Chapter 26
Gabriella
Now
The thing with disappointment, is knowing you shouldn’t care, but somehow caring about it the most.
That’s how I was feeling right now.
There was an ache low in my stomach. The wine I’d thrown back was still warm in my veins, not enough to make me stop feeling, but enough that I wasn’t sobbing over it.
I was, however, pathetically glancing at the window every few minutes, like something in me still expected him to appear if I willed it hard enough.
I hated that I’d noticed.
On some level, I’d always known he was out there. And I had learned to live with it. I was able to go about my nightly business, comforted in a strange way, but not obsessed with it. But now, now that he had crossed so many boundaries, I missed his presence with an ache that was physical.
Now that he wasn’t here, the silence seemed thicker than normal. Everything felt strange. Tonight, the dark was just the dark. Any noises were just ones that belonged to the night. There were no shadows watching, no hidden figures guarding over me.
For once, it was just me, myself, and I.
Vienna had always been the habit I had never been able to break, and the one constant I had learned to live with—and come to rely on, even if I didn’t want to admit that.
And tonight he hadn’t come. I couldn’t remember the last time he wasn’t here.
I had never truly realised how much of my nights were built around the knowledge that he would be there until he wasn’t. It was stupid and embarrassing, but the truth of it was, I missed him. Even though I had no right to. Even though space was the safest option, I still missed him.
I sat cross-legged in the middle of my bed, my phone loose in one hand, the other wrapped around the stem of a half-empty wineglass.
The bottle sat abandoned on the bedside table beside the lamp, already more empty than full, and I knew that I should stop now.
That I should drink some water, wash my face, get into bed, and let this mood pass like every other one before it.
Instead, I took another sip and looked at the window again.
But why should I have to? Why couldn’t I have one thing for myself? Why couldn’t I have these stolen, forbidden moments of happiness?
I caught my reflection in the glass, and a laugh escaped me, soft and humourless. “Brilliant,” I muttered to the empty room. “Look at the state of you.”
This was what I had wanted, wasn’t it? Distance?
There was less of a chance for things to go wrong, for everything to spiral into something neither of us could take back. Fewer nights spent standing on opposite sides of glass pretending that wasn’t somehow more intimate than being touched.
Yet now that he had finally given me exactly what I had been silently begging for, I hated it.
My fingers tightened around the phone, and I stared down at the blank screen.
My texts were monitored, just like every other aspect of my life.
But it had been years—years—of me not using this stupid thing, other than to text Nico asking “how high” when he told me to jump.
I couldn’t even remember the last time he’d checked my phone, because he knew how limited my social life was.
Surely there would be no harm in one small text? A quick phone call?
Before I could think better of it, I unlocked it and found his number, pressing dial before logic and reason had the chance to infiltrate the recklessness of the wine.
As the phone rang, my stomach hollowed, my heart raced, and my hands grew sweaty. This was a terrible idea, an absolutely catastrophic one. But there was no turning back now.
The ringing seemed endless in the otherwise silence of my room, and I chewed on my lower lip, beginning to think that he wasn’t going to answer.
And then, the ringing stopped, and there was quiet on the other end.
I pulled the phone away from my cheek, glancing down at the screen, seeing that the call had been disconnected, he just wasn’t talking. As I brought it back up to my ear, I heard the soft sound of his breathing.
“Vienna,” I whispered, closing my eyes tightly.
What had I been expecting? That he would answer the phone with something humorous, no doubt calling himself the greatest man ever, and then come rescue me?
Miracles didn’t happen twice, and I’d already been given that version of him.
His breathing picked up ever so slightly once he heard my voice, and before I could help myself, I found myself speaking again.
“Why aren’t you here?”
“Gabby,” he breathed.
“You didn’t come tonight.”
“No. I didn’t,” he said softly, sounding almost sad.
“Why?” I asked, and then immediately cringed, hearing how pathetic I sounded.
There was a beat of silence on the other end, and then, very quietly, he said, “You called just to tell me off?” followed by a small chuckle from somewhere deep in his chest. A chuckle that did something wicked to me.
I swallowed and tipped my head back against the headboard. “I’m not telling you off.”
