Page 9 of Until the End (The Lost Letters #3)

Carson

S haking my head, I slide my phone into my back pocket.

Ginny has never let me get away with my shit.

I hadn’t planned to send her a picture of me.

My only goal was to check in with her without making it seem like that’s what I was doing.

Her response was everything I wanted it to be.

She makes me laugh more than anyone else I know.

I’m glad her assistants surprised her with a visit. She needs her team to help her navigate the shitstorm the Weasel started, and I’m sure they’ll help her focus on the important things.

“Pay attention.” A wad of tape hits me in the face.

“Asshole,” I curse, throwing it back at Teddy.

He smirks at me. “Daydreaming about a certain blonde?”

I scoff. “No.”

A dark eyebrow lifts, calling me on me shit.

“I was just checking on her. This is the first time she’s been on her own at the house since she came back.” Between me, Gia, and their parents, Ginny has been surrounded by people since we got home a week ago.

“Mm-hmm.”

I breathe out a laugh. “I fucking hate you. ”

He starts laughing too, his dark blue eyes lighting up his entire face.

When he first started dating Lottie, I wasn’t sure he’d fit in with our friend group.

He’s ten years older, intimidatingly stoic, and a hundred times more serious than my best friend.

Lottie is like sunshine in the fall. She’s warm, gentle, and someone you want to have around when you know the brutal winter is coming soon.

But I guess that’s why they work. Teddy keeps Lottie grounded while Lottie gets Teddy to loosen his tightly held control.

I’m seeing a lot of him lately, since my construction crew just started renovations on his house.

We’ve had to tear down most of the inside to update it—there were too many issues where starting over was easier than trying to fix them—and Teddy’s been around for the majority of the demolition stage.

He takes entirely too much pleasure from knocking out walls.

“How is Ginny really?” he asks.

“Doing as good as she can, given the circumstances.” Since Ginny stopped the wedding, she’s been the sole focus of concern among our friends and family.

The aunts and uncles have been dying to shower her with love and support now that she’s home.

I’ve been fielding texts and calls all week from them, asking how they can help.

I wish I knew what to tell them. One day, Ginny seems just fine, the next is a completely different story.

In the end, we all just want the best for her.

“Lottie’s parents have been biting at the bit to love on her.” Teddy shakes his head.

“I think the whole family is too. I wish I could convince them not to overwhelm her with their love.”

Teddy snorts. “Good luck with that. She won’t spend a single minute alone once she lets them in.”

“She might need that. It’d be a good distraction.”

“Get back to work, you lazy bums!” Uncle Levi shouts. He’s grinning at us from across the house, his white hard hat askew, making him look like a dork. He owns the construction company and has been a mentor to me since I graduated from high school.

I had no idea what I was going to do with my life back then.

School was a struggle for me, and I knew college wasn’t going to be any easier.

When Levi came to me with an offer to work for his company until I figured out what I wanted to do, I jumped at it.

Eight years later, and I haven’t looked back.

I love the physical side of the work, but I also love the tiny design details we add to make each house special. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Ginny’s dad, Max, who owns the company with Levi, is an architect. His designs are incredible. Whether it’s a regular kitchen or an entire house, he puts his whole self into each one.

Levi comes over to where Teddy and I are taking a break. “How’s our girl?”

I give Teddy a look. He swipes a hand across his mouth to hide his smile.

“She’s all right. Hanging in there.” I don’t mind that everyone is asking me how she’s doing. I’d rather it be me than them hounding Ginny. The last thing she needs is to constantly reassure everyone she’s fine, even though she’s the furthest thing from it.

“I want to kill that little bastard,” Levi growls.

“We all do,” Teddy agrees.

“Max is beside himself. He can’t quit beating himself up over not being there for Ginny when she needed him.”

“I know that feeling,” I say. It took a lot of convincing to keep Ginny’s parents away while we stayed at the hotel.

They wanted to comfort her like any parents would, but Ginny was hanging on by a thread.

She needed to get her head wrapped around the new direction of her life before she could console her parents.

Because that’s what she’d have done. Instead of focusing on working through her own emotions, she’d have shoved them aside to help her parents work through theirs.

The night we got back to Sonoma, they had dinner together, and I know Ginny told her parents and Gia what was truly going on behind closed doors. I can only imagine how hurt and distressed Max was to think about his daughter going through such an awful nightmare alone.

