“Is that how an adult would say it?” I asked with a laugh.
“Yes.”
I hesitated, unsure whether I should mention my fears or not. But Naomi sniffed them out. “What’s up?”
“Well, speaking of all that… Gabe has been kind of weird. Jumpy almost. Is that a sign?”
“A sign of what?”
“Well, a break up or—” I began, but all of a sudden I felt a slap to the back of my head. I turned to glare at Naomi as she lowered the hand she just used to hit me. “What the heck?”
“That is one of the dumbest things you’ve ever said,” she said with a hard glare. Sherry was trying hard not to laugh.
“What? It is a sign. People break up all the time.”
“Gabe would cut off his own foot before he broke up with you,” Sherry said before she finally gave in and chuckled.
I nodded, my foot shaking violently beneath the table.
“Wait, you don’t actually think that, do you?” Naomi asked.
Blowing out a breath, I said, “No, I don’t. Old—neurotic—habits die hard, I guess. I just… I don’t understand why he’s being so jumpy. Maybe he thinks we moved in together too fast.”
“You’ve been seeing each other for two years, that’s hardly fast. Besides, would he really be hosting the Sex Olympics in your new home if that were the case?” I blushed again as Naomi continued on, “Maybe he’s going to propose.”
“What?” I asked, mildly panicked. “But that’s something adults do.”
She smiled. “Hate to break it to you, but we just established that we’re all adults…”
I sat back against my chair, my thoughts whirling as I stared absentmindedly at my half-empty plate. Was that why he had been nervous?
Despite my momentary freakout, I hadn