Chapter 15 #2
Gio shook his head. “No, we didn’t say this was the deadline. We said we’d reevaluate and decide what to tell people. I thought these last three weeks would have convinced him. Made him see—” Gio’s hands clenched into fists. “Fuck!”
Keeley took a shaky breath, and Gio noticed.
“Aw, little one. Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her, and she clung to him, needing his warmth, his comfort.
“He told us it was just sex. That it wouldn’t be more,” she said, her voice muffled as she pressed her face against his chest. “It’s my fault for—”
“No, it’s not,” Gio interrupted. “I don’t give a shit what he said. Because I was there for those past affairs, and Rafe didn’t act like this with our other lovers. He was different with you, Keeley. I really thought…”
He didn’t finish, and she wasn’t sure if that was because he’d been blindsided or if he was protecting her feelings. Probably both.
“I think we set our expectations too high. Rafe has never been in love. After so many years of watching his mom suffer heartbreak after heartbreak, it makes sense that he’d view that emotion as something negative.”
Gio considered that for a moment. “He told me once that he didn’t think he was capable of falling in love.”
Keeley rejected that outright. “He’s wrong. He probably loves more deeply than anyone I know. He just refuses to acknowledge it.”
Gio gave her a rueful grin. “I think you’re right.
Love is hard for Rafe, but it’s the relationship part that’s harder.
His childhood was one guy after another playing dad.
Rafe doesn’t talk about it much, but the first couple stepfathers were decent men, ones he’d wished had stuck.
The worst part was that when they left his mom, they left him too.
He’s not in contact with any of them. So here’s this kid with a rotating door of dads who cut and run every three to five years, leaving him fatherless once more with a devastated mother. ”
Keeley didn’t know much about that part of Rafe’s history.
Then something else occurred to her. “I don’t think it helped that Grandpa Albert was so madly in love with Marta that he chose to live alone for fifty years rather than open himself up to someone else.
He hid himself away with a ghost story.”
“You’re right,” Gio said. “He associates love with pain and leaving. That’s all he’s ever learned from his role models.”
“So it’s hopeless?”
Gio shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”
She appreciated his optimism, the tears she couldn’t hold at bay finally drying up. Although Rafe’s departure was only one of the things upsetting her. “What if we can’t convince him to come back, Gio? What does that mean for us?”
He frowned, and she got a sense he was mad at the question. “Are you seriously asking me that? I’m not going anywhere. You’re mine, Keeley. Mine,” he stressed, cupping her cheeks, forcing her to hold his gaze so she could see that he meant business.
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. I know what you’re thinking, what you’re afraid of, but I need you to put those fears away and listen to me. Really listen to me. I love you. I’m in love with you. And I’m here for the long haul.”
She smiled. “I love you too, but…you haven’t given up on him, have you?”
Gio shook his head. “No. I haven’t. I think—”
Her phone rang, and he stopped speaking.
She pulled it out of her back jeans pocket, hoping perhaps it was Rafe, praying he’d had a change of heart, that he regretted breaking things off.
“Kayden,” Gio said before she’d even glanced at the screen.
Of course, it was. She was so upset, she hadn’t even realized it was her brother’s ringtone.
She started to put it away, but Gio grasped her wrist. “Answer it or he’ll worry.”
Keeley answered the phone. “Hey, Kayden. Didn’t expect to hear from you so early. You on the road?”
“Actually, I’m home. Aldo and I decided we’d had enough of the sleeping bag life, so we left Vermont after dinner, got in at one a.m. Gotta tell you, there’s nothing like a good night’s sleep in your own bed.
” It was good to hear her brother’s voice.
He always knew how to cheer her up, how to make her feel better.
Part of her was tempted to drive to his house right now, to unload every miserable feeling, so that he could hug her and reassure her that everything would be okay.
She forced a carefree laugh. “I can’t believe you thought sleeping on the ground for three weeks was ever a good idea.”
“So what are your plans for tonight? Because I was hoping we could do dinner together. I’ve missed you like crazy, kiddo.”
“Dinner? Tonight? Um, yeah. That would be great. I missed you too.”
Gio gave her an encouraging smile. She knew there was a lot they needed to say to each other, but maybe taking a night away would help.
