Chapter 30
Gabriel
I want to kiss her. Over and over again. But right now, we’re spending time with Skye. There will be time for that later. As soon as we make it back to the cottage, though, I want to talk about this. I want to show her how I feel.
It’s not long before Skye tells us she has to go back inside. “Blueberry muffins,” she says.
“Are they serving you blueberry muffins tonight?”
River asks, sticking out her bottom lip and nodding, like she’s impressed.
Skye stands and wipes away the blades of grass sticking to her. “My favorite,”
“That’s exciting,”
River says, giving her a hug. We share a look like Never thought I’d see the day when Skye eats blueberries willingly.
On the drive home, I resist the urge to ask River what she meant by her words earlier. Whatever she means, I want to hear her loud and clear. I want to take this moment in, to revel in it. She is honeyed nectar to me right now.
Since I’m driving, I can’t do anything about that, so I start talking about other things. “Skye looked like she was feeling better.”
“Thankfully, she did,”
River says, tossing me a look.
“I want you to know that if there’s ever a reason Skye can’t stay at Caring Souls, she can come live with us.”
River turns in her seat to better face me. “But the cottage won’t fit—”
“We can’t stay there long-term anyway. We’ll find something else.”
There’s a long pause. “You’d really be willing to do that? To have her live with us?”
I nod. “It wouldn’t be easy in some ways, but she’s your sister. If she can’t be there, she needs to be with us.”
River’s blinking and giving a little cough, like her emotions are getting to be too much. A beat of silence passes. Then she says, “You know she can be totally evil sometimes, right? She’s cute and fun and all but she tries to cheat in boardgames and if you ever want to have pretzels on hand for yourself, you better hide them real good.”
My laugh feels nice in my chest. “Noted.”
She moistens her lips. “Pretty much every action I’ve taken the last three years has been to ensure that Skye is never in that bad place again. After our parents died, she went through a depression so dark it manifested in night terrors, food strikes, OCD.”
She steadies her breathing, and one glance at the hollow pain in her eyes and I’m pulling over.
I put the Bronco in Park. I wait for her to be ready to say more, holding her hand, skimming my thumb over the joints of her fingers. The smooth nails. The ridges of her fingerprints.
“Moving her through that became my only purpose,”
she whispers.
“Have you begun to move through it? The grief?”
I ask gently.
She blinks and looks out the window. “I don’t think so. I couldn’t. I had to be upright for Skye. I couldn’t weep all day and night in my bed like I needed to.”
“I’m here now. You don’t have to be upright all the time anymore.”
She searches my eyes, looking for anything unseen or unsaid. She nods. Gives a blip of a smile.
“Thank you, Gabriel. It means so much to me that you’re willing to . . . I don’t know . . . go through this with me.”
My throat thickens. “If it means getting to be with you, I’m ready and willing.”
“Let’s head home so we can discuss that in greater detail.”
There’s an ease in her posture and expression, like some of the heaviness has slipped away.
I begin to drive once more, but I hold her hand as much as I can the rest of the way.
Once inside, River goes in the bedroom to change out of her work clothes. She comes out in her bathrobe, and I stare so hard I nearly drop the apple I’m eating. She escorts me to the kitchen and then wraps her arms around me. I discard my apple and press my fingers into the low curve of her back. Lunch Lady Liz nuzzles our legs, and I gently lift a knee to push her away.
“So we like each other,”
I finally prompt, giving in to the pressure of trying to say something before I dissolve in kissing her. Her brown eyes dance, her pupils dilating as she moves a hair’s breath closer to me.
Liz resorts to scraping her paws down my calf and I wince. I’m so close to River that she sees it and draws back. “Are you okay?”
Her brows knit together, and she takes in my face, assessing me.
“Yeah. Liz is feeling left out.”
River groans. “I’m going to put you in your kennel if you misbehave,”
she chastises Liz. “Give us a moment of peace, why don’t you?”
“This brings up an excellent point.”
“And that is?”
River worries her lips, her eyes lively. This is playful. Flirtatious.
“We’re going to need to be on the same page when disciplining the dog.”
“Which means you have to lay off the treats.”
I chuckle. “I know. You’re right. I do.”
I make a show of frowning and lean back and away from her enough that I can pat my belly.
“I mean for Liz! You can have treats anytime you want. We should decide the maximum number of treats she can have in a day.”
She kisses me near my mouth, just under my cheekbone.
All the nerve endings in my lips tingle. So close, yet so far away. But I can be patient. It’s more than worth it to be patient.
“And the weekly anniversary gifts thing,”
she says. “We’d have to stop that, right? Since it could go on longer than the one year?”
Her vulnerability could melt a heart of stone.
I press her close. “I’ll work my tail off to do everything in my power so that this marriage never ends, River.”
And then, because we need some levity so I don’t ravage her, I say, “And what about the stuff all over the bathroom?”
