Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Gabe
T he early morning spring air is still cool as I walk down the sidewalk in my new neighborhood.
I’m light as air. I’m practically fucking skipping. I love it here already.
I wasn’t sure how I would feel, leaving California. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and went to school in Berkeley. When my parents died, I stayed in San Francisco to keep life stable for my sisters and because Northern California is in my blood. But walking down this pretty Pittsburgh street, bathed in the golden sunshine of morning, I can finally admit to myself what I’ve known for a long, long time.
California isn’t home anymore.
I tried to give my sisters a home because god knows they lost enough. And I think some days I even succeeded. But even though I was physically there with them, my mind was always a million miles away.
Even after a decade away, I know it deep in my bones.
Home is wherever Molly is.
Standing here on a new street in a new city, I feel like a thousand-pound weight has been lifted. Liv is almost done with her freshman year at Georgetown, and Amelia is settling into her new life in Boston. The San Francisco house is sold, and all I have to do is make one quick trip back there next month to honor a commitment I made, and then I’ll be done with the city for good. Someone else is in charge of my first company, and all I have to do is call into a board meeting every now and then. My new company is about to be sold. I’m lucky enough to be able to be and have whatever I want.
All I really want is her.
For the first time in ten years, I got to look Molly in the face yesterday. Seeing her was a punch to the gut. The kind that knocks the wind out of you and makes you wonder if you’ll ever breathe again. At twenty-two, she was an absolute knockout. At thirty-two, she is spectacular. The dark curls I used to twirl around my fingers when she laid her head on my chest. The lips that would curve into a smirk right before she kissed me. The eyes that would lock on mine and make me feel everything. Eyes that were shades of blue and shades of green but never any one thing. They were one of a kind. Just like she is.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that I could read every emotion on her face when I saw her yesterday. She’s a part of me. I thought maybe I didn’t know her anymore. Maybe in some ways I don’t, but in the important ways, I think I do. I knew it as soon as I saw her face. I expected her to want to shove me right out the door, and some of her did. But there was another, albeit smaller, part of her that wanted to walk down those stairs to me. I saw it in the twitch of her ringless hand on the banister and the shuffle of her feet on the stairs, and that’s the part I’m clinging to. The part that has me counting the minutes until her office opens for the day so I can call and make an appointment with her gatekeepers.
I smile, thinking of the three women who blocked my entrance to the office. Her law partners. The feisty blonde, the steel-spined redhead, and the mildly hostile brunette looked prepped and ready to go to battle for Molly.
And then there were the athletes. I would recognize them anywhere. Asher Hansley and Jeremy Wright. They looked ready to fight first and ask questions later. The blond guy I didn’t recognize looked like he could throw a punch if he wanted to but was more likely to sit down with me and talk it out. He radiated I’m a good guy .
At first, I thought maybe one of those guys was hers, but I didn’t get that vibe. It was friendly and protective. Brotherly, almost.
I could read their body language. Saw the way all seven of them spoke to each other without actually speaking. They might not be related by blood, but I walked in on a family. I’m happy knowing she’s had these kinds of friends in her life. The kind that were there for her when I couldn’t be.
But now I can. I did the work and got through my shit, and now I want to be the guy who stands side-by-side with her. I don’t want to take her away from the life she’s built. I just want to be a part of it too. But I have to prove myself to Molly, and I know enough about women and the fascinating phenomenon of female friendship to know that I have to prove myself to them too.
And I will.
Probably.
I’m manifesting.
When you have six years of therapy in a place like San Francisco, you say things like manifesting.
What I mean is, I will get on my knees and grovel if I have to. And if I still know my girl, there will absolutely be some groveling involved.
I’m looking forward to it.
I always did like it when she made me beg.
My mind is so full of Molly that when I see her standing at a crosswalk half a block ahead of me, I think my brain is fucking with me. But then a car honks, and when she turns towards the noise, I see her profile. My heart bangs against my ribs because there she is.
Her hair is a tumbled mass of golden-brown curls—I see she still wears her signature stack of bracelets—and she’s carrying three different bags. She’s wearing a white dress covered in a multicolored array of flowers and the kind of sandals that have a cork bottom and straps that lace up and around her calves, highlighting the most amazing legs I have ever seen. I have the sudden, wild urge to feel them wrapped around my head.
Simmer down, Sullivan. Try saying hi first .
I’m supposed to make an appointment to see her, but she’s on the same street as me right now. I’m Northern Californian enough to know that when the universe tosses you a sign like this, you don’t turn it down. As soon as the light changes, I speed up so I can catch up with her.
Turns out the extra speed wasn’t necessary because she swings into a coffee shop on the next block.
Perfect. I’m due for another hit of caffeine anyway.
I step into the coffee shop and get in line right behind her. Before I can consider what to say to her, my mouth just starts making words.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
Shit, Gabe. Be better .
I can’t even be all that surprised I’m already shitting the bed on this. It’s a common occurrence. I may have founded a mega-successful company, but in actuality, I’m just a superhero T-shirt wearing, Lego-building geek who gets tongue-tied in front of pretty girls. Well, one pretty girl specifically.
