Chapter 21
21
Gabe
As we climb back into the Navigator after dinner, Kayla is quiet again. There seems to be a lot on her mind, but I am unbelievably glad she agreed to come out. She looks so lovely tonight that she takes my breath away. She’d combed out her long brown hair so that it flows, sleek and smooth, over her shoulders and almost down to her breasts. Her sweater looks touchably soft and her full lips shine as if she actually put on make-up, not that she needs it. I meant it when I said she was the most beautiful woman I know.
I break the silence first. “Do you want me to take you home, or…”
She doesn’t respond right away. Then, after a beat, she bursts out, “When you said you wanted to hang out with me more, did you mean… I mean, I want to hang out with you too, but I want us to be on the same page. Neither of us is likely to be in Kentwood for long?—”
“I know?—”
“—and I just don’t know what I can commit to. I really need to get my life back on track. You know my dad left my mom when I was little. I just can’t—I don’t want to—I can’t depend on someone like that, because I know where it leads.” She stares at her hands.
“I don’t think things have to turn out that way,” I reply softly. She throws her hands in the air in a kind of quiet exasperation and turns to look out the window, away from me.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she all but whispers. Then she glances back in my direction, apologetic. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounds. I had fun at dinner.”
“Me too.”
“And I’d be happy to keep hanging out, but…”
“Can’t we just take some time to get to know each other? Enjoy each other’s company? Do you really need a road map?”
She smiles a little ruefully. “I’m the kind of person who really likes a good road map.”
“Yeah?” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “You may be the only person in our generation who knows how to read one.”
She chuckles slightly, looking at her lap again. “It’s a dying art.”
I take a risk and reach out to grab her hand. “I know, even if we had one, I still wouldn’t know where we were going.”
“I’m guessing the Navigator has built-in GPS.”
“You know it does. Come here.” I tug on her arm until she climbs, somewhat awkwardly, across the center console to sit in my lap. I can feel her relax now that we’re closer, looking at each other face to face. “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper, running my fingers through her silky hair. She curls her hand around my coat’s lapel, pulls me towards her, and brushes her lips against mine. We kiss tentatively at first, carefully, then increasingly hungrily. My hand finds the hem of her sweater underneath her unzipped coat. I slide it up to caress her warm skin. There’s a new tenderness to our embrace, as if, with every kiss, we’re trying to communicate all the things that both of us are too scared to say.
She acts like she doesn’t want a relationship, yet her entire being seems to be yearning for me just like I’m yearning for her. I feel an ache that starts deep in my chest and slowly spreads throughout my body. I’m falling in love with her , I realize. This is love. The feeling is so qualitatively different from what I felt for Gretchen that it seems like there should be an entirely different word for it. I wonder if she feels it too.
I close my hand over one soft breast, peeling back her bra to run my thumb over her nipple. She moans into my mouth and clutches my coat tighter before breaking away.
“We can’t do this here,” she says breathlessly.
“Why not?” I ask, still circling her nipple.
She giggles a little. “Because there are people , coming and going, from the restaurant . Which is right there .” She gives her head a little jerk, and, yup, we’re parked about ten feet from the door, under bright lights. Part of me couldn’t care less. Another part of me doesn’t want to be arrested for indecent exposure.
“I would take you to my place…” I start, bending down to nibble her neck.
“...but your family is there,” she says, arching towards me. “We can’t go to my place…”
“…because your mom is there,” I finish. “Car sex?”
“No!” she says adamantly, pushing away again. “We are not having sex in this car. I spent eight years imagining you having sex with Allison in this car.”
“Mm, tell me more about that,” I joke, pulling her into another languorous kiss.
She smacks me playfully in the chest without taking her lips off mine.
“But seriously,” I continue, “the second and third rows of seats fold down, and there are lots of access roads and deserted trail heads.” I take my hand out from underneath her sweater and begin running it from her knee up the inside of her thigh.
“No! That’s so seedy!” But then she starts kissing me again and fingers the buttons of my shirt.
“Motel sex?” I ask when I come up for air, just to be sure we’ve explored all our options. As I touch her between her legs, she groans slightly and leans into my hand.
“ No ,” she insists. “That would be all over town in an hour.” But as I begin to stroke her through her clothes, I can tell she’s close to giving in. “Okay, fine ,” she says finally, breath ragged. “ There’s a trail head down a gravel road not too far from here. I’ll tell you where to turn.”
I grin at her as she scrambles back to her seat. “Buckle up, Johnson,” I say, as she tries, and fails, to look put out. “We are definitely having sex in this car.” My tires squeal as I peel out of the parking lot.
