Chapter 7 Gideon
Gideon
Dear Torres,
I’m sorry. I could write those words on every line in this notebook, and it still wouldn’t be enough. I was an insufferable little shit, and I made you the target of my insecurities for stupid and childish reasons that had nothing to do with you.
The truth is, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and the smartest person I’ve ever known. I wish I’d had the courage to tell you that before, and the guts to apologize sooner.
I mean this with all sincerity: Have a nice life. No one deserves it more.
Love,
Gideon
I stare down at the words I’ve written. They flowed out of me, like water bursting through a dam, but as I imagine Torres reading them, panic grips me in a vise and my face flames.
No. Fuck vulnerability. This is too raw. She can’t see this. She—
Rips the notebook out of my hand.
I lunge for it, and Torres dances out of the way, laughing. But as she reads, her gleeful smile fades.
“There. Are you happy?” I feel exposed, and I can’t help snapping at her. God, I’m so fucked up. I reach for my cold tea and gulp it down, wishing it were whiskey.
She’s still staring at the paper, but I know she’s finished. What is she thinking? Is she going to laugh at me? Kick me out? Accuse me of lying again?
Once upon a time, I would’ve sneered at her and turned the whole thing into a joke. Anything to avoid being viewed as weak. That insecure kid still lives inside me, and his protective impulses persist, even though I’ve matured enough not to act on them.
“You have to learn to sit with discomfort,” Ralph’s always telling me. “It won’t kill you.”
Maybe my body won’t die from spilling my feelings to this woman, but my ego is kicking and screaming like it’s being dragged to the gallows.
I wait, every muscle tense, my gaze trained on her face. What is taking her so fucking long?
“Gideon.” She whispers my first name, and I jolt. I can’t recall the last time I heard her use it on its own without full-naming me like you do with people you knew in school. When her eyes lift, they’re shiny. “Thank you.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush, and my voice comes out harsh. “Torres, don’t. For God’s sake, don’t thank me.”
But she rounds the coffee table to kneel beside me on the sofa cushions. The cat is gone, having leaped up when Torres grabbed the notebook, which she now tosses aside.
“I needed that.” She speaks softly, winding her arms around my neck. Her chest presses against mine as she hugs me. “I needed to know it wasn’t me.”
I hesitate for just a second, then wrap myself around her, inhaling her scent as I close my eyes. “It was never your fault.”
“I know. I told myself that, but ... it helps to hear it.”
“I really am sorry.”
“It’s in the past.” She rests her head on my shoulder, and something within me, a tension I’ve been carrying for what feels like forever, eases slightly.
Maybe I don’t deserve her grace. But I soak it in all the same.
After a moment, she leans back. “You still have beautiful handwriting.”
“You remember my handwriting?”
A soft smile plays on her lips. “I remember a lot about you.”
She says it like she’s not only referencing the bad shit. I lean my head toward her. “It only took fourteen years, but I finally got to dance with you at a Christmas party.”
Her eyes warm. “I’m glad we did. Tonight was nice.”
“Nice?” I can’t help but smirk. “You call what we did against your door nice ?”
“Not that . That was ...” She sounds flustered as she stops to blow out a breath. “That was way more than nice. At the club, I mean. Fern left early, and even though I know her friends, it wasn’t the same. And since I’m skipping Christmas this year, it was good to have company.”
My brow furrows. “Why are you skipping Christmas? Not a fan?”
“No, I love Christmas. It’s my favorite time of year.”
“Then why?”
She picks up her mug and takes a small sip. “I’m not sure if you heard, but my parents passed away three years ago.”
I’m sure my shock is evident on my face, and without planning to, I clutch her free hand. “Oh, shit. I had no idea. Both of them?”
She nods. Her gaze falls to her lap, but her fingers squeeze mine. “Car accident. Coming back from our beach house in Jersey.”
“Torres, I ... That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. That must have been really hard.” There are no appropriate words for this level of tragedy. The hole that has lived inside me since my father’s death echoes, as if resonating with the chasm that must live within her.
“Thanks.” She gives a little shrug, but I see the pain mirrored in her eyes. “It was hard. But I wasn’t alone. I had Everett, and Fern, and their parents. Heather and Patrick already felt like family, and they were going to be my in-laws. I leaned on them a lot.”
I can guess where this is going. “But now that you and Mulholland ...”
“Right. Even though we’re not together anymore, his mom still wants me to do all the holiday stuff with them.”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t particularly want to be alone, but I don’t want them to feel obligated to include me, you know?”
