Chapter 14 #2
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked when he pulled Emmy right side up and noticed she was no longer smiling. His face dropped in concern.
The music transitioned into a bouncy salsa-pop song with a heavy beat. Bodies around them started shimmying and shaking to
the new sounds.
Emmy glanced over her shoulder without responding and felt Gabe follow her eyes. He stiffened at the sight of Jacob staring at them.
“Is that him?” he said under the song, obviously having figured it out.
Emmy nodded.
As soon as she did, Gabe sharply pivoted and led them across the floor—straight toward Jacob.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. She tried to plant her feet and stop, but he was holding her too tight and moving too
fluidly. They were basically tangoing right at him. “Gabe, stop it!”
“Just relax.”
She could do nothing of the sort. Not only were they gliding directly toward disaster, but everyone was staring at them because
Gabe was moving like he’d waltzed off the Dancing with the Stars stage. He stepped and pivoted and dipped like it had been choreographed, and Emmy was along for the ride, somehow a nimble
ballerina in his arms.
“What are you going to do?” she nervously asked.
“I told you I’d have choice words for him if we ever met,” he said. Before she could react, he shifted to grip her hand and
reeled her in to his chest. Then pushed her hip hard so she spun out with their arms fully extended, linked by their hands.
He’d spun her directly at Jacob and his date, and for a frozen moment, Emmy’s eyes locked on Jacob’s from a foot away.
Jacob watched her with a stunned look on the face she’d been familiar with once upon a time.
His blue eyes studied her as something unspoken passed between them.
She couldn’t be sure what all their silent conversation contained on his part.
Maybe surprise. Maybe intrigue. Maybe, she was happy to believe, a little bit of regret.
On her end, it was... nothing. An absence of feeling.
Where she thought she would feel angst and anger, she felt pure neutrality at seeing him again.
Which was relieving and supremely satisfying.
Especially when Gabe skillfully reeled her back in and then dipped her over right in front of him.
The steps couldn’t have been more perfectly placed.
“Jacob?” Gabe asked, and nodded at him once they were upright.
“Yeah?” Jacob said with a confused frown.
Emmy worried what was going to come out of Gabe’s mouth next, but he gave Jacob one of his devastating million-dollar smug
smiles and said three words. “Big mistake. Huge.” Then he twirled Emmy like a top and moved them back across the floor.
She was nearly crying with glee by the time he stopped spinning her. “Did you just Pretty Woman him?”
“I told you: choice words,” he said, and pulled her flush against him.
Emmy cackled under the moonlight and let him continue to spin and sway her body. They didn’t run into Jacob again, and Emmy
wondered if (hoped?) he was off sulking in defeat. For how worried she’d been about seeing him, it ended up not being a big
deal at all. Thanks in no small part to Gabe. His presence was buoying her in so many ways.
Later, when it came time for her speech, Emmy left the crowd misty eyed. Then she shared a dance with her dad and a few with
her sister and Ben in a mob of bouncing bodies belting lyrics to “Good as Hell” and “Uptown Funk.” By the time the cake came
out, the air had thickened enough to erase all the stars and started to tingle with electricity. The first clap of thunder
rolled in around the time most guests had shed their shoes and moved to the sand for nightcaps anyway. Gary and Cary’s boat
was visible lurking offshore.
Piper found Emmy at the edge of the party and slung her arm around her shoulders. She kissed her cheek with a contented sigh,
resigned to their fate. “Well, it was perfect while it lasted.”
Emmy turned to her with a smile, happy to see her surrender to Mother Nature. “It was.”
They watched the storm clouds roll closer until a playful drizzle turned into big, juicy drops that sent everyone scattering
for cover. Gabe grabbed Emmy’s hand and towed her under the nearest bar’s thatched roof.
“We should catch a shuttle before this gets too bad!” He nearly had to shout over the sudden downpour. The sky had cracked open.
“I think it’s already bad!” Emmy shouted back.