Her mouth drops open. “Really? You’re gonna go there?”
“It’s like we’ve been ransacked by thieves on a daily basis.”
“Okay, I’ll be better about putting my face wash and stuff away if you’ll put your leftovers in a real container with a lid.”
I click my tongue. “When have I ever not done that?”
“Every single time we get takeout. The Styrofoam lids keep gaping open and making the rest of the fridge smell like a garlic press.”
I give a feathery kiss across her earlobe. “You love the smell of garlic.”
“Ew! I do not.”
“Then why did you eat my leftovers from the noodle place?”
She gasps and steps back. “They’d been in there for two whole days. I can’t let a perfectly good white sauce go to waste!”
“I was saving them.”
“Then write on it with a marker. ‘Do Not Eat.’ It’s not hard to communicate these things,” she says.
“I think communication is a very good thing and we should do more of it.”
Her bottom jaw slides to one side as she considers this. “You want to talk about communication? I’ll bring up communication. You can be more open about your feelings for me.”
She places a chaste kiss on my cheekbone. A loud smooch. But I grab her before she pulls away and tug her close.
“You want me to communicate my feelings?”
I ask, letting my gaze wander over her.
She shudders, grabbing her bottom lip between her teeth. “Uh huh.”
“You asked for it.”
I place a kiss on the hollow of her throat. “This thing.”
I rake my hands up and down her sides and then fist the fabric of her bathrobe. “Drives me insane. I want to put up a wax figure of you in it in a museum, it’s so hot on you.”
“My old bathrobe?”
Her voice squeaks, but she clears her throat. “It’s falling apart. But it’s sentimental to me.”
“You have no idea what it does to me, River,”
I say, my lips sweeping over her earlobe.
I sense she’s biting back a smile. “It’s hardly fair.”
“What’s hardly fair?”
“The thing that drives you insane about me is an article of clothing. One of the biggest things that draws me to you? It’s not something you can take off.”
“So your weakness for me is something more permanent, huh? There are plenty of traits of yours that I can’t remove.”
She nods gravely. “And it’s terrible. Genetics are such brats.”
I nip at the skin in that place between her shoulder and neck. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“If I do, you might wield them as a weapon.”
“Sounds fun to me.”
“Me too! That’s the whole problem.”
“But how is it a problem? Now that we’ve established we . . .”
I pause for emphasis. “. . . like each other for real, maybe we don’t have to hold back.”
“Oh but we do. It’s because . . .”
she pauses to give me three slow kisses on the other side of my face. “We still need to go on our first real date, buddy.”
“Please say you won’t start using ‘buddy’ as a nickname.”
She gives up a delicious laugh. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean I can’t come up with pet names for you in the future.”
“Since we’re starting today . . . as day one of our actual relationship . . . how about we hold off on the pet names and see what comes up naturally?”
I laugh as my lips slide slowly across her hairline.
“Okay, Pookie Bear,”
she says. Her giggle sends me over the edge.
“Okay, Rivernator.”
Now we both giggle. “In all seriousness,”
I say. “The thought of starting from scratch, for real, is the most exciting thing of the year.”
“Of the whole year?”
“Of maybe the whole year and a half!” I tease.
“Wow. I’m so honored,”
she deadpans.
“I mean it, though. I think this is the best idea we’ve ever come up with.”
I’m so close to her that her next words reverberate through my bones, through my very core. “I think I want to major in getting to know you, Mr. Gabriel Tate. I want to join the sorority, drink the Kool-Aid, and paint my face in the Gabriel Tate school colors.”
I chuckle deep down but then crush her in a kiss. We’re free-falling. No more pretenses. No more holding back because of the fear that it’s going to end.
My lips brand hers and I spin us around so that I can press her up against the wall.
“Wait.”
I breathe, panting for air, afraid I might topple over from sheer excitement. “You never told me what draws you to me.”
She brings her fingertips up to her lips, the pads of her fingers feathering over them, like she’s in wonder over it all. “I’ve been kissing them over and over again for a while now.”
I point to my cheeks. “These? My dimples?”
I flex them for emphasis.
“The most powerful siren’s song of my life.”
“You’re right.”
I’ve got her in my arms again and place a lingering kiss along that velvety space behind her ear. “I might use them as a weapon if they’re going to make you kiss me like this.”
I drop my arms to be able to hoist her up, and she laughs as she wraps her legs around my waist. When I spin her around so she can sit on the countertop, a loud scratching noise startles us apart.
“Nooo!”
River’s brow furrows as the frame holding my dad’s medallion crashes against the tile floor.
I don’t bend to pick it up, even though it was clear by the plinking sound that the glass has split even more.
“It’s okay,”
I assure her, my forehead resting on hers as we catch our breath. “It’s truly, honestly okay.”
I focus on tracing her jawline with my kisses.
There are many more urgent matters to worry about right now than my dad’s frame.