Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
S unny huddled under the covers and stared out the window at the swirling white. Gabe had been gone an hour. Had something happened to him? She got up and checked the thermostat. It had risen to sixty-seven. Her hands weren’t quite as chilled now, but she wasn’t ready to shuck the comforter yet.
A knock came at the door just before the handle turned and the door opened to reveal Gabe, covered in snow. His shoes and the lower half of his jeans were crusted with white, and flakes clung to his coat, his hat, and the dark hair that stuck out under his hat. His normally olive complexion was ruddy, and the tip of his nose was bright red. Cold air blew in around him before he shut the door.
She flung off the comforter. “Gabe!” Why was she so unreasonably happy to see him? It must’ve been the smell of coffee that wafted around him.
“Take these.” He handed her two plastic grocery sacks. She set them on the bed. “And this.” He held out a cardboard drink carrier with four coffee cups wedged into it. Since there were no tables in the room, she carried it to the bathroom counter.
Gabe shrugged out of his coat and laid it on the towel along with his shoes. He tugged off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. In his flannel shirt, with his red cheeks and dark stubble, he looked like a mountain man. A sexy mountain man.
“I have good news and bad news. And more bad news,” he said.
Had they been found out? Was the front-desk guy kicking their unmarried asses out of his motel? Were they going to have to brave the roads again? “Tell me the bad news first.”
“The roads suck. They’re plowing them every few hours, but the snow is going to keep coming until tonight. So it looks like we’re stuck here another day.”
Not so terrible. She’d figured as much. “And the good news?”
“Wait, I’m not done with the bad news.” He checked the thermostat, nodded. “Pete, the manager, says because this room’s at the end of the building, the HVAC doesn’t work as well.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it’ll be chilly in here.”
“Oh.” She snatched the comforter off the bed and wrapped it tightly around herself.
“He’s agreed to knock twenty-five bucks off the rate and bring us more blankets.”
Sunny slumped. “Is that the good news? Because it sounds pretty crappy.”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?” He grinned. She’d never seen him crack more than a weak smile, and it transformed his face. With his teeth gleaming out of his shadow of a beard, he looked like Paul Bunyan. But sexier. Was sexy Paul Bunyan a thing? She was too dazzled by the smile to make any sense, even to herself.
He pointed to the bags on the bed. “The good news is the convenience store next door is open, and I brought provisions.”
With the hand that wasn’t clutching the comforter around her, she pawed through one. A package of cake donuts, three speckled bananas, string cheese, a jar of peanut butter, and a box of saltines.
“I had to fight a lady for the saltines. Fortunately, Pete from the motel talked to the store manager, Paul. He told him we were here on our honeymoon, so she had to settle for a box of oyster crackers.”
The other sack held a pull-tab can of fruit cocktail, two packages of cup noodles, two sets of plastic cutlery, and a box of condoms. She held them up, eyebrows raised.
“On the house. A wedding present, Paul said.” He ducked his head, but the blush on his cheekbones showed. “He may have done it to piss off Pete. They have some sort of bizarre rivalry going.”
Sunny snorted. She and Gabe were stuck in the hotel room for the day with a box of condoms. And one bed.
“There’s coffee and hot water for the soup. We should probably eat the soup while it’s warm.”
Noodles at nine a.m. ? Her stomach didn’t care; it rumbled. “Great. I’ll just whip up breakfast for my husband.” She winked at him. Grabbing the soup cups, she headed to the bathroom, where she poured the hot water over the noodles. She handed him a cup and checked the coffees. One was black and the other… She sniffed it and sighed at the blissful French vanilla scent.
Handing him the black coffee, she sipped the lightened one. “The convenience store had flavored creamer?”
“The coffee bar’s not bad for a gas station.” He sipped his own coffee and then sank to the floor, leaning back against the side of the bed.
Sunny copied his position, leaving a comfortable space between them. She poked a plastic fork into the noodles. “When I get back to LA, I’m going to my favorite ramen place with my bestie.”
“Their ramen’s better than this, I guess?” Gabe speared some noodles and slurped them.
“By a lot. But this isn’t so bad. Warm food, shelter from the snow, and French vanilla coffee. Good company.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Tell me about your friend.”
She shifted away from the hard edge of the box spring. “Her name’s Leena, and we’ve been best friends since our middle school production of Wicked. She was Elphaba, and I was Glinda. It was my first big role, and on opening night I was so nervous I puked. She helped me through it.”
“Yeah? What’d she do?”
“Held my hair. Then, after, she told me to imagine the audience was naked.”
“That works?”
“Maybe. My problem was, my parents were in the front row. I saw them and froze. I was trying so hard not to imagine them naked that I couldn’t remember I was supposed to speak, much less my first line. I was just standing there, silent, in that stupid bubble. Leena wasn’t even there on stage, but she was standing offstage, and she chucked her nazar at me.”
“Nazar?”
