Chapter 11 Taylor
TAYLOR
It was finally Friday night. I was uncertain about Gabriel’s choice of venue, but I’d chosen last time, so I was trying to be a good sport. He’d promised to help me have more fun, and he seemed to take the assignment seriously.
I leaned up against the wall outside the bar where he’d told me to meet him, looking down at my phone. I felt a hand on my shoulder and a quick kiss on my cheek before Gabriel said, “Hey, baby.”
I tried not to let my surprise show at the pet name.
He’d called me baby in between kisses last weekend, but oxytocin and serotonin made you say all kinds of things you didn’t mean.
I chalked it up to the afterglow, which was fine.
We hadn’t defined the relationship yet—although the thought of him calling anyone else baby made my stomach twist.
Was this a word he used liberally or only with me?
Did it mean something to him now?
“I missed you this week.” I wrapped him in a hug and buried my face in his hair. “How was work?”
Gabriel felt good in my arms. The floral shirt he wore open over a white tank hugged his biceps just right, and the dark hair on his thighs peeking out from the holes in his ripped jeans had my pulse quickening as I remembered what it had felt like against my skin.
Keeping him at arm’s length was not working—literally or figuratively. The way I ran my hands down his back, pulling him closer, felt like showing too many cards, but when I saw how Gabriel smiled at me, I couldn’t bring myself to stop.
“No talking about work tonight.” Gabriel squeezed my ribs as he pulled free from my embrace. “It’s shenanigans time!”
He grabbed my hand and dragged me into the bar as I followed him, laughing.
My stomach did that sour flip-flopping thing again when Gabriel turned his sparkling hazel gaze at the beautiful bartender.
It had been so long since I’d felt jealous that the emotion startled me.
His hand didn’t leave mine, even when she brought over our drinks and those tiny pencils for our scorecards.
It turned out I was terrible at mini golf.
And not even in the damsel-in-distress way, to convince Gabriel to stand behind me and show me how to swing, the heat from his body and his breath on my neck sending chills up my spine.
This reckless part of me that Gabriel seemed to bring out wanted to push back against him, while the rational part of my brain flushed and stepped away to retrieve my ball that bounced off course and rolled underneath an alien spacecraft.
We took a break for more drinks before lining up to start the second course, and I scooted into the bar booth behind him so I could tuck him under my arm. His hand went immediately to my leg as he perused the menu.
“So, what are you up to the rest of the weekend?” I asked.
“I have to visit my parents in Santa Ana.” He huffed, blowing one of his curls around in the process.
A pit sank in my stomach at the tone of his voice. “Are they not accepting of you?”
“It’s not that, exactly. They mean well, but they have this specific roadmap for my life. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I can be a bit of a chaos gremlin.”
“A shenanigans instigator.”
“It’s true.” Gabriel let out a self-deprecating puff of laughter, but he didn’t quite smile like I’d been hoping. “My parents aren’t unsupportive directly, but they don’t exactly know what to do with me. I want to make them proud.”
“I don’t know how anyone could look at you and not feel proud. You’re an amazing human.” I tilted his chin up and brought my lips to his. “I don’t have the best examples to draw from, but it seems to me that a good parent would want their child to feel happy and fulfilled.”
Gabriel studied me from under those long eyelashes, and the corner of his lips tipped up.
Not enough to make his dimples pop, but at least he was smiling.
“Thanks. I make it out to see them about once a month, and I can manage to suffer through it for their sake. The guilt keeps me away and keeps me coming back, you know?”
“Yeah.” I squeezed his shoulder as the waiter approached the table with our fries. “Good thing we ordered potatoes. They make everything better.”
He chuckled at that, looking grateful for my willingness to move the conversation elsewhere.
I’d made peace with my parental situation a long time ago, but it still stung that the people who brought me into this world didn’t have much interest in being a part of my life—aside from my financial contributions.
They’d been all too happy to put me in the middle of their battles, blame us kids for their unhappiness, and hand the adult responsibilities over to me as soon as they could.
In some ways, that was a gift. I was free to be who I was without their expectations.
But it had been awful in other ways. I had to grow up too fast and give up too many things.
Playing mini golf on a date at thirty-two brought back a bit of that childhood crush energy I hadn’t experienced since I was fifteen.
I couldn’t understand how anyone would fail to see what an incredible person Gabriel was.
The electricity of being around him. He put on this front as the confident life of the party, and this was the first time I’d seen him looking vulnerable and unsure.
God, I wanted to fix it all for him. I ran a finger through the curls above his ear.
Gabriel’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “You’re obsessed with my hair.”
We weren’t far apart in height, but I liked the way he looked up at me when he was tucked against my side. He ran his hand down my thigh.
“Have you seen your hair?” I tugged on one of his curls. “These are a national treasure. So soft, and you smell like a creamsicle on the beach.”
Gabriel tilted his head back and laughed. “I’m hiring you to run my PR.”
“I’d consider a career change as long as the benefits are good.”
“Oh, I think you’ve experienced how good the benefits are. But I’d be happy to provide a refresher.”
