Chapter 29 Sebastian #2
Gwen laughed, strutting across the room to it.
As she sat, she shook her head. “No, if you’re going to get rid of it, you should sell it and donate the proceeds.
But just imagining all the hours that went into this.
” She trailed a red manicured finger down one of the spindles.
“The artist who fed their family for weeks or months from the sale. The stories of all the people who’ve lain in it.
The babies made in it.” I laughed, and so did she.
“I mean, I see your point. It is wasteful. But past the expense of it, there’s beauty here. History and culture. Value.”
“I respect that viewpoint.” Now that Gwen was settled in on the mattress, Honey leapt over the edge to join her. “But maybe I’d appreciate it more if I was the one who built it.”
“Maybe I would too.” She smiled at me, then frowned at Honey. “Baby, you’re gonna get hair everywhere.”
“She’s fine.” I stood and gave Honey a few scratches on the head. “I come home from work every day covered in dog hair. A little more isn’t going to kill me.”
“I still feel bad. We just completely took over your space.” Petting the back of Honey’s head down to her hips, Gwen gave me those doe eyes again. “At least sit down with us?”
I’d been hoping she would say that. I just didn’t want to presume anything.
“If you insist,” I said. As I lowered myself to the silky linens, Gwen lay on her side. I joined her against the opposite pillow.
The moment we lay down, the tone shifted. That playful little smile, the banter to distract her from the chaos in her mind, was gone.
Now it was just me, Honey, Gwen, and her thoughts.
I wished I could read them. I wished I could know exactly how she felt about tonight’s turn of events. I wished she could relay every recollection and every theory she had for her friend’s death.
If for nothing else than to know she was moving through the grieving process. Depression, anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance. Just something. Anything to show me that she was processing this, and that she was going to get through it.
But she didn’t so much as utter Delilah’s name. Maybe she couldn’t yet. She whispered, “This was all she wanted, you know?”
Unsure if I understood the question, I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Hmm?”
“What we have, you and me.” Her voice was still so quiet, I could barely hear it.
“What we’re building here. A good relationship.
One where we can count on each other, where we’re kind to each other, where we challenge each other, but we never hurt each other.
We’re just good to each other.” The tears welled in her eyes again.
“That’s all Delilah wanted. Just a normal, healthy relationship. She’s never going to have it now.”
The memory of that young girl at Light Up Night flashed through my mind. She was only a couple years older than Lizzie. When I looked at her, that was all I saw. A little girl. She may have legally been an adult, but the law didn’t know what it was talking about, because that was a child.
All evening, she had watched Gwen and me as we did the most basic things. Holding hands. Trading sips of hot cider for hot chocolate. Gwen dabbed some whipped cream from the corner of my mouth, and when I complained about my sore back from a long surgery earlier that day, she rubbed my neck.
Throughout it all, the look in Delilah’s eyes had reminded me of Lizzie when I’d taken her to Disneyland. At eight or nine years old, she’d been obsessed with Belle and the Beast. When she met them, it was like magic. The light in her eyes could have illuminated a city.
That evening had been a good one. I enjoyed walking through the ranch and holding hands and sipping hot chocolate and the two-minute massage Gwen had given me. But that was the bare minimum. It wasn’t Disneyland. We weren’t magic.
That memory burned my eyes with tears. Gwen was right. Delilah had never wanted for much, and even the simplest of desires had been ripped away from her.
All I could manage was, “No. She won’t.”
“It’s not fair,” Gwen whispered.
“No. It’s not.”
Silence snuck in. Gwen inched closer, tucking her head against my chest. I coiled an arm around her waist. Honey chuffed and grumbled before scampering to the edge of the bed.
Gwen broke the silence with the most unexpected question.
“Were you upset about David?”
My stomach sunk. “What?”
“Simone’s ex. The guy who showed up and beat the shit out of her.” She tensed under my grasp. “Did it upset you that I hadn’t told you about him?”
Oh. That’s where this was going.
“No. Why would it?”
“I don’t know. I had a session with Rhiannon earlier, and she mentioned it.
” The pace of her words was slower, voice softer.
“She wants me to open up more. Says it’s not good that I’m so closed off from everyone and everything.
I see her points. Maybe I should talk about my feelings more.
Maybe you have to give some to get some.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for me, but I just…
I don’t want you to think that I keep things because I don’t trust you.
Or because I don’t want to be close to you or something. I do. I do want to be close to you.”
I took her hand, squeezed it tight, and kissed her knuckles. “It feels to me like I’m one of the only people you let get close.”
Her cheeks warmed. “So you’re not mad?”