“An evil eye charm. She always carries it during performances. For luck. I guess it was all she had on her. She had a pretty good arm—used to play baseball, too—and it hit me square on the forehead.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, but it was like a reset for me. I remembered my lines and rocked that performance.” She rubbed her forehead. She could almost feel where the warm glass had slapped her and reminded her that Leena cared about her.
“Your parents must’ve been proud of you.”
She tugged the comforter more tightly around herself. “Yeah. They brought me flowers. But they forgot to give them to me. They were too busy signing autographs in the lobby afterward.”
Gabe scrunched his forehead. “Autographs?”
Shit, she hadn’t meant to tell him that. She’d liked that he thought she was just a regular person. Too late now. “They’re sort of famous.”
Gabe raised his eyebrows.
She sighed. “They’re Gene and Gwen Lafortune. You must’ve seen their movies. My mom’s been in, like, a million rom-coms. Kiss Me Forever was her big hit in the early 2000s. And my dad’s?—”
Gabe’s jaw dropped. “Your dad is Mean Gene Lafortune? I’ve seen every one of his spy movies.”
“Yeah.” She stirred her noodles. Don’t ask ? —
“What was that like? Growing up with such famous parents?”
She set the ramen on the carpet. “Lonely. They were always on location. Though I had plenty of nannies. And one housekeeper I was close to, Nadia.”
“But you were their only kid. Weren’t there times when you were all together?”
She thought about that day she’d worn the ruffled dress. Her dad had seemed happy to see her then. “I think their marriage started to fall apart when I was little. So they tried to stay out of each other’s way. They focused on their careers. And kind of forgot about home.”
“Sunny, I’m?—”
“It’s okay.” She shook herself. “I had every luxury growing up. And all the singing, dancing, and acting lessons I could stomach. They paid attention to me when I performed. So I did that a lot. I was even on a TV show, though it only ran for one season. The Brainiac Bunch?”
He shook his head.
“It was a sitcom about a family of geniuses. And I was the dumb one. Kind of like The Addams Family mixed up with The Brady Bunch. But nerdy. Anyway, it was fun having a family for a while, even if it was only pretend.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s why I got into acting. So something good came out of it.”
He put a hand on her arm. “Something amazing. You have the best singing voice I’ve ever heard. And your acting skills were top-notch with Pete and that highway patrolman. You can’t be older than twenty-five?—”
“I’m twenty-seven.” Practically geriatric for an actress looking for a fresh start in Hollywood. Still, his words warmed her better than the lukewarm soup.
“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I know you’ll do great things. Regardless of who your parents are.”
She stirred her noodles. “Family’s hard.” They had so many expectations. Ones she never seemed to meet. “But yours is going to be awesome. Like The Brainiac Bunch.”
Gabe set down his noodle cup and stared at the wall.
“Your family in Vegas will be so excited to meet you.” Like the time she’d met up with her former castmates for a ten-years-later retrospective interview.
He sighed through his nose. “If they’re even—maybe. We’ll see.”
“DNA results don’t lie, Gabe,” she said as gently as she could.
He turned to face her, his pain showing in the lines around his eyes. “But parents do?”
Oh. Oh. “I’m sure they had a good reason. Maybe your Vegas family will know.”
He grimaced. “Maybe.”
Why, why hadn’t she listened to Cata and left poor Gabe alone? She was the last person who should advise anyone about family. He’d sounded so lonely, and she’d wanted to make it better. But she’d failed. She’d dragged him out here into the middle of the country and gotten him stuck in a freezing-cold room with nothing but cup noodles, saltines, and a dozen useless extra-large condoms.
Still, he’d tried to make her feel better. He was so nice. And caring. And brave. And sexy, with that Paul Bunyan stubble over that strong jaw. Not to mention the workingman muscles he’d hidden under his dress pants and cashmere coat. No. She had to ignore that tug she felt in his presence, the one that made her want to touch, to taste, to comfort. And take what those liquid brown eyes offered: affection, protection, loyalty.
Loyalty. Gabe Armstrong was a forever kind of guy. And she was the opposite. What was the opposite of forever? Right now. And right now, what she could do was distract him. Make him smile.
“So, husband, now that we’ve had breakfast, how are we going to entertain ourselves?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to pull them back. The bright blue box of condoms taunted her from the plastic sack on the bed.
Gabe jumped up like he’d been electrocuted.
“I meant…cards. Or a sing-along? Wholesome fun.” Her face burned.
Gabe set his half-eaten cup of noodles on the bathroom counter. “I’m going outside to dig out the car.”
“I—I’ll join you.” The last thing she wanted was to go back out in the cold, but someone needed to keep Gabe out of his dark thoughts.
He quirked an eyebrow and shrugged back into his coat.
Sunny shoved her feet into her boots. “One of us needs to charm Pete out of a snow shovel and a broom. And I doubt you’re his type.”