Globs of water pummeled into the sand and slapped the swimming pools. Emmy’s feet were already soaked in her strappy heels,
and the hem of her dress lapped up water like a sponge. She gathered her skirt up around her knees as Gabe took off his jacket
and held it over their heads as a shield. The warm smell of him enveloped her in a heady rush.
“I don’t think that’s going to last very long!” she yelled and pointed to his thin jacket.
He shrugged with a smile. “Come on!”
They hurried off into the rain toward a shuttle stop as buckets of water poured down. Gabe’s jacket was soaked in seconds
and became more of a limp curtain than an umbrella. Luckily, the hotel staff had jumped into action, and a line of golf carts
waited at the nearest stop. They hurtled themselves into one and told the driver their room number.
“This is ridiculous!” Emmy shouted with a cackle. “I’ve never seen rain this hard in my life!” She slid across the wet bench
seat into his hip as they took a corner.
“Me neither!” he said, and threw an arm around her to keep her in place. He gripped the handle hanging from the ceiling with
his other hand.
Emmy shivered against him. Unlike home where the rain was often stinging and cold, here it was warm and thick, each drop a
plump bulb that popped on contact. But the warmth of Gabe’s body pressed up against hers made her all the more aware she was
getting soaked. The cart had no doors and a roof really only to shield out the sun. It was no match for a torrential downpour.
“At least it waited until now!” Emmy said, and stuck her hand out into it. Fat drops pelted her palm.
“Yes, could have been worse,” Gabe said right as they hit a hard bump that bounced them off their seat.
Emmy let out a yelp and gripped his thigh with both hands. “What was that?” she shouted. Their cart skidded sideways and came to a stop halfway off the path. She glanced over the edge to see what had happened, but only saw a river of rainwater rushing over the pavement.
The driver hopped out and inspected the cart, then shouted over the rain, “Flat tire!” He climbed back in and unclipped the
radio hooked to his belt before speaking into it. He waited for a response and turned back to Emmy and Gabe. “Wait for maintenance,”
he said, and waved the radio at them.
Rain continued to slam down around them. It pounded the roof of the cart and splashed up off itself where it had begun to
flood the path. Emmy looked forward through the half windshield and saw their building glowing in the distance. It was at
least a hundred yards away still, but the alternative seemed to be drowning in a golf cart while they waited for a repair.
“Want to make a run for it?” she asked Gabe.
He laughed at first but then realized she was serious. “We’ll get soaked!”
“We’re already soaked!” She flopped the soggy entrails of her dress onto his lap.
He looked down and then he shook his head with a wry smile. “Okay, if you say so, Jameson.”
“I do,” she said, and gripped his hand. “Gracias!” she shouted to the driver as she yanked Gabe out of the cart behind her.
The flood washed over her toes, and she gave up any notion of caution after two steps. They were instantly soaked. She held
her skirt and clutch in one hand and Gabe’s hand in her other and ran.
“Don’t slip!” Gabe shouted from behind her.
“Don’t trip!” she shouted back.
They kept running, splashing a path through the storm and getting absolutely drenched.
Emmy’s hair fell from its artfully braided bind and slapped at her back.
Her dress clung to her like a second skin.
Gritty rocks and sand pushed their way between her toes and into shoes she’d probably have to throw away.
She heard Gabe chuckling behind her and glanced back to see him tilting his head toward the sky. The clouds had stolen all
the moonlight and left them only with the interspersed lamps buried in the palms lining the path. Even in the dim glow, she
could see his shirt was soaked and completely see-through. He held his jacket looped over an arm.
Emmy released his hand and came to a stop in the middle of the pathway. They were twenty or so yards from the building now.
She held her arms out and leaned her head back, letting the warm rain shower down over her. Gabe stopped next to her, and
she felt his eyes on her.
She looked over at him, wet to the bone and chest heaving from running. He was looking at her with a heat unlike anything
she’d felt before. A need.
Through the pouring water, the heavens crashing down all around them, she felt it too. An ache deep in her chest only he could
soothe.
Emmy stepped toward Gabe and watched the rain drip off the ends of his hair and cling to his long lashes. He was doing nothing
to stop it, to shield himself or keep dry. His singular focus was her and only her.
