31. Gabriel
Gabriel
I sit at my desk, the market research report open on my screen, but my mind keeps drifting. The graphs, projections, and data should be enough to hold my attention, but all I can think about is Alexis.
I tab over to FlashUp on my second monitor. The latest clip of Alexis is already playing, her familiar voice coming through the speakers as she introduces the Fashion For All workshop.
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth as I watch her move through her space with confidence.
Alexis has proven herself to have a surprising amount of poise on camera.
Even when she’s being filmed, she speaks with a natural ease.
She’s found her rhythm, and it’s clear that she’s fully in her element here. No stuttering. No nerves.
Her hands move animatedly as she explains the various features of the workshop. She approaches a dozen rolls of fabric mounted to the wall, carefully organized by color and texture.
“All of our materials are chosen with the goal of reducing our impact on the environment,” she says eagerly. “We can create something beautiful without destroying the world as we do it.”
Nice, I think to myself. I wonder if she came up with that line on her own, or if someone behind the camera told her to say it. Most likely, it’s the former. Alexis isn’t really one for delivering lines. When she speaks this easily, it’s usually her own words, with her own passion driving them.
She radiates that passion, and people are responding to it on the platform. The comments section is already flooded with praise—people complimenting not just her work but the way she speaks about it. They can feel her sincerity, her energy. It’s infectious.
As Alexis pulls out a roll of emerald green fabric and begins talking about the material’s properties, my phone buzzes on the table. I glance at the screen. It’s a text from her. I mute the video and settle back in my chair to read it.
ALEXIS: Hey! Just wanted to check in and see how your day is going. *smiley face emoji*
ME: All good here. Just watching your latest video, actually. You’re killing it.
ALEXIS: Oh, nice! Do people seem to like it?
ME: They love it. You’re a natural.
She replies with a string of emojis—a grinning face, a pair of hands, and a couple of hearts. Emojis have never been my strong suit, but even I can figure out what the spinning hearts mean.
ME: A natural in more ways than one.
ALEXIS: Oh? What other ways?
ME: You’re naturally talented at sucking this cock…
There’s a long pause, and for a moment, I’m worried I’ve been too forward. Then the speech bubble reappears on Alexis’s side of the screen.
ALEXIS: It was easy… because something else was very hard.
ME: Fuck. Your lips were so soft.
ME: I’m still thinking about how warm and wet your mouth felt. I thought I was going to fucking die.
ALEXIS: Careful, you’re getting me wet just thinking about your hand in my hair.
ME: What would you do if I was rock hard in front of you right now?
ALEXIS: I’m at the workshop, so that might get a little awkward for the crew.
ME: Fuck it. It’s a fantasy. They can watch if they want.
ALEXIS: You have a dirty mind, Mr. Thorne.
ME: So do you, Mrs. Thorne.
ALEXIS: You’re right. Because if you were here right now, and you were hard for me, I don’t think I could stop myself from dropping to my knees, no matter who was watching.
Heat begins to gather under the collar of my button-up shirt. I reach up to loosen my tie a bit, then start to type a response, my fingers flying over my phone’s screen.
ME: Fuck, that’s my filthy girl. Would you open that perfect little mouth for
The sound of someone clearing their throat startles me before I can finish the sext. I slam my phone down on the desk, hiding the screen from view, and try to compose myself.
Tristan is standing in the doorway of my office, leaning against the frame. He wears a knowing expression, one eyebrow raised.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.” I slide my phone off the edge of the desk and fire off a quick text to Alexis.
ME: Shit, sorry, Tristan just walked into my office. Give me a minute. I DEFINITELY want to know where those texts were going..
“What’s up?”
He steps into the room, closing the door behind him. His eyes flicker briefly to my phone, then back to me. “I came in to talk about the market reports, but… well. You’ve seemed distracted lately. Anything you want to talk about?”
His tone is pointed, almost teasing. Instinctively, I bristle a bit.
“I’ve just been preoccupied with FlashUp,” I say. I glance at my second monitor out of the corner of my eye. Muted, Alexis is still talking to the camera, running her fingers over a skein of smooth silk. I minimize the tab quickly before Tristan can see it.
He clicks his tongue. “Right, right. Of course you are.” He paces forward, then pauses. “But you’ve been busy with FlashUp since last year, and this is a recent change. Are you sure it doesn’t have something to do with a certain redhead?”
“Oh, shut up,” I mutter.
He grins, clearly aware he’s hit the nail directly on the head. “That’s what I thought.” He takes one of the empty armchairs facing my desk, folding his hands on his lap. “Well, spill. What’s going on with you and Alexis?”
“None of your—”
“Dude, I’m a listening ear. Anything you say in this room is strictly confidential. Doesn’t leave these four walls. I swear.”
I heave a sigh, leaning back in my chair. It can’t hurt to confide in Tristan a little. In fact, it might help to talk about it out loud, even if it’s just to get my thoughts in order. I glance at Tristan, who’s already looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to crack.
“Alright, fine,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck. “Yeah. Things are… not what I expected them to be.”
“How so?”
“I thought this whole marriage situation would be… different. Uncomfortable. A pain in the ass.” I pause for a moment, thinking, then add, “And simple.”
“And it’s none of those things,” Tristan guesses. “Certainly not simple.”