An hour later, breathless and warm under her pink puffy coat, Sunny skipped back into the room with Gabe behind her. The cold air and exercise seemed to have done him good. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t scowling anymore, either. His jaw and shoulders seemed less stiff than before.
Sunny glanced at the sack on the bed where the box of condoms still lay. Why hadn’t she thought to hide them in a drawer? Oh, right, there weren’t any drawers in the room. She rustled through the bag and pulled out the box of donuts, shoving the condoms under the saltines. “Snack?”
“I want to wash up first.” He held up his hands, red from the cold, and then ducked into the bathroom.
Sunny unzipped her coat and tossed it near the door next to her boots. When the cool air hit her skin, she dived under the comforter again and wrapped it around her shivering limbs. The squashy mattress shivered along with her.
The bathroom door opened, and Gabe chuckled. Sunny shifted so she could peer at him from underneath her comforter-hood. He leaned against the doorway, muscles bulging under his T-shirt, the hint of a smile on his face. God, he looked like a fucking centerfold in some manly-man magazine.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.
“Not in here. I hate the cold outside, but indoors I run pretty hot.”
That made her shiver, and not because of the chill in the room. But he didn’t know that. He uncrossed his arms and ambled the two steps to the bed. He sat on it, making the mattress dip. Sunny leaned back against his gravitational pull. No matter how much she liked him, she had to respect his space. He had enough going on without her throwing herself at him.
He held out his arm. “Come over here.”
“Really?” she squeaked. She could almost see the heat radiating off him.
He twitched his fingers. “Really.”
She didn’t hesitate. Dragging herself and the blankets over to his side of the bed, she nestled under his arm and arranged the blankets over them both. She tucked her icy feet between his shins. His chin rested on the top of her head.
“Better?” His voice was strained.
“Yeah. Am I squishing you?”
“No, I’m good.” He tightened his arm around her.
She tucked her nose under the blankets. They smelled like fabric softener. But under the floral scent was Gabe. He smelled like the motel’s soap—regular Dial—and…more. Leather, like the inside of her Mercedes, and something mechanical, motor oil, maybe. But on him it didn’t smell bad, just…manly. She burrowed closer. My man.
Whoa. What was that? Regardless of the lie she’d told Pete, Gabe wasn’t hers. They were sharing a ride. They were…
“Gabe?” She poked her head out of the blankets.
“Yeah?” He hadn’t picked up his phone. He was just sitting there, cuddling her.
“Are we…are we friends?” She calculated the number of hours they’d spent together. They’d driven together Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and a partial day yesterday. Roughly twenty-seven hours together on the road, plus breakfasts and dinners. And they’d slept in the same bed the night before. She wasn’t just his driver anymore. They’d shared some of their stories and secrets. She’d told him about her frosty parents, and she never talked about her parents. That was enough to call friendship, if nothing more.
He was silent long enough for her to wish she hadn’t asked. But at last, he said, “Yeah, I think we are. Is that what you think?”
She buried her nose in his flannel-covered shoulder. “Yeah.”
He rubbed his hand down her back from her shoulder to her tailbone and then again. He repeated the motion like he was patting a dog. Maybe he’d forgotten what he was doing. She lifted her nose from his shirt to the skin of his neck above his collar so she could inhale his scent. Mmm. She rubbed her nose against the prickle of his neck whiskers.
“Gabe?” Now she was performing a different calculation. They’d spent the morning and all yesterday afternoon here in the motel room. Close to twenty-four hours together, including sleeping in the same bed. How many dates did that equate to?
“Mmm-hmm?” he asked, his voice low and rumbly.
“Friends can kiss each other, right?”
“What?”
She lifted her face from his neck and focused on his lips, light pink and soft-looking beside his stubble. “Because I’d like to kiss you.”
He tilted his face toward her, which was invitation enough. She’d already kissed him that night at the Holiday Inn. She hadn’t quite hit his lips then, chickening out at the last second. But now, she touched her lips to his in her best approximation of a friendly kiss. In Los Angeles, friends gave air kisses hello and goodbye. In New York, it’d been common to give a cheek peck in greeting. This wasn’t that.
She’d kissed her fair share of love interests in plays, plus Curt Suede on the TV show. She’d kissed plenty of people she wasn’t romantically involved with. Sometimes it was awkward, sometimes it was nice. Every time she’d done it on stage, it was transactional. Work.
This wasn’t anything like acting. After a moment of stiff surprise, Gabe responded, moving his lips over hers. His skin was dry from the cold air outside, and their lips tugged against each other until she licked his lower lip. After that, their lips slid together in perfect friction. His arm tightened around her, and she let go of the blanket to touch his jaw, angling his face where she wanted it to deepen the kiss. She traced her tongue over his lip again, and this time, he opened to her. He tasted like coffee and salt from the soup, and she loved it.
He pulled back gently, his broad chest heaving. “You kiss all of your friends with tongue?”
“Only the ones I really like.” She grabbed his collar with both hands and tugged him back down to her.