I arrive back home around eleven, having done my best, in the rearview mirror, to make myself look like someone who did not just spend two hours making love in the back of a car. The Navigator makes for an uncomfortable bedroom, but I just couldn’t quit Kayla. She looks so beautiful when she comes that I wanted to please her over and over again, to taste and touch and stroke every inch of her. I don’t tell her that I love her—that would terrify her—but I think it every minute. I just want her to know that I’m here for her, ready and willing to give her whatever she needs.
I’m hoping that everyone else has gone to sleep, but when I walk through the front door, I hear my mom on the phone in the living room. I catch phrases like “…none of your business…” and “…grown man…” and “He’s here now, I have to go.”
“Gabe!” she says cheerfully as I attempt to sneak upstairs. “How about a nightcap before you go to bed?”
I force a smile as I follow her to the kitchen.
“Adam’s got himself all worked up,” she says as she pours each of us two fingers of scotch. I sink down onto one of the stools that ring the big granite-topped island in the middle of the room.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I say. “He’s got no right –”
“I told him that,” she replies sharply, sliding a crystal tumbler to me. I take a sip, eyeing my mom out of the corner of my eye. She’s staring off into space, drumming her manicured nails on her glass. Adam and I look more like our dad, but I recognize my brother’s angry expression in her face. I brace myself for a scolding, like I’m a wayward teenager who’s just come home with alcohol on his breath. Or in rumpled clothes that smell like his girlfriend.
But instead of lashing out, she shakes her head and takes a sip of her drink. “He’s worried about you,” she says.
“I don’t think so,” I retort. To me it just seems like he’s being controlling. I haven’t spoken to him since we fought about Kayla and he acted like she was some shiny new toy that should have been offered to him before being passed on to me .
“He doesn’t show it well,” Mom concedes. “But he seems to think this woman you’re seeing?—”
“I’m not?—”
“Gabe, honey, it’s obvious.” She gives me a little smile. “And if she were one of the fifteen, or from out of town, that would be one thing. He’s worried that she’s trying to take advantage of you. None of us wants to see you get hurt again.”
I stand up from my bar stool and pace the kitchen in exasperation.
“None of you know her,” I say, giving up the ruse that there is no such person. I’m furious that my family all seems to agree that Kayla is some kind of brilliant con artist. I don’t know what I can say in her defense. Even if I insist that she would never take a dime from me (we’d even bickered about who should pay for dinner), they would probably just think that she’s playing the long game.
“But see, that’s the thing,” Mom continues. “You don’t even bring her around. If we did know her?—”
“Why would she want to come over here? She knows what you think of her! She’s not dumb!” I shout.
Mom weighs this for a moment. I hate that I’ve shouted at her. If anyone in my family has my best interest at heart, it’s her. She’s never pushed me like my dad has. And when I was little, she did her best to protect me from Adam’s competitiveness. She would redirect his constant demands that we face off over football or Final Fantasy and give me time to read or study my rock collection. She’d been not just sympathetic, but downright irate that Gretchen cheated on me. Plus I love and respect her because she’s my mother. I don’t want Kayla to drive a wedge between me and my family, and I know Kayla doesn’t want that either.
“You’d like her, Mom,” I say in a gentler tone. “She’s driven like Dad and tough like you. She’d do anything for her family or friends. She’s decent.”
Mom smiles a little, cautiously. “Gabe, I’m sure we’d love anyone you love. We’re not going to attack her the minute she walks in the door. Give us a chance to get to know her.”
I look down at my shoes. “I’m having a hard enough time right now getting her to give me a chance to get to know her.”
“Why?” Mom’s eyes narrow.
“She works all the time. She’s wary of relationships.” She may be seeing someone else, I think involuntarily. The confrontation with Jeff is still eating at me.
“Are you going to ask her to Hungry Hearts?” Mom asks.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I don’t know if she would say yes. Is it really so important that I go?”
“ Yes .” Her tone is sharp again. “Everyone knows you’re back in town. It will reflect badly on us if you’re not there. I trust you to find a suitable date on your own. But I need you to go.”
I nod, still looking down.
“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” she says in a tone that draws my eyes back to her face. “Gretchen is coming back to town that weekend. Her sister had the baby and she’s coming home to see her. I don’t know if she’ll be at the dance, but it’s possible that you’ll run into her.”
I let my breath out slowly. I feel irritation. Dread. Stress. But mostly what I feel is crowded . My burgeoning whatever-it-is with Kayla is like a tender green shoot surrounded on all sides by tall weeds. Between colleagues, family, friends and all of the busybodies in this small town, we can barely find enough sunlight and air to let our whatever-it-is grow. And now Gretchen Meier is coming back. Perfect.