This pretty girl.
I can hear Molly’s low gasp as she whirls around. Startled, she takes a quick step backward, bumping into the back of the man standing in front of her in line. She stumbles a bit on the high platforms of her sandals, and on instinct, I snake an arm around her waist to steady her.
Electricity immediately sparks up my arm, and warmth unfurls from the place where my body touches hers. The hitch in her breath and dilating of her pupils tells me she feels it too. Our faces are close enough that I can see the riot of colors in her eyes. If I leaned in an inch, my mouth would be on hers.
Our eyes are locked together in a stare-off. I don’t think either of us breathes. My body starts to lean of its own volition, and I think hers does too. We are two magnets, helpless to do anything but draw closer together. I can feel her breath on my lips. I can remember how she tastes like the last time I kissed her was hours and not years ago, and then?—
“Next!”
The call of the cashier startles us apart. Molly jumps back like I burned her and spins around, taking a giant step towards the counter.
I stand frozen for a second, wondering what the fuck just happened, when the sound of her voice breaks me out of my daze.
“Iced peppermint mocha, extra whip.”
“Same for me,” I say to the cashier, sidling up next to Molly at the counter. “And three muffins, please. Blueberry, chocolate chip, and coffee cake.”
I wonder if she remembers our college coffee dates.
“What the hell are you doing?” Molly hisses at me.
I just grin at her, ignoring the butterflies I have in my stomach because, oh, yeah, she remembers. Love that for me.
“Ordering us breakfast.”
“This isn’t a fucking coffee klatch, Gabe. I have to go to work.”
The way she says my name has heat searing up my spine. I have to fight to keep my voice even and my dick under control.
“You still have to eat breakfast,” I say, accepting the pastry bag from the cashier and giving her my name for the drinks.
“I hate breakfast,” Molly grumbles, rooting around in one of her many bags for, I’m sure, a wallet. I take my phone out of my pocket and tap it on the credit card reader, paying with my digital wallet just as she locates her actual wallet. She glares at me, but she’s so fucking cute I just chuckle and walk the couple steps to the low counter to wait for our drinks.
She follows me, her eyes glued to the phone I still have in my hand. She’s staring at it like it’s a foreign object.
“What?” I ask. “You don’t tap to pay?”
She growls at me. Literally growls. The row of earrings in each of her ears glint under the coffee shop lights, and I notice that none of them match. Her bracelets jingle as she clenches her fists, and the sound brings back a thousand memories. I thought the first time I really talked to her would be sad and painful. Turns out, it’s none of those things. It’s everything. I just really fucking missed her, and now she’s right here in front of me. I’m so damn happy to see her.
“No, Gabe, I don’t tap to pay. Not everyone has that big, fancy phone you invented.”
“I mean…like sixty-five percent of people in the country with smartphones do.”
“Well, I’m not one of them,” she says in what I’m sure is the haughtiest voice she can conjure up. I almost laugh, but I want to keep my balls attached to my body.
“What the fuck are you even doing here?”
“Here in this coffee shop?”
Molly narrows her eyes at me. “I guess we can start there.”
“I was walking down the street, and I saw you come in here, so I followed you.”
She starts readjusting the straps of all her bags, and I reach out, sliding two of them off her shoulder to take them myself. My fingers accidentally graze her collarbone, and I feel that spark of electricity again. Molly shivers, goosebumps breaking out over her skin along the path of my fingers. She stares at me for a second before shrugging. I know how her mind works. She figures that she might not know what to make of this whole interaction or me standing in front of her or the fact that her body still reacts to me after all these years, but at least she doesn’t have to carry her own bags.
It is exactly, perfectly her.
“Okay, maybe let’s go a little bigger than that. Why are you walking down a street in my neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at eight in the morning when you live in San Francisco?”
“Because—” I start to answer, then I stop, realizing what she just said. “Wait, you live in this neighborhood?”
“Yeah, like three blocks away. This is my regular coffee shop. I come here every day.”
I start to laugh because what are the chances?
Molly huffs out an impatient breath. “Why are you laughing?
“Because I live here too.”
The barista chooses the moment I drop my bomb to call my name and slide our drinks across the bar. I reach across a very stunned looking Molly and grab both drinks. Then I nudge her forward and straight out the door.
We’re barely out on the sidewalk before she turns on me.
“What the actual fucking fuck do you mean you live here?”
I hand her one of the drinks I’m carrying before I answer.
“Caffeinate before I answer. You always feel better after caffeine.”
“Don’t fucking patronize me, Gabriel. I’m not twenty-two anymore. When I ask you a question, you answer it. And make it quick because I have a meeting.”
She grabs her peppermint mocha, taking a long sip, her eyes never leaving mine. She’s going for angry, but she can’t quite get there. She never was very good at holding onto a good mad when it came to me. She was always too full of sunshine for that.
She’s right, though, that I owe her an explanation. I was going to tell her everything when I met her in her office, but she’s here, and so am I and the sun is shining, and it’s a really good day. No time like the present.
“I started a company a year and a half ago. We specialize in cybersecurity for corporations.”