“No?” he murmured.
“No.”
“What would you call it, then?”
I looked toward the window again, as though that might somehow help. “An observation.”
He made a soft sound under his breath, something halfway between amusement and disbelief. “An observation.”
“Yes.”
“And what else have you observed?” he asked.
“I thought you were the observer in this relationship?” I replied, wanting to tease him. Instead, his breath sucked in sharply.
“We don’t have a relationship.”
I felt as though I had been punched in the gut. Pain flared underneath every inch of skin on my body, and I had to bite down on the palm of my hand to stop the sob from escaping.
“That was an asshole thing to say, I’m sorry,” he finally said, which was a relief because I had nothing else to say.
“No, it’s okay. You were right. We have a history. That’s not the same thing.”
A soft sigh came from the other end, and though it was a small noise, there was so much hidden in it, so much left unsaid.
“Why did you call, Gabby?”
“I… I don’t know.”
This was fucking humiliating.
“I wanted to hear your voice,” I finally settled on saying.
He took a sharp intake of breath. “How honest are we being here? Is this a one-off, all cards on the table, type of situation? Are we laying it all bare, and then business as usual tomorrow?”
“You have something you’d like to get off your chest?”
“Princess, I could write a book with all I’d like to say to you,” he chuckled softly. “But I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
“I want you to,” I whispered.
“So, we’re in agreement?”
“I guess.”
“No, no guessing. Is this a one off, all cards on the table, business as usual tomorrow type of phone call?”
“Yes,” I said firmly.
“Good. Then let me start. Did you miss me?” he asked softly, and my pulse kicked up a notch.
“I—”
“All cards on the table,” he reminded me, sensing my hesitation.
“Yes, I miss you. Do you—do you miss me?”
“Of course I fucking miss you, Gabby. Every second of every fucking day. It’s been years since our nightly texts, and yet I still find myself writing at least one before I can sleep.”
“Vienna…”
“I’m not going to apologise. All cards on the table. We said we’d be honest.”
I didn’t say to fucking gut me.
But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said, “Some people have a nightlight. Others have white noise. Who knew the biker VP needed to type out ‘U up?’ to get to sleep.”
He laughed properly then, and I could easily picture his beautiful smile. “Don’t be saying that out loud. You could ruin a man’s reputation with such talk.”
“In the nicest way possible, Vienna, I think that ship sailed a long time ago.”
“You’re probably right. But there are other ways my reputation is still intact,” he murmured, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a teasing lilt to his voice.
“Oh, yeah? And how’s that?”
And just like that, something shifted.
My stomach tightened.
I adjusted where I sat on the bed, suddenly too aware of the heat gathered between my thighs, of the thin fabric of my nightdress against my skin, of the fact that I was alone in my room talking to the man I had once planned an entire life around.
“I’ve been known to be very skilled over the phone a time or two.”
“Really? Because I have had many conversations with you, and such skills have never been made apparent.”
“What happened to being honest?”
I should have heeded his warning—it was there in his tone of voice, in the teasing lilt to his words. But I had relaxed, the wine making my decisions less than stellar. So, I pushed.
“Oh, I am being honest. Your phone calls were… clumsy at best.”
“Clearly you’re forgetting that phone call that had you—”
“Had me what, Luke?” I interrupted, deliberately using his name and not his road name.
I was playing with fire and I knew it.
“If you want to go reminiscing down phone sex memory lane, I’m more than happy to hitch a ride. Let’s start with the first one. I—”
“I don’t think we need to go there!” I hurried to interrupt, not feeling quite as brave now that he was willing to rehash each and every one of them.
“Oh, but I think we do. You’ve called my skills into question here, Princess, it’s only right I defend my honour. Especially as it seems you’ve forgotten. It would only be right to refresh your memory.”
Heat flamed my face. I remembered them all. Each and every one of them. In vivid detail.
Fuck.
“Don’t you remember the way you had to hold the pillow over your face to stop your dad hearing you scream? The way your bedsheets were soaked afterwards?” His voice was deeper now. So much deeper.
My fingers skimmed the bottom of my nightdress, brushing against my thighs, and I closed my eyes, letting the memories wash over me.
“I remember.”