“No. It’s not.” I shake my head. “I thought I would put three years in, like the will says, then split up and go back to how things used to be. Me and Peyton, on our own. I thought I’d be, I don’t know… detached.”
Tristan smirks. “And how’s that working out for you?”
I shoot him a look, then huff a mirthless laugh. “It’s not, if you can believe it.”
“I can,” he says. “I’ve been there.”
“I think about her all the time,” I admit.
Hell, I’m thinking about her right now. Minimizing the FlashUp window doesn’t do anything to keep her out of my head.
I can still see her in my mind’s eye, walking around her workshop space, beaming from ear to ear as she explains some technical equipment she’s having installed.
Tristan nods sagely. “Yeah, you do.”
“She got a call the other day from Travis Whitaker. You know him? He’s a venture guy. He was the Beaumonts’ second choice for the whole marriage deal.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Yeah. Well, she got a phone call from him—coming on to her. She panicked and came over here to talk to me about it, and… shit, I don’t know. The way I felt when she told me? It was primal. I wanted to go hunt him down and beat him bloody.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Tristan says wryly. “We don’t need the PR nightmare right now.”
“I did call him, though. The other day. Scared him off a little. I told him to stay away from my wife.” I can still feel the echo of the possessiveness, the protectiveness, that rose in my chest as I made that call. “I don’t think that was ‘detached’ behavior.”
Tristan shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t sound like it was.” He offers me a sympathetic look. “If it helps, I know the feeling.”
Fair enough. If anyone in the world knows this feeling, it’s him. I glance up at him. “Yeah? And how’d you handle it?”
“About a dozen different ways, very few of them intentional.” He shrugs.
“I started falling for Chloe a long time before I realized it consciously. And once I did realize it, I couldn’t stop sabotaging myself with my own stubbornness.
I couldn’t commit to the one thing in this world that would make me truly happy… until I almost lost it.”
I remember the hell Tristan went through after Chloe was hit by a car, the nights he spent in the hospital by her side after the accident. He came close to experiencing what I experienced when I lost Melanie.
I feel torn. Conflicted. Because I can’t imagine how much losing Melanie would have hurt if I had never told her how I felt.
If we hadn’t shared a beautiful life together before her death.
The regret would have consumed me. But at the same time, the pain of losing her was so immense, so all-encompassing, that I’m not sure I could survive loving someone like that again.
That’s only a small part of my worries. Even if I could overcome the caution and take that step, it still wouldn’t be right.
I want Alexis. I want her badly.
And I feel like I shouldn’t have her.
“I’m not right for her,” I mutter, and Tristan widens his eyes.
“What? Why the hell not?”
“I’m older than her, for one thing.”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “She doesn’t care about that, and you know it.”
“I’m too unavailable,” I continue. “I’m not sure I could give myself over to a relationship, be the guy she would need me to be.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tristan mutters. “Gabe—”
I cut him off. “Seriously, think about it. I’m not that man. I care about her, and I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
Tristan gives me a look, like he thinks I’m the stupidest person in the world. “You don’t think you’re that man, huh? You don’t think you could be in a relationship? Do you even know what needs to happen in a relationship?”
My shoulders tense defensively, and I’m about to snap back at him, but he holds up a hand to stop me.
“You need to be happy,” he says slowly, “and she needs to be happy. That’s it. Those are the only prerequisites.”
“She deserves more than this,” I say. “More than someone who’s still trying to piece himself together. What if I can’t give her what she needs? What if I’m not enough?”
Tristan is silent for a long moment, like he’s thinking through what he’s going to say next. He sits forward, his hands clasped together, and studies me.
“Gabe. After Melanie died, everyone who loves you was worried about you. You were lost. And we all understood why. You’d just had your entire world ripped apart. But right now…” He trails off for a moment, then shrugs. “Honestly, you seem more alive right now than you have in years.”
I stare at him, struggling to comprehend what he’s saying. “I—”
“Listen,” he says. “It’s okay to be happy.”
I glance away, my chest tightening. His words hit me harder than I expected.
It’s okay to be happy. I’ve felt happiness before, but it was a lifetime ago.
I’ve always assumed that my happiness expired when Melanie passed.
That my best chance to find traces of it in the future was to watch Peyton grow and find her own.
Secondhand joy was all I could hope for.
“Just think about it,” Tristan advises. He stands, tapping his knuckles against my desk, and turns toward the door.
“What was it you came in here to ask me?” I give my head a shake, trying to shift back into work mode. “Market reports, right?”
He huffs a breath, shrugging one shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, man. We’ll get to it tomorrow.” With that, he leaves, closing the door behind himself.
I glance back at my monitor, opening up the minimized FlashUp window.
The next Fashion for All video has begun playing.
On screen, Alexis walks the camera through the design process on a mannequin.
Her lips move silently as she has an exchange with the cameraman, then her eyes scrunch up with her laughter.
I unmute the video for a moment, playing the sound on low volume.
Alexis’s laughter fills the room. I sit back, Tristan’s words echoing through my head as I close my eyes, listening to Alexis’s voice like it’s a therapeutic soundscape.
Like ocean waves or a light rain. Something soothing and natural.
The most beautiful sound I’ve heard in a long, long time.