Kayden would distract her with stories of his great adventure, then she’d crawl into her own bed—unlike her brother, she hadn’t missed hers at all—and sob her heart out.
Then tomorrow, she’d figure out where to go from here.
“Awesome,” Kayden replied. “Why don’t I swing by your place to get you? Six o’clock okay? I know you’ve been working long hours.”
That wasn’t going to be a problem for the foreseeable future. She didn’t have a clue how long it would take for her to be able to work around Rafe again. She’d been such a fool.
“Six works just fine,” she replied.
“You can pick the place,” Kayden said. “See you tonight.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
“Dinner with your brother, huh?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I know the timing isn’t great, but…”
“Actually, I think it’s pretty good. You, me, and Rafe have been in each other’s faces for three solid weeks. We need a reboot.”
She gave him a curious look. “A reboot?”
Gio nodded. “A night away from each other to clear our heads. And then tomorrow, we come up with a plan. I’m taking you on a date.”
“What are we planning?” she asked.
“Before I answer that, tell me something. Do you want us to go it alone from now on? Or do you want Rafe to be a part of this?” Gio waved his hand between them, and she loved it. She’d never really been part of a “this.”
“I told you, I’m in love with Rafe too.”
Gio grinned, and she marveled at his complete lack of jealousy. “Well then, you and I are going to lay a little groundwork. But we can discuss that tomorrow night.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, the two of them walking back toward the house. She pointed to the driveway. “My stuff is in my car.”
He sighed. “I hate that.”
“Me too. I’m going to work from my office at Eclectic today.”
“Okay.” Gio gave her a quick squeeze. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”
They stopped when they reached her car. Gio cupped her cheeks and gave her a soft kiss, full of promise and love.
And as sad as she was at the moment, she couldn’t deny that she was also hopeful.
The next week flew by, but not in the same way as the previous three. After their date on Tuesday, Gio and Keeley had decided to keep their dating a little closer to home…something that had obviously caught Rafe off guard.
It was clear he’d expected to be odd man out, expected them to carry on their romance somewhere out of his line of vision.
Too bad, so sad. Because that wasn’t what he was going to get.
Gio had told Rafe outright last Monday that he was going to continue to see her, that he was in love with her.
Rafe had reassured Gio he would be fine, pointing out that he always had been in the past. They’d counted on that response, perfectly aware that Rafe was determined to treat this just like one of his and Gio’s past affairs.
What Rafe didn’t know was that Gio and Keeley planned to put that resolve to the test.
Last Wednesday, she’d shown up after work with a couple of pizzas and told them they needed to continue working on the renovation videos.
Rafe—shocked by her appearance—had gone along with it, and in the end, she’d gotten some amazing footage.
She’d uploaded five videos so far. None of them had gone viral, but the views were adding up slowly and steadily, just as she’d hoped.
Neither Rafe nor Gio were hard to look at, and once they’d gotten into talking about the house and the ghosts, they were quite funny.
She’d sent an email to Joey, along with the link to the videos, asking him if he had any advice for future shows.
Joey—God love him—had responded immediately, telling her what she’d done was great and promising to promote the videos on his show, which was set to begin airing in a month.
And while that was exciting, it meant they needed to get more videos up quickly.
Gio had congratulated her privately on devising the perfect reason for the three of them to spend lots of time together.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday had passed in the same way—with Rafe and Gio working on the office, while she filmed it and kept them talking and laughing.
Things felt exactly as they had when the three of them had been together. It was all so effortless between them…the conversation, the teasing banter, even the way they tackled household chores.
Keeley didn’t mind washing dishes, so she took on that chore while Rafe dried and Gio put them away. Rafe cleaned one hell of a bathroom, while Gio, who’d been too long without a lawn to care for, took over mowing and weed eating.
Because Rafe insisted on believing their relationship was merely a physical one, based on lust, not love, Gio and Keeley had decided to take that out of the equation for now.
Every evening, after they finished filming or hanging out, Gio gave her a sweet good-night kiss, then she’d steal a hug from Rafe.
Rafe’s responses to those hugs had been stiff the first couple of nights, but he’d quickly reverted back to giving her the amazing, warm embraces they’d shared when they had just been friends.
Then she drove home.
Alone.
Which sucked.