Page 34 of Going Deep (Odyssey #3)

“I wanted to support him in that however I could, but it didn’t seem like he was ready to talk about it, so I was giving him some space.” She scowled. “ Then he started in with the ‘we shouldn’t see each other anymore’ bullshit .”

“Easy, Tomato Face ,” Lola murmured.

Ginger took another deep breath. “ I’m fine.”

“That’s weird,” Anna said. “ Have you ever had a Dom stop on you mid-scene?”

“No,” Lola admitted. “ But it happens.”

“Yeah, sure. I just wonder what happened. Has he said anything to Simon ?”

“If he has, Simon’s not saying.”

“Grant either. I know they’ve talked,” Anna said, sipping her wine thoughtfully. “ But he’s not sharing with me. Doms before dociles.”

Lola blinked. “ Huh ?”

“It was a synonym for submissive in the thesaurus,” Anna explained.

“Yeah, that doesn’t work,” Lola told her.

Anna wrinkled her nose. “ I know. It also had ‘dutiful’, ‘decorous’ and ‘disciplinable’, but none of those worked, either.”

“I think you’re going to have to let this go, sweetie.”

Anna’s mouth took on a mulish line. “ There’s a word out there, I just have to find it.”

“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place,” Ginger suggested, happy to set her anger aside for amusement. “ Maybe you should be looking for a new word for Dom .”

“Did you have to do that?” Lola complained as Anna set aside her wine and began quick-thumbing her phone.

“Yes,” Ginger said. “ I’m really mad, and when that wears off I’m going to be really sad, and I need joyful things.”

“Fine. At what point in the mad/sad cycle do you plan to acknowledge your responsibility in this mess?”

Ginger scowled. “ Did I not just say joyful things?”

Anna looked up from her phone. “ What do you mean, her responsibility?”

“She lied too,” Lola pointed out reasonably.

Ginger was in no mood for reasonable. “ He tried to buy me a job, Lola .”

“We still don’t know that.”

“I asked him,” Ginger reminded them.

“And he didn’t say yes.”

“He didn’t say no, either,” Ginger pointed out, unwilling to cede the high ground.

“Actually, I thought that part was kind of sweet,” Anna said, and shrugged when Ginger whirled on her. “ What ? It was.”

“Trying to buy me a job was sweet?”

“Well, yeah. Misguided , obviously,” Anna hurried to add. “ And , you know, ill-advised.”

Ginger snorted.

“But he knew you needed a job, and he was trying to make that happen for you.” Anna picked up her wine. “ Sorry , but I gotta go with sweet.”

Ginger turned to Lola . “ Do you believe this?”

Lola shrugged. “ I’m actually with Anna on this one.”

Ginger just stared. “ Are you kidding me?”

“I agree it was misguided and ill-advised, and if he was going to force the director to hire you without the proper qualifications, then we can change ill-advised to…” Lola paused. “ I’m not actually sure what to call that.”

“I do,” Ginger said darkly.

“But we don’t know that’s what he was going to do,” Lola continued patiently, “so I’m going to assume not until told otherwise.”

“Well, you’re awfully trusting.”

Lola only raised an eyebrow at the snap in Ginger’s voice. “ Which brings me back to your responsibility in all this. Why did you just tell him what you knew?”

Ginger started to drink her wine, then realized she didn’t want it. “ Because .”

“Because, why?”

“Because I was waiting for him to tell me,” Ginger said, and sniffed. “ Obviously .”

“Why were you waiting for him to tell you?” Lola asked patiently.

“Is she always like this?” Ginger asked Anna .

Anna nodded. “ It’s a lawyer thing. You might as well answer, she’ll just keep at you until you do.”

“Because he knows everything about me, and I know nothing about him,” Ginger said. “ Because it’s all ‘share with me, I’m your Dom , I need to know’, but I get nothing from him. Because the only things I know about him came from a goddamn background check that I didn’t even run!”

There was silence for a moment, the only sounds the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the ticking of the old manual clock on the fireplace mantel.

“Those aren’t the only things you know,” Lola finally said.

“What?”

“Those aren’t the only things you know.”

Ginger knuckled away the tear that had slipped free. “ What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been sleeping with him, playing with him, for what, six weeks now?” Lola waited for Ginger’s nod. “ You know more.”

“Think about it, Ginger ,” Anna urged. “ What do you know about him?”

Ginger didn’t want to think about it, but the thoughts and images came without her permission. “ I know his eyes crinkle when he’s trying to look stern, but he’s really happy. Sometimes when we’re playing, and he’s trying to be stern, but those eye crinkles are a dead giveaway.”

“What else?” Lola asked quietly.

“He talks to his sister in L.A . at least once a week, and they trade book recs. And he reads the one she recommends, even if he doesn’t think he’ll like it, because he likes sharing things with her.”

She drew a shaky breath. “ He opens his mail from the end, not the flap. There’s a compost bin under his sink. He over tips at restaurants, no matter what the service is like. He makes really good pancakes, and doesn’t care when I spill syrup on the sheets.”

“Sounds like you know plenty,” Anna observed.

Ginger nodded, her heart in her throat. “ I guess.”

Beside her, Lola leaned over. “ Are we moving on to the sad portion of the program?”

The first tear spilled over. “ Yeah .”

Anna stood. “ I’ll go to the store for ice cream.”

Lola wrapped an arm around Ginger . “ Go across the hall. I stocked up yesterday.”

“Can we have Chinese food, too?” Ginger wanted to know.

“It’s being delivered in an hour,” Lola told her.

Anna paused on her way to the door. “ An hour?”

“I thought it would take her longer to break,” Lola said.

Ginger sighed and laid her head on Lola’s shoulder and let the tears come. “ I love you weirdos.”