18. Gemma
GEMMA
Bas was gone when I woke up but hadn’t left a note. He didn’t need to. I knew where he was.
Arlow and Hux had told us at dinner they’d be on the road before the sun cleared the hills. Which meant that, if I wanted to say goodbye, I had to get moving.
I got to the house as Arlow and Bas were hugging on the porch. Hux was already in the passenger seat, with the window down, but got out when he saw me.
“I’ll be back the minute finals are over,” Hux said when we hugged too.
“Who asked?” Bas joked.
“I’ll be with him,” Arlow said as we got our embrace in.
“You, I’d ask.” Bas waved as she climbed in behind the wheel.
After they drove out, we went inside for coffee. Everest and Brylee were bringing their bags down.
“She has five more suitcases than she came with,” Ev muttered.
“Six,” she corrected him before heading back upstairs. When she returned, Bas carried her luggage to the car while Everest leaned on the porch rail and told me which stretch of the freeway he was dreading the most.
“You could stay another day,” Bas suggested.
“I could. Then I’d stay another one after that. You’re going to be fine, bro.”
“You’re right. I am going to be fine.”
“Does that mean I can stop calling every night?”
“I wasn’t answering anyway.”
Everest hugged him.
Brylee clung to him like they wouldn’t see each other for years. “Let the contractors start on the work right away.”
“Monday,” he told her.
“I mean it, Sebastian.”
“So do I.”
We stayed on the porch long after they’d gone and the dust on the driveway’d settled.
“Looks like we’re on our own again.”
“And Zeke,” I reminded him.
“Zeke doesn’t live here.”
“So, how do you feel about last night?” I asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m still taking it in, but good.”
“There’s something I need to tell you.” He leaned in to rest his forehead against mine like he so often did. This time, I tensed and tried to move away. “Gemma, this is important.”
“Go ahead,” I said, dreading what he might say.
“I have never in my life been prouder of anyone than I am of you.”
“Bas—”
“I mean it, Gemma. You were incredible.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself.”
“Hungry?”
“Sure. Here or at the cottage?” I asked.
“Here. There are things I want to show you.”
He made eggs while I sat at the counter, with my feet hooked on the rung of the stool. I told him who’d cornered me on the way out last night and what each of them had promised.
“Walt Percy wants to bring his wife to the ball,” I told him.
“Walt has never brought his wife to anything.”
“That’s what he said. Then he asked which table he’d be sitting at.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That ones in front go to the sponsors.”
“He’ll sponsor one, then.”
“I know. That’s why I told him.”
We ate, then cleaned up.
“What did you want to show me?” I asked when the last of the dishes were put away.
“Come with me.” He took my hand and led me upstairs and down the hallway to a door that stood open.
“This was my parents’ room,” he said when I stopped on the threshold.
“It’s empty.”
“My brothers and sisters took everything out the day before the party.”
“Everything?” I gasped.
“Most of it went into storage. Ev did an inventory so I’d know what was in each box.”
“Let me guess. They’re stacked in numerical order?”
Bas laughed. “You know my family too well already.”
He went over and picked up a sketchpad that lay on the floor under the window.
“Brylee did these.” He pointed at the first page. “The far wall comes out, and the two rooms next door turn into a sitting area, a bigger bathroom, and walk-in closets.”
“Plural?”
“It was Bry’s idea.”
“It’ll be lovely, Bas.” I studied the drawing, then pointed to a box near the other window. “What’s that?”
“What I kept.”
I sat on the floor, beside him, and he took the lid off. A watch he said belonged to his father was on top. “This was his too.” He pulled out a flat cap and put it on.
“It suits you.”
He laughed. “No, it doesn’t. I need to be at least fifty before I start wearing it.”
Under it was a small case that he didn’t take out and I didn’t ask about.
“What’s behind that door?” I asked.
“Come on. I’ll show you.” He stood and pulled me up with him.
“Oh, wow.” I gasped when he opened the door to a nursery.
“Every one of us slept in that crib. It probably doesn’t meet safety guidelines anymore. Maybe it didn’t even back then.”
I ran my hand over the wooden rail. “It’s beautiful, though. The whole room is.”
“Bry thought it looked dated.”
I rolled my eyes. “If I had anything to say about it, I’d overrule her.” It was out before I could stop it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
He stood behind me and put his arms around my waist. “No?”
“Bas—”
“Come on. Let me show you the rest.” He led me out of the nursery and down the hall, telling me whose bedroom each one was.
“Where’s yours?”
“At the very end.”
I started laughing before I was through the door. “Oh my God, Bas, have you seriously been sleeping in here? The bed is for a child.”
He lay down on it and pulled me with him. “See why we sleep at the cottage?”
“We’ll break it.”
“It survived me at seventeen. It’ll survive the two of us now.” He rolled me under him, and my feet hung off the end the same way his did. “Do you know how many nights I lay in this bed, thinking about a girl I hadn’t met yet?”
“Was she anything like me?”
“She didn’t argue as much.” He got my shirt over my head. “I’m going to fix that in my memory.”
The frame creaked every time either of us moved, but that didn’t stop us.
Once we were naked, I quit worrying about the bed, the open door, and then about anything at all except what he was doing to me with his fingers and mouth.
When I came, it was with one hand wrapped around the headboard and the other in his hair.
Afterward, we lay the wrong way across it with our legs over the side.
“We’re not sleeping here,” I said.
“You’ve got that right. Maybe more sex, though.”
My lunch with Edna was two days later. There was no sign on the outside of the Aldercroft, only a brass plate with the year it was founded.
A doorman greeted me before I could open it myself and led me to a table under the window where Edna was waiting. A waiter who seemed older than the building held my chair before I reached it.
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for us, knowing we wouldn’t have time to even look at the menu.” She smoothed her napkin in her lap.
Before I could ask why not, a man and a woman approached the table. When they left, two more people stopped to say hello. This continued until our food was served. By then, I’d been offered three more sponsorships and several silent-auction items for the ball.
“Sebastian looked well the other night,” she commented as we ate our salads.
“He is well.”
“He wasn’t in January. I saw him at the feed store the week after the funeral, and he walked right past me without speaking. It was very unlike him.”
“He didn’t tell me that.”
“He wouldn’t. Rand says he sings in the truck now. My grandson exaggerates, but not about that.”
“He was such a big help at the event last weekend,” I said.
“Perhaps, but you were the one who did all the hard work. Which reminds me, where did you work before going out on your own?”
I gave her the same answer I did at every interview since I left the city. “A large event company in San Francisco. It wasn’t a good fit.”
“Hmm,” she murmured. “Interesting.”
She didn’t say anything else about it, and I didn’t offer.
On our way out, she gripped my hand the way she had at the Estuary.
“You call me anytime, Gemma. You never need a reason.”
Camille, Thalia, and Wallace arrived an hour after I returned, at my request.
“I’ve made a decision about the ball,” I began after inviting them to take a seat in the meeting room.
Camille leaned forward, and Wallace glanced at Thalia, who kept her eyes on me.
“What the three of you and your teams created was nothing short of extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I can tell you I want to again. In November, in fact.”
“All three of us?” Wallace gasped.
“That’s the only way it can work.”
Nobody said anything, and then all of them did at once.
Except they were talking to each other more than me.
I leaned against my chair and took it all in, watching as they scribbled notes.
This was one of the most satisfying—and best—decisions I’d ever made, and I’d done it because I wanted to, not because I had to.