Her heart thundered in her chest. The lightning sparking in the distance could have been channeling into her fingertips.
“What were you thinking in the elevator the other night?” she asked. The rain nearly drowned out her voice, but by the sudden
flash in his eyes, the flare in his nostrils, she knew he heard her.
He stepped closer, nearly eliminating the space between them. She could feel the heat of his body, the literal steam rising
off him in the rain. He searched her face with his dark eyes and spoke in a low rasp. “I was thinking I wanted to kiss you
until you forgot how to breathe.”
Emmy nearly collapsed. The nerves sending signals to her legs might as well have been hit by a line drive all over again.
She’d thought it might have been something of the sort, but she hadn’t let herself hope.
Now she knew, and it took all her strength to remain upright long enough to ask him another question.
“Do you still want to?”
Gabe stepped even closer, nearly chest to chest now, and reached for her face. Water streamed off their noses, dripped from
their hair. His eyes continued to search hers, a pair of embers in the dark, as he softly cupped her cheek and brushed his
thumb over her lips. “More than anything.”
Emmy could not take one more second of not knowing what it felt like to kiss Gabe Olson.
She pushed up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. He instantly leaned into it, cupping her face with both hands. She
gripped his wrists and heard herself softly moan. The release was more than she could have imagined—more than she knew she’d
needed. An uncoiling of something so tightly wound, she would have snapped if they’d denied themselves any longer. His tongue
swept over hers, wanting more, and she realized in a hot rush that she’d been wondering what Gabe Olson tasted like for years.
Sweet. Warm. Perfect.
He wrapped his arms around her back to pull her closer and lifted her off the ground in the process. She happily pressed her
body into his, enjoying being squeezed. He was firm, with arms like steel, but warm and gentle at the same time.
She threaded her arms around his neck and kissed him deeper, her heart pounding out more more more . The pouring rain had all but disappeared. It was only them, standing in a downpour with the bubble of their kiss as their
own personal umbrella. The world could have ended, and Emmy wouldn’t have noticed or cared.
Gabe eventually pulled back and pressed his forehead into hers. “Hi,” he said in a low voice.
“Hi,” Emmy said back.
They stayed that way, pressed together and staring deep into each other’s eyes for a long moment.
“We’re getting very wet,” Gabe said with a small laugh.
“We are.”
“Should we go inside?”
“Probably a good idea.”
They released each other and continued on the path, no longer running because there was no point, but still holding hands.
When they reached the building’s breezeway, Gabe pulled on her to stop.
“Emmy, wait.”
She turned back to him. They were the only ones around. Everyone else had the sense to come in out of the rain ages ago. Each
of them dripped a small pool at their feet. Gabe’s shirt clung to him, completely transparent. Emmy’s chest had risen into
peaks plainly evident through her dress. Her hair hung in a soaked tangle dripping down her back.
“I don’t think I can go in there,” Gabe said.
She looked at him in concern. “Why not?”
He took a breath and stepped toward her, searching her eyes again. “Because I don’t want this to stop, and going in there
with you is going to make it very, very difficult to stop.”
Her heart took a bounding leap and all her blood refocused to the deep core of her belly.
He didn’t want it to stop.
And neither did she.
She pressed a hand to his chest. “Why does it have to stop?”
He looked down at her pruned fingers splayed over his soaked shirt. There were dozens of reasons they should stop, but neither
of them seemed to be able to name one.
Gabe looked back up at her, eyes hooded but still glowing. “I guess it doesn’t have to.”
Emmy’s pulse leapt. Her fingers twitched where she touched him.
A million thoughts sped through her mind.
She honestly couldn’t tell if this was the best or worst idea she’d ever had.
“How about this?” she said. “Same as with the baseball bruise, the bachelorette, the seasickness, the texting—basically all of this: What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico?”
Gabe considered for a few beats but looked like he’d made his mind up ages ago. Maybe before he’d even boarded the plane to
come meet her. “Always one for logic, Jameson,” he said with a nod. Then he gripped her hand and pulled her toward the elevator.