“I know. It was only, like, all over the news. San Francisco’s golden boy of tech out to save the corporations of the world from hackers.”
I smirk at her. “Keeping tabs on me, Rory?”
She flushes, whether at her nickname or the way I call her out on knowing what’s going on in my life I don’t know, but I love it either way.
“Like I could avoid it. You basically invented the internet. I can’t even turn on my damn computer without seeing your face.”
“I think I was about thirty years too late to invent the internet, but thanks for that. And the attention mostly sucks. No one needs to see that much of me.”
I make a face and she laughs. The sound is sunshine.
“You never did like people all up in your business.”
“Only you, Rory baby.”
She flushes again and I grin at her.
“Stop it.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m just so damn happy to see you. I missed you.”
It just falls out of my mouth, but I don’t regret it. Not even when her face sobers and she changes the subject.
“So, what does your new company have to do with you suddenly standing in front of my coffee shop?”
The door to the coffee shop opens then, and I take her arm to move her out of the way. And that damn electricity. I’ve never reacted to another person in my life the way I react to her. I hope it never changes. The way she sucks in a breath and pulls her arms away from me makes me certain she feels it too.
“I recently sold to a big tech company here in town. Part of the deal was that I move here to consult for the first two years after the sale.”
I don’t tell her that I practically bent over backward to convince them that they needed me. Or that I insisted that the kind of consulting they needed me for couldn’t be done remotely. As it is, I’ll be doing most of it remotely anyway. And on whatever schedule I want.
She narrows her eyes at me. “Hang on. What tech company bought it?”
“Montgomery Tech.”
She looks up, as if trying to conjure a memory, then just stares at me.
“Rory Industries.”
Hearing that name from her mouth is an unexpected shock. That’s the registered name of my company, but the publicly facing name is something else.
“Yeah, how do you know?”
“The CEO of Montgomery Tech got in touch with me not that long ago. They want me to do some business succession planning for them in connection with the acquisition. They gave me the name.”
I let out a low whistle. “What are the chances?”
Molly gives me a sly smile. “Pretty good considering I’m the smartest and best high net worth estate and tax planning attorney in the city.”
My chest expands with pride for her. I don’t know yet how she ended up here, but she’s obviously happy and successful, and that makes me unreasonably happy.
“Okay well, since you’re the best high net worth estate and tax planning attorney in the city, can I interest you in another client?”
“What client?”
“Me.”
She shakes her head, the look on her face almost…amused maybe?
“I should have known,” she mutters. She glances down at her watch. “Shit. I have to go. I have a meeting. My car should be here any…”
She glances at the street just as a rideshare pulls up at the curb.
“When did you order that car?”
“On my way here. I usually sit with my coffee and read a book for a few minutes before I go to work. You coopted my moments of Zen.”
“Why aren’t you driving?”
She shrugs. “My car is in the shop. I forgot to change the oil for, like, four years. My engine crapped out and also some other things, and I’m sure none of them are good, but I stopped listening because the mechanic asked me if I would prefer him to speak to my husband or boyfriend, and I was too busy trying to think of all the different ways I could kill him in his own garage and get away with it.”
I snort out a laugh because I think, in all the deep-down ways, Molly hasn’t changed at all, and there is an overwhelming sort of comfort to that.
“I can drive you.”
Molly motions to the driver to give her a minute. Then she takes a deep breath and turns to me.
“Listen, Gabe. This has all been very nice and nostalgic, standing here bantering like it hasn’t been ten years since the last time we saw each other. But I have a client waiting for me, and I’m sure you have some very important king of the tech world stuff to do. My car is already here, so I’m just going to get into it now.”
My day today consists of unpacking a million boxes in my new house and probably fielding nosy phone calls from my sisters, but she doesn’t need to know about that.
“You never answered me. Can I hire you? For legal stuff, I swear.”
Sort of for legal stuff.
Maybe.
Molly turns and starts walking to the car, calling over her shoulder, “Make an appointment.”
I follow her, holding the door open and she slides in and then handing her the two bags of hers I was carrying. I close the car door and bend down so I can see her through the open window.
“I’ll be sure to do that. Don’t forget your breakfast.”
I hand her the paper bag with the muffins.
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“Not unless it’s muffins.”
“I don’t eat three whole muffins.”
I smile at her. “Well, no, you usually eat half of each of them since you can never decide which flavor you want.”
“My friends don’t eat muffins. What am I supposed to do with the other halves?”
I give her a wink. “Save them for me. That’s what you always used to do.”
One side of her mouth curls up in a small smile, but she doesn’t take the bag. It’s fine with me. One of these days, she will.
“I’m really glad I got to see you this morning, Rory. You’re still the most beautiful girl in the world.”
She flushes again, and it just does something to me. Before I can say anything to embarrass myself further, I stand and turn back towards the sidewalk.
“Gabe?”
Molly’s voice has me turning back around.
“Yeah, Rory?”
“Give me the muffins.”
I feel the grin explode across my face as I hand her the bag. Then I stand on the sidewalk and watch her car drive away. I’m still smiling as it turns the corner and disappears out of sight.