then I kept getting distracted.”
By a man in flannel with a dirty mouth, who cast some kind of spell over me.
“That was a waste of a trip,” Kenny mutters distractedly, still rifling through his drawer. “Those were already charged to the credit card on file.”
“What?”
Kenny’s hand pauses inside the drawer, and his head whips up to look at me.
“Oh shit,” he whispers before quickly backpedaling. “I mean, yes! Of course you should pay for your own fines. Here, let me take that….”
I quickly pull the money closer to me when he reaches his hands out. “Kenny, what are you talking about? I don’t have a credit card on file.”
I don’t even have a credit card, period. The only reason I was able to rent my place is that Mrs. Boreffi doesn’t do credit checks on locals.
“You’re still not paying attention, are you?”
Ford’s words echo in my head, and I quickly shake them away, narrowing my eyes on the man in front of me when he picks up his phone and brings it to his ear.
“Sorry, gotta make this phone call.”
Reaching over the desk, I smack my fingers down on the hang-up button. “Kenny,” I growl.
He slowly lowers the phone from his ear with a sigh. “You know what; I don’t care if I get my ass kicked. I’m tired of being in the middle of this. Go ask Marcus.” And then he hangs up the phone when I pull my hand away from it.
I was not at all expecting those words to come out of his mouth. “Marcus? What does Marcus have to do with this?”
Knowing it’s not who I thought it was should make me feel better, right? But Marcus and Callie can’t afford my fines. They have a mortgage, car payments, the Jav-A-Lantern, Callie’s student loans, and a puppy who eats more than an entire football team combined.
What in the hell is going on right now?
“I cannot believe you would keep something like this from me!”
My shout makes all the heads in the Wicked Pub and Grub turn in my direction as I stomp through the place and right up to the bar.
Marcus lets out a deep sigh, flipping the bar towel he was using up onto his shoulder.
“Thank God you finally know everything. This shit was starting to give me an ulcer.” He smiles at me as he leans forward and rests his hands on the bar, the orange, battery-powered lights in his black bowtie flashing rapidly. “Listen, none of this was my idea. I was just the accomplice, so you need to be on my side when Callie finds everything out. You ready for the last surprise?”
“What are you talking about? Why doesn’t your wife know you paid my fines for October Eve this year? I love you for doing it, but you can’t afford it. Are you crazy? I already told Kenny to take your credit card off my file and reverse the charges. Also, oh my God, Callie is going to kill you.”
My laughter dies when Marcus lets out a groan, closing his eyes and dropping his head forward. “Fuck. You don’t know everything,” he mutters.
“Know what? What don’t I know?”
Marcus slowly lifts his head back up. “I was under the impression you would know all of this when you came to me. He didn’t come right out and say that, but it was definitely implied. Now I’m going to have to seriously reconsider those matching T-shirts I got us for Halloween,” Marcus complains, while I wonder what would happen if I punched this man in the face.
