2000
Ginny carefully took her small suitcase down from the top shelf of the closet she shared with Tommy.
She harrumphed to herself as she thought of Tommy’s concern about her going to her old house. The one she’d shared with Grizz for five years. She’d been there many times to visit Carter. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so easy in the beginning. But after she’d settled into her happy marriage with Tommy, it really wasn’t difficult at all. She’d gotten to the point where she could go without remembering the nightmare of Grizz’s arrest. Ever since she was a kid she’d been very strong-minded, always able to block out something unpleasant.
She carried the suitcase to the bed and laid it down. She unzipped it and went to her dresser to get some things. Besides, she told herself, it wasn’t the bad memories she had a hard time forgetting. It was the good ones.
Her mind drifted back to a time when she had been happy. Really happy. She’d been living in her new home with Grizz and hadn’t returned to the motel even once.
“So Grizz, I have at least four options picked out for us.” She had just walked into the bathroom. He was standing at the sink shaving. He gave her a sidelong glance.
“Four options for what, Kit? What are you talking about?”
“The summer concerts. Remember you told me you would take me to a concert? You promised me after I went to Black Sabbath with you that you would go to one that I liked.”
He tapped his razor on the side of the sink and flashed a guilty look. “Uh, yeah. Guess I forgot about that. But you liked Black Sabbath, right? You wanted to go with me?”
“Yeah, I like them, but that wasn’t the deal. They’re your group, not mine. I went to keep you company.” She grinned at him in the mirror, then wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.
“And sitting on my shoulders for two hours so you could see the whole show wasn’t a little perk for you?”
She let go and went to sit on the edge of the bathtub. “Of course it was a perk and I’ve never heard you complain about me having my legs wrapped around your head before.”
He had just rinsed off his face and was reaching for a towel when he started laughing and looked at her. “Sorry, Kitten, I didn’t mind having you up there, but you were facing the wrong way.”
She grabbed the towel out of his hand and snapped it at him. “You always turn everything back to sex.”
“You’re the one who mentioned having your legs wrapped around my head.” He pulled her close. “Let’s go back to bed. We don’t have to be anywhere this early. C’mon.”
She got serious then. “No. I have school and I want to get there early to spend some time with Carter. I’m sure it hasn’t crossed your mind, but she said the guy who’s been bothering her seems to have disappeared or found someone else to stalk. Still, I know she’s been worried.”
Ginny had told Grizz about a man who was causing her college friend some agony. Carter had gone on one date with him, and when she was busy the following weekend, he’d taken it personally and started harassing her. The last straw for Carter was when she’d found a dead animal on the driver’s seat of her car. The sicko had actually killed a raccoon and broken in to leave it for her. Actually, they never did figure out if he killed it on purpose or accidentally ran over it and saw it as an opportunity to mess with Carter. Regardless, it prompted her to go to the police and take out a restraining order on him. Ginny guessed it had finally scared him off.
“Good for Carson,” Grizz said.
“Carter.” Ginny elbowed him. “For goodness sake, you can’t even remember her name!”
He gave her a half smile and leaned back against the bathroom sink. He crossed his arms in front of him and said, “Okay, let’s hear your concert list. And there better not be any Bee Bees on there.”
She shook her head and bit her lip in exasperation. “They’re the Bee Gees, and believe me, I know better than to ask you to take me to see them. Okay, so, the first one is at the end of May. Blondie.”
He shook his head no.
She looked back at her list. “Okay, there are two in June. We can see Boston, and you know how much I love them, or we can see Styx.”
“No. I don’t want to see them. What else you got?”
“Journey is playing in July.” She looked up at him hopefully. “I know these aren’t your favorites, but I listen to them, and I know you like them a little bit.”
“Keep going, honey. How about the fifth option?” he pointed to her paper.
She looked down at it, then back up at him. “I didn’t write down a fifth option. There wasn’t anybody else I wanted to see.”
He leaned over her and pointed to the paper. “Sure it’s there. See? Option five.”
“Grizz, there is no option five. Stop being ornery.”
“I see it clear as day from here and it’s the one I want.”
She laid her list on the bathroom counter and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, let’s hear it. What is option five?” She knew he was going to rattle off a string of his favorite bands.
“Option five is the one where I stick an ice pick in my eye instead of going to one of your concerts.”
She swiped the paper, scrunched it up, and threw it at him. “You are not funny! And I think risking certain blindness and possible death instead of taking your wife to a concert is telling me something, and I don’t appreciate it!”
She started to walk out of the bathroom, but he caught her in his arms and held on to her. She struggled to get free. “Let me go. You make my blood boil and I hate it when you do it on purpose. I said to let me go!”
“I’m teasing with you, baby,” he said, his voice soothing and kind. “I’ll take you to any concert you want to go to.”
She calmed down then. “What’s the catch?”
“Why does there have to be a catch?” he asked, inhaling her scent as he nuzzled her neck. He never seemed to tire of it. As a matter of fact, he always had the opposite reaction, seemed to crave it more and more.
“What’s the catch?” she asked again, a more serious tone in her voice.
“I just thought that maybe you could come to one of my meetings. A lot of old ladies will be there.”
“I’m not an old lady.”
“You’re my old lady and you know it. C’mon, honey, you don’t come with me enough.”
“I hate going. I don’t fit in with the other ‘old ladies.’” She had freed her hands and made the last comment with air quotes.
“Everyone is nice to you.”
As if they had a choice. “I know that. It’s just that this—this life has never been right for me and you know that. I thought moving away from the motel would be the end of it for me. I know you have to go there still and go to your different meetings. But I don’t.”
She bit her lip and looked up at him. “You really won’t go to a concert with me if I don’t go to a meeting with you?”
“I’ll take you to your concert. I really just needed a favor. Actually, Anthony needs the favor.”
He knew the minute she realized what he was asking. “Christy. He still doesn’t have a handle on Christy?” She let out a breath. “We’ve seen them this past year. She seems fine. They seem fine.”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe she’s having a change of heart.”
“I don’t see how I can change her heart. They’ve been together for a while now. I can’t picture him making her stay.”
“Exactly, Kit. He won’t make her stay, but something’s up, and he’s afraid she’s going to leave. He doesn’t know what’s going on and wants you to talk to her. That’s all. See if there’s something she’s not telling him.”
Ginny remembered that meeting now, as she threw the final items into her suitcase, and how she did talk to Christy. And boy, something had been up, all right. But Christy and Anthony moved on from there. They’d been happily married ever since, had gone on to have two sons and a daughter. Slade was their oldest. He was three years older than Mimi. Their middle son, Christian, was about Mimi’s age. And their little girl, Daisy, was five years younger than Jason. As far as Ginny knew, they had a more than stable marriage now, but things were pretty rough for them back then.
With a hint of a smile, she also remembered how Grizz took her to see Boston.
And she’d had the best seat in the house.
Her packing was finished. It was time to go downstairs.
Time to say goodbye to Tommy.