Chapter Two
Gabe
I’d only been knocked out once in my boxing career, the first year I’d gone pro. One second, I was on my feet getting ready to swing, and the next, I woke flat on my back with the world spinning around me, no clue who I was or how I got there, trying to remember how to speak.
That was how it felt to have Aubrey’s lips pressed to mine.
One second, I was taking her in from across the room for the first time since my mom’s funeral, and the next, I was dizzy with that coconut scent of hers in my head, the sweet taste of her on my tongue, her hands clasped around my neck to tug my mouth to hers.
Letting her wasn’t a decision so much as a calling.
I followed it, letting my fingers graze her cheek as I met her halfway. My palm settled against the soft skin below her jaw, and I hurried to obey the demand of her lips, both gentle but determined as her fingers scraped the base of my neck, trying to thread through my short strands.
It awoke every cell in my body. Her scent invaded my senses, my skin buzzing where we touched, and her arm tightened around me, spurring me to tug her hips forward to eliminate the space between us.
She let out a soft noise as our bodies connected, then rose on her toes and pressed closer, and all thought flew from my mind. There was nothing except me and her, my tongue finding hers as she opened for me on a moan and yanked my shoulders lower.
Holy shit, she felt good. Her warmth radiated through my hoodie, and I slid my hands over her chef jacket to palm her ass, my fingers flexing in a gentle squeeze.
Her sound of pleasure echoed off the stainless steel appliances, driving my body hotter until I had her pressed against the wall with my thigh between her legs, nearly lifting her off the ground.
When I’d offered a New Year’s kiss, this wasn’t what I’d pictured. My mind had played out something quiet and sweet, the way Aubrey so often had been around me growing up. But the urgent roll of her hips as she practically climbed my torso to take what she wanted was something else entirely.
It had me one second from lifting her for real—wrapping her thighs around my hips and grinding my stiff cock right against her heat.
I would have if the sound of glass shattering didn’t jerk me from the moment. My head snapped up as I shifted to block her body from view despite us being fully clothed.
Drunken taunts came from the hallway beyond the kitchen door as whoever dropped the glass laughed it off with their friends and moved on. My heart rate eased to normal.
At least, until I looked at Aubrey.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
Her blond hair was pulled into a bun, a navy bandanna keeping the wisps from her face so all I could see were her big hazel eyes staring up at me as she caught her breath.
Her pink lips were swollen, the skin around her mouth red from the scrape of my stubble—there’d been no time to shave after the eight-hour flight from London. Seeing it gave me a sick satisfaction.
I hadn’t originally planned to get here by midnight. The goal had been to surprise her by coming home a day early so I could make her big catering debut, but then she told me how she’d never had a New Year’s kiss, and my plans had changed again.
I’d been more eager than I probably should have to make the offer. It turned out, she’d beat me to it. I wasn’t complaining.
I flashed her an easy smile. “Happy New Year.”
She ran two fingers over her lips, her gaze falling to my mouth.
My smile widened. It was a good fucking kiss.
One I wouldn’t be against repeating, though I doubted she’d want that. Aubrey was more someone who settled down, and I didn’t have much to offer long-term.
The reminder helped calm my body a few more notches.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, then shook herself from her daze. “I mean, Happy New Year. Well, and also thanks. I mean—” A flush rose to her cheeks. “For letting me kiss you.”
My skin flashed hot at the memory, and I shifted my weight to get my blood pumping a direction other than south. “My pleasure. Did it meet expectations?”
Her brows rose. “Hmm?”
I fought a grin. “Your first New Year’s kiss.”
“Oh, right. Yes. Yes, it definitely did.” She rolled her lips together and pushed from the wall, heading to what looked like a mini fridge on the other side of the room.
She pulled out a tray lined with light purple domes the size of hockey pucks and placed it on the nearest counter before crossing to the big walk-in fridge and asking over her shoulder, “How are you even here right now? I thought your flight got in tomorrow?”
I leaned against the wall and watched her work. “I caught an earlier flight on standby. Wanted to surprise you and the family.” Mostly her. I wasn’t as confident my family would be so glad to see me. Not all of them, anyway.
Back at the counter, she intently drizzled dark brown sauce onto the hockey pucks and topped each one with some sort of crumb. “Your dad’s going to be ecstatic. He’s been holding out on making eggnog all week so the holidays will only be official once you’re here.”