I wish Ginny had turned to any of us, but I have a feeling she didn’t fully realize what the Weasel was doing to her until the day of her wedding.

“You taking care of her?” Levi’s expression is one of consequence.

I’m not sure when everyone realized Ginny was mine, but I’m not mad about it.

There are no secrets in our family, so it’s not a surprise that they know I have feelings for her.

Ginny might even know too, though I doubt it.

I don’t believe she’d have cuddled with me the way she did in the hotel if she knew I was head over heels in love with her.

“As much as she’ll let me.”

“Let us know if you guys need anything?”

“Always.”

Levi pats me on the shoulder and heads across Teddy’s house to check on the rest of the crew.

I swallow down the last of my coffee before getting back to work. The rest of the day goes by in a blink—it usually does when we’ve got a big job to finish. It’s dinnertime when I’m pulling into my driveway. I’m hungry enough to eat a horse, but I need a shower more than food.

Michael is standing in the kitchen, eating a burrito over the sink. He’s only in running shorts, and a purple bruise is flaring on his ribs.

“That looks painful.”

He lifts his arm, looking at the discoloration as if he hadn’t remembered it was there. “Courtesy of Mr. Lambert’s rescue mare. Caught me when I wasn’t paying attention. ”

“She escaped again?” As a deputy for Sonoma’s police department, Michael’s duties run the gamut. He’s had to help corral Mr. Lambert’s rescue animals many times, since his farm sits right off the highway.

“Yep. One of these days, she’s going to cause a crash.”

I grab the bag of frozen peas we keep on hand for such occasions and pass it to him. Michael and I both come home with random injuries from our jobs—it’s one of the hazards of doing blue-collar work.

The front door opens, and Ryan comes into the house, looking exhausted. He runs the local flower shop with his mom, and they’ve been working long nights to finish an order for a wedding.

The three of us have been roommates since we graduated from high school.

When we decided to stay in our hometown, it made sense to move in together to save on rent.

Uncle Levi, who is also Ryan’s dad, helped us buy the house.

It was scary at first, living on our own and having adult responsibilities.

Our families taught us how to care for the house, and in the eight years we’ve lived here, we’ve turned it into a comfortable home instead of a bachelor pad.

Although our moms played a big part in that when we were starting out.

None of us had even thought to buy toilet paper, let alone throw pillows.

The small split-level house is blocky in its design, but Levi and I opened the walls enough to make it feel a little larger. The kitchen and living room are open to each other, and around the corner is our dining room and the stairs to head up to our bedrooms.

Ryan lands face-first onto the couch. “I’m going to sleep for the next three days.” His words are muffled by the cushion, and no more than ten seconds later, he’s asleep. Michael and I grin at each other.

“I’m going to shower and then take dinner over to Ginny’s. A couple of her assistants surprised her with a visit, and I doubt they’ve eaten anything but snacks.”

Michael grabs a beer from the fridge. “Probably a good guess since Ginny can’t cook anything to save her life.”

“It’s a wonder she’s survived as long as she has.”

“Tell her hi for us.” Michael moves into the living room and sits gingerly in a chair. The quiet noise of the television follows me upstairs. All three bedrooms up here are small, and Ryan and I share a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, but it works for us.

I shower quickly, throwing on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt before leaving the house again.

On my way to La Mensa, I call in an order for pasta and breadsticks and hope none of the girls are on a super restrictive diet.

I added a couple of salads, but that won’t be enough to feed all three of them if that’s all they’ll eat.

It’s almost seven by the time I pull up to the gatehouse at Ginny’s. There are far fewer journalists at the gate than there were a few days ago. Hopefully, that means they’re finally backing off.

“Hey, Carson. How are you tonight?” Reggie asks from the window. His blonde hair is pulled back into a bun, and his brown eyes are soft with kindness.

“Doing good. Brought the girls some dinner tonight.” The motor of the gate whirs as it opens.

“Good. I’m sure they’ll appreciate that. Have a good one.”

I wave once my window is rolled up, then I’m driving through the gate. I park my car at the side of the house and head inside, sure Reggie told Ginny of my arrival already.

When I walk through the door, I stop in my tracks. Ginny’s laughter echoes through the living room, and for the first time since she got home, I know without a doubt she’s going to be just fine.