Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Molly
“ O h, my god, Molly!”
I turn when I hear my name. I barely get a chance to see where it came from before a striking brunette in a purple gown throws herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and bouncing on her toes.
“Jesus Christ, Ames, let her breathe.” Gabe’s voice is amused, and I pull away just enough to look into the beaming face of Gabe’s middle sister.
“Holy shit, Amelia!” I wrap my arms back around her, and this time it’s me bouncing. I always loved Gabe’s sisters, but Amelia was twelve the last time I saw her. Seeing her all grown up is a crazy kind of time warp.
“I can’t even believe how grown up you are,” I say when she finally lets me go.
We’re standing on the terrace of the building Gabe donated, surrounded by a veritable who’s who of Berkeley alumni and the San Francisco tech world. The terrace is decorated with spring flowers and is awash in the glow of twinkle lights strung overhead. It’s gorgeous and romantic, and I’m standing next to a beautiful man who hasn’t stopped touching me since I walked out of my hotel room earlier tonight in the dark pink strapless dress I chose. He gaped at me for a full minute before he regained the power of speech and pressed me up against the door to my room, kissing me senseless and absolutely destroying my lipstick.
It was honestly one of the top ten moments of my entire life.
“I can’t even believe you’re here with my brother,” Amelia says, her gaze bouncing between Gabe and me. “I mean, I know he had this whole plan to come and get you, but I didn’t think it would actually work.”
“Hey now,” Gabe says, narrowing his eyes at Amelia and sliding his arm back around my waist, gripping my hip possessively. “Weren’t you the one who was all, go get her ; it’s time ?”
“I was being supportive, Gabriel. We’re your hype squad.”
I laugh, loving their obvious and open affection for each other. “I mean, look at him,” I say to Amelia, waving a hand at Gabe, who looks like a freaking movie star in a black tux that fits his broad shoulders so well there’s no way it isn’t custom. “How could I not want all of that?”
The heat in Gabe’s gaze when he looks at me has my stomach fluttering, and when he dips his head to kiss me, the fluttering turns into a full-blown butterfly assault.
“Stop it! Oh, my god, you guys are so cute I could die.”
Gabe and I break apart and turn at the same time, looking right into the grinning face of a woman who has to be Gabe’s youngest sister, Olivia.
“Liv,” Gabe murmurs, wrapping her in a tight hug, soft smile on his face.
My eyes water a little as I watch them, deeply touched by their obvious closeness.
“They’ve always had a special relationship,” Amelia says quietly, linking her arm through mine, turning us so our backs are to Gabe and Olivia. “I sometimes think Liv was the only thing that got Gabe through those early years without my parents. Without you. He made a mistake, telling you to leave that day. He never should have let you go. He was only half a person without you.”
I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly, turning so I can face Amelia. Once upon a time, I held Amelia while she cried herself to sleep, just a little girl missing her parents. But she’s all grown up now, and she deserves my truths too. “I was half a person, too, for a long time. Gabe may not have handled it right, but I don’t know if we would have made it if I had stayed. I didn’t know how to help him, and he didn’t know how to accept my help. It’s no one’s fault. It just is. And, well, we’re here now.”
“And where is here, exactly?” Amelia asks, expression turning sly.
“Well, right now, here is on this terrace, on my college campus, wearing an amazing dress Gabe basically Pretty Womaned me into earlier today and shoes I love so much I don’t even care that my feet are killing me.”
“And is here also you and Gabe being together again, officially? Not just in a fond memory or fake fiancée kind of way?”
I open my mouth, but I don’t have a chance to respond before Olivia interrupts with a whispered, “You better not be talking about the fake fiancée thing without me.”
Gabe chuckles and I spin around, grinning at his youngest sister.
“She’s the best fake fiancée a guy could ask for,” Gabe says, snaking his arm around my shoulders and pulling me in front of him so I rest back against his chest.
“I need details,” Liv says, hands on her hips. “How the fuck did this happen?”
“Language,” Gabe growls, and holy hell. That growl in my ear. I forgot he could sound like that. I have a quick and dirty fantasy about hearing it while Gabe is taking me from behind, pulling my hair, and I kind of wish I had extra underwear in my purse because the ones I’m wearing might be ruined.
“I’m eighteen, Gabe. Sometimes I say fuck.”
He shrugs. “Once I kind of had to try to be a parent. Some habits are hard to break.”
Liv turns to me. “So, tell me all the things.”
I grin at her because she is just absolute sunshine. I feel a rush of pride because Gabe did this. For all intents and purposes, he raised both of these girls into the women they are, and everything I see now tells me he did a fabulous job.
My walls are at ground level.
“It’s just your basic, asshole rival lawyer tries to intimidate me because he wants to steal one of my clients, and Gabe rescues me from near assault by telling him, and I quote, if you don’t take your hand off my fiancée right the fuck now, I’ll cut it off . Only your brother had to go and get all famous and shit, so someone overheard and took a picture, and now we have to pretend to be engaged so my biggest client doesn’t think I’m a lying liar who lies and actually fires me, which he would, because he’s an asshole too. I can’t exactly tell him I’m engaged and not also pretend to the whole world, so that’s where we are, and also why I had a thirty-minute conversation with the president of UC Berkeley earlier tonight about why fall is the superior wedding season.”
Liv squeals, pressing her hands to her chest and turning to Gabe. “That is some serious romance novel shit, my guy. I knew you were a swoon machine.”
“Okay, so I know the fiancée part is fake,” Amelia says, looking back and forth between Gabe and me. “But what about the rest of it? Because this—” She gestures at Gabe’s arm wrapped around me from behind and the way my head rests back against his shoulder. “This doesn’t look fake at all.”
I want to say that nothing about the way I feel about Gabe is anything except for real. That I love him now, and I’ll love him forever, and now that he’s back in my life, nothing in my world will ever make any sense again without him in it. I want to say fuck it and dive back in with both feet and be Gabe and Molly. Molly and Gabe. The way it was always supposed to be.
Something still holds me back, though, even with my walls crumbling at my feet. One last tether to the way we broke and our time apart. I don’t know what it is or how to sever it. All I can do is be here now and hope that one day I won’t be anything except for sure.
I know I’ve been silent too long, that everyone is waiting for me to say that this is, in fact, not fake at all. I know because Gabe stiffens a little behind me at the same time his arm around me tightens, and his other hand comes up to grasp my hip like he can keep me with him through sheer force of will alone.
“What we are is still under negotiation,” Gabe says. His voice is light, but I know without looking at him that his smile doesn’t go all the way to his eyes.