Yup. He was the one who’d be glad to see me.
“Evan around?” I asked. No sense avoiding the elephant in the room. She knew its size, shape, and emotional weight better than anyone.
“He’s here somewhere. Probably won’t get home until way later if you want some one-on-one time with your dad.”
“Dad won’t be asleep by now?”
“Evan says he’s usually up late.”
I tensed. “Since when?” My entire life, Dad had gone to bed by nine and been up at five.
No alarm, no grumbling. Snores sailed down the hallway five minutes after he said good night, and he’d be well into his second mug of tea, morning paper read front to back, before anyone else stumbled out of bed.
I couldn’t remember him staying up this late, even for New Year’s Eve. Not in the past decade.
Her shoulders were stiff in their shrug. “The past year. Maybe two. Sometimes he goes to bed earlier and gets up for a few hours during the night.”
The words struck like a sucker punch, filling my mouth with the bitter taste of guilt. A reminder of the reality I’d soon have to face—the reason Evan knew our dad was having trouble sleeping and I didn’t. That our dad was having trouble sleeping at all.
That there was nothing I could do about it because there was no way to bring back the wife he’d slept beside for thirty-five years and lost.
I swallowed it down. “I’ll text him. Let him know I’m getting in tonight.”
“You didn’t tell him yet? Where were you planning on sleeping?”
My lips tipped up. “I hadn’t planned that far ahead. I had a kiss to make happen.”
She blushed again before turning all her focus to the desserts.
A minute later, two servers in white shirts and black ties came through with empty trays.
Aubrey loaded them with the finished hockey pucks, which turned out to be concord grape semifreddo with peanut caramel and French toast crumble.
I only had a loose grasp of what that meant, but I’d sure as hell eat it.
After the servers left, desserts in tow, I stood from the wall. “I’ll get out of your hair. Don’t want to interrupt the flow any more than I already have.”
She gave another shy smile, a reminder we hadn’t spoken much in person as adults. Not like we had over texts. There was a familiarity to our messages that our body language and mannerisms hadn’t had the chance to gain.
Maybe that would change now that I was back.
I hoped so. Just standing here in the same room as her brought a similar relief to seeing her name on my phone.
A reprieve from the bone-deep weariness that had haunted me the past two years to the point it sometimes took everything I had just to make it through the day.
A weariness that being home both eased and made infinitely worse.
I wanted more of that ease. For both of us.
I turned for the door, the familiar weight of exhaustion already heavying my steps.
“Hey, Gabe.”
Aubrey rounded the counter and headed for me, no hesitation in her movements, soft understanding in her eyes. Understanding that came from her own acquaintance with grief as much as her big heart.
My chest lightened as I opened my arms and pulled her in for a hug. She tucked herself against me, her ear pressing to where my heart pounded too quickly, sending warmth throughout my body.
I let the scent of her coconut shampoo comfort me as I inhaled slow and deep, then brushed a soft kiss to her head.
“Welcome home,” she said.
My shoulders dropped at the sincerity of her words. A weight somewhere inside me lifted for a moment I knew wouldn’t last but that I was grateful for all the same.
I squeezed her shoulders before releasing her. “See you around?”
It wasn’t what I wanted to say. But putting into words the enormity of the gratitude and tenderness I felt for her wasn’t something I knew how to do. And even if it was, sharing those words with her didn’t seem fair. Not coming from a liability like me.
She nodded once, her hazel eyes wide with compassion, and I left her to her work before I did something stupid like kiss her for an entirely different reason.
Back in the hallway, boisterous cheers and laughter from the party rose above the live music, flavoring the air with a contagious sort of high. One I nearly caught until my gaze reached the end of the hall.
I let out a resigned sigh.
I’d hoped to walk out of here without having to face the one person who now despised me. The person whose disdain hurt nearly as much as Mom’s death. It figured I wasn’t that lucky.
Down the corridor, stopped short at the sight of me, stood my brother.
He was still a few inches shorter than me, several pounds leaner, and a hundred times more handsome with his buttoned suit and polished sideswept hair the same blond as mine.
I almost strode to him and pulled him in for a hug the way I would have three years ago. The way I had every time I first saw him after being away for long stretches since I turned pro at eighteen and he was thirteen.