Gabriel licked into my mouth. He tasted salty from the fries and sweet from his margarita, which was a delicious combination. In fact, Gabriel was my new favorite flavor.
By the end of the second round of mini golf, my score was more than double Gabriel’s, but the tension had unwound from my neck, and my abs hurt from laughing.
I should have been thinking about getting enough sleep so that I’d be able to get through everything tomorrow: grocery shopping and meal prepping with Kai, and wedding planning with Margo.
All I was worried about was getting enough Gabriel—impossible, it turns out. The limit did not exist.
We lingered in the parking lot, facing each other and leaning up against my car. Neither of us seemed quite ready to say good night. Our fingers threaded together, with my thumb rubbing over the back of his hand.
I felt like a teenager again.
I’d run out of words, but Gabriel kept right on chugging, and I found that I didn’t mind listening to him explain the decision process behind the botanical garden’s new sustainable landscaping exhibit or his thoughts on the bisexual Bachelorette or why he would never turn down tres leches even though lemon bars were his favorite.
Gabriel had taken a ride share to meet me tonight, so I contemplated bringing him home with me. I’d learned my lesson the first time, hadn’t I? The groceries, the wedding planning, the work email—nothing made me feel alive like his fingers trailing up and down my arm mindlessly as he rambled.
It was disorienting, thinking not only of tonight but all the nights together in the foreseeable future.
The buzz was better than the margaritas, and I wanted to drown in it.
I wanted to forget that all relationships inevitably ended in tragedy.
I wanted to pretend that some of the luck Margo lived by was left over for me.
“Hey,” I blurted, realizing when I saw Gabriel’s startled face that I’d probably interrupted him.
“Look, I know I don’t have much to give right now when it comes to my time and energy.
My work will be crazy for months, and it gets like this every year.
Then there’s Margo’s wedding coming up so fast… ”
Gabriel stepped back and eyed me skeptically. “What are you saying?”
“Agh, no, this is coming out all wrong.” I shook my head and took a deep breath. “What I meant was, the timing’s not ideal, but I like you a lot, and I was thinking that maybe we could give this a try? I want to try. Being exclusive, I mean. Boyfriends? If you’d be into that.”
The longer I spoke, the more Gabriel stiffened, his hands releasing mine and tucking into his pockets.
The silence stretched out between us, and… I must have overstepped. I thought we were both really into each other, but maybe Gabriel was more liberal with his use of pet names. I’d read too much into it.
I had no idea what made Gabriel close up on me, but I needed to fix it as soon as possible.
I needed him smiling again. It had been two weeks, and I already couldn’t imagine being without his constant texts, random GIFs, and goodnight phone calls.
I didn’t want another Friday night without his company.
“I’m not…”
“Never mind,” I said, mirroring his pose, my hands in pockets. “Forget I said anything. I didn’t even ask if you were looking for a relationship, and we’ve only been on a handful of dates. We can totally keep things casual.”
I lied out of my ass, even though every other time I’d said those words, I’d meant it. But I hadn’t met Gabriel then. It was fine. I had plenty of experience with casual. At least this way, I wouldn’t end up like my parents. I certainly did not want to end up like my parents.
Gabriel was still frozen, his mouth open and his eyes wide. I turned to lean my back against the car because I didn’t want him to read the humiliation on my face. I tilted my head to examine the bar’s neon sign hanging above us.
“Taylor,” Gabriel said cautiously.
“We’re good. I hope everything goes ok with your parents this weekend.” I pulled my keys from my pocket and hit the unlock button as I looked down at my feet. God, anywhere but Gabriel’s face right now.
It was strange to find myself in this place, wanting a relationship for the first time in forever, and I’d jumped in with both feet before checking the temperature of the water.
An uncalculated risk was unlike me, and the embarrassment scratching against my skin like a too-small wool sweater reminded me why.
Tomorrow, I would blame the alcohol I’d had at the bar, say I was drunk enough that I could pretend the whole conversation away, even though that would be a lie. At that moment, I felt painfully sober.
“Taylor,” Gabriel said again, but not making a move to close the distance between us.
“I’ll see you next Friday, maybe?” I stepped around him to get to the front door of my car.
A large group of laughing people tumbled from the bar behind us, and I braced my shoulders against the intrusion of cheerful sounds. That was us an hour ago.
“Yeah,” he said, “of course, baby.”
I couldn’t help wincing. I was unsure how this evening had gotten so far off plan. Wasn’t it just a few hours ago that the word baby in Gabriel’s mouth was a revelation?
“I’ll text you, and we can make plans?” He had the decency to look sorry, but it didn’t do much to ease my anxiety.
“Sure,” I said, plastering a smile on my face.
My mind couldn’t help crunching the numbers again, analyzing the data to see where I went wrong.
The chemistry, the nicknames, the way he’d spend all day texting with me and still call to say goodnight—that went beyond a casual fuck, didn’t it?
I’d been out of the game for so long that perhaps I’d forgotten the applicable equation.
I sank into the driver’s seat, started the car, and got the hell out of that damn parking lot as quickly as legally possible.