I’m desperate to know the details of her breakup, but it’s not my place to ask.
“Are you going there Christmas Day?”
“No, I’ve got other plans.”
She doesn’t elaborate, but since she’s shared something personal, I feel like I should reciprocate.
“This is the first Christmas without my father, and my mom is in France. She’s not coming back until the twenty-fourth. Christmas was always a big deal in our home, so this is ... different.”
“What would you be doing if everything were the way it used to be?”
I twine my fingers with hers as I consider the question.
“Well, today is December thirteenth, which means my mother would have already enlisted my help in putting up the Christmas tree a couple weeks ago. Not decorating it, mind you. She plans her designs months in advance, but actually standing the tree in the holder? That’s my job. ”
Torres smiles, as I hoped she would. “It’s good to have a career option if finance doesn’t work out.”
“Hey, it’s harder than you’d think, especially if you’re trying to meet Andrea Noble’s exacting standards.”
“Oh, I believe you. If you recall, I was at your thirteenth birthday party.”
I groan. “God, that was over the top, even for me.”
“Only if you classify hiring the entire cast of Rock of Ages to perform in your apartment as ‘over the top.’”
“Look, it wasn’t my idea. I don’t even like jukebox musicals.”
“ Ay, pobrecito. ” She pouts mockingly, and I want to kiss her so fucking bad.
“What about you? Were you allowed to do more than put the tree in the holder?” It’s an obvious bid to steer the topic away from my family, but she accepts the shift.
“Not only allowed, but encouraged.” She cuddles against my side, and I put my arm around her. The move feels natural, even though we’ve never done anything like this before. “My family had a huge collection of ornaments. My mom labeled all of them, noting when and where we got them.”
“Do you still have those?”
She nods, but her smile turns sad. “They’re in storage. I haven’t been able to bring myself to take them out.”
I stroke her arm. Giving comfort doesn’t come easily for me, but with Torres, I want to try. “What other traditions did you have?”
Her eyes take on a dreamy quality, as if she’s sifting through fond memories. “The usual stuff. Baking cookies, ice-skating, seeing the tree at Rockefeller Center, and the train show at the Botanical Garden.”
“You should still do all that,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.
“After my parents died, I at least had Everett and his family to celebrate with. But this year? I’d rather skip all of it than do it alone.”
An idea comes to me, and even though I’m scared to voice it, I do anyway. “What if we did those things together?”
Only about one second passes before she glances up at me, and it’s the longest second of my life. The clench in my gut eases when I see the hope shining in her eyes.
“You’d do that?” she whispers.
“You love Christmas.” I keep my tone light, aiming to mask how serious this suddenly feels. “You should get to enjoy what you love.”
She chews the corner of her lower lip and watches my face carefully. “It won’t be difficult for you? Because of your own ... loss?”
I shake my head. “Maybe it’s not cool to admit, but I love Christmas, too. The lights, the music, gingerbread and eggnog—I’m a sucker for all that shit. And it’ll be good for me to do something other than work, overexercise, and dwell on my emotionally fucked-up childhood.”
Her face lights up, as if she’s more excited by the prospect of helping me than she is by partaking in yuletide cheer. “Let’s make a list. Counting today, there are twelve days until Christmas Eve. That’s when your mom arrives, right?”
“Right.”
“Let’s do something every day until then. And maybe we can spice things up a little, too.”
“What do you have in mind?”
She taps the end of the pen against her lips as she thinks. “For example, on one day we can go to the Union Square Holiday Market for hot chocolate.”
I pull a face. “It’ll be packed.”
“We don’t have to stay long. And after that we can, I don’t know, watch porn.”
Her matter-of-fact tone has me choking on air. “Excuse me?”
“Try to keep up, Noble. As far as hookups go, I’d say this one was pretty successful, wouldn’t you? And after the year we’ve both had, we deserve to deck the halls a little.”
“In more ways than one.” I smirk, even though the term hookup gives me a weird pang.
“Exactly. So if we’re making a list of Christmas activities, why not make a list of sexual ones, too?”
Twelve nights of sex with Valencia Torres? This is a dream come true. “Count me in.”
“Great.” She flashes me a brilliant smile. “Today is Day 1. Could we call the club a Christmas party?”
“Maybe SantaCon.”
“But that’s tomorrow.”
“So? There were people dressed as Santa, and this means we can avoid the madness of actual SantaCon.”