“I could never be mad at you.” I cupped her jaw in my palm, finding comfort in the warmth of her skin.
“If you want to talk about it, if you think that’ll make you feel closer to me, we can.
I just figured it hit too close to home.
Probably freaked you out that he managed to find Simone.
I’m sure part of you was scared that your ex could do the same.
But if you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to. ”
She shivered, likely trying to trap in a shudder.
It took her a moment to whisper, “I wouldn’t say scared.
Maybe deep down, yeah, but I was just pissed.
Still am. That bastard showed up and hurt my friend, and I hate him for that.
I was scared for her, but all I’ve ever felt for that son of a bitch is rage. ”
The most I could do was validate her. “You have every right to feel that way.”
“Does that count?” She gave a half smile. “Talking about that, it was opening up, right?”
A quiet laugh escaped me. “I think it’s a start, yeah.”
Not like I had the right to judge. I wasn’t the most open of books either.
“Good. Because I don’t want you to think we can’t talk about how we feel,” she said, voice still quiet.
“I feel a lot for you, and I want to make sure you know that. I want you to know how much you mean to me. When I wake up in the mornings, you’re the first person I think about.
I go to bed thinking about you. Sometimes I get lost in little fantasies about us together, and… I don’t know.”
I knew that. If she didn’t care for me as much as she did, she wouldn’t be here right now. There wouldn’t have been dates and texts throughout the day checking in on each other. She wouldn’t have chosen to take her lunch when I took mine, just so we could sit together for an hour each afternoon.
Still, my chest warmed at hearing those words in her voice. I didn’t know what was happening as it left my lips. All the control I kept over the last few months thoughtlessly spilled out.
“I love you too, Gwen.”
Slowly, her lips parted. Nothing came out. Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of red.
Just when I was about to tell her that she didn’t have to say it back, that I wasn’t sure why I said it now of all times, she grabbed hold of my face, and she pulled me in.
Our lips touched, and then our chests, and then every inch of our bodies. Her fingers slid down my neck, then my shoulders, like she was taking in every corner of me. And the timing may not have been right, but her touch was entrancing.
For a heartbeat, maybe two, my body took on a mind of its own. I basked in the beauty of her curves, the heat of her skin. That honey, cake-like perfume that radiated from her chest, her neck, was like dessert against my tongue.
The breathless sigh that parted her lips as her legs spread around my waist, wrapping my back, snapped me back into reality. Into control.
“Gwen,” I whispered, pulling back to look at her. I kept one hand around her waist, the other on her cheek, and shook my head. “You have a lot going on right now. We shouldn’t—”
“I love you too.”
She said it with more confidence than she’d ever said anything. Snarky, bossy, she’d been many times. But this was sincerity. Honesty.
“I’ve loved you for a long time,” she said, inches from my face, “and now it’s turned into a different type of love.
The kind I’ve never felt before. I don’t think feelings this big, this powerful, come around often.
And I think if I get caught up in timing or what every moment is supposed to be, I’ll lose out on the ones that are meant to be.
Life’s too short. One second, you’re here, avoiding conversations you know you should have, avoiding plans you know you want to make, trying to forget bad things that have happened, stressing and stressing and never slowing down to be grateful, to enjoy where you are.
Then the next second, you’re gone. It’s over.
You’re dead, and you didn’t get what you wanted.
I know what I want. And it’s you. I want you. ”
She took hold of my shoulder and pushed me gently onto my back. Her knees opened around me. But her expression wasn’t half as confident as her speech had been. I saw the hesitance in her shaking fingers.
“Don’t tell me I have too much going on right now,” she whispered. “Tell me to stop, if that’s what you want.”
It only took half a heartbeat to understand what that hesitation was.
Fear. She was afraid that she had poured everything out for me, that she did exactly what Rhiannon told her to, and it still wasn’t enough.
She wanted to find safety in vulnerability together, but if I rejected her, I would confirm that fear she never dared admit aloud.
I’m not what he wants. I’m not what anyone wants.
But Gwen was everything. If I could paint the woman of my dreams, it would be Gwen Kane.
She wasn’t drunk or high. She initiated this. She made the decision to climb on top of me, to profess her love, in a moment of deep vulnerability.
How could I turn her down when this was exactly what I wanted too?
“You know it’s not.” One hand on her cheek again, the other swept down the side of her torso. I looped an arm around her waist and tugged her down to me. A quiet gasp fell from her parted mouth. I kissed her lips just as her smile formed.
Against them, between brushes of our lips, I whispered, “Whatever you want, if I can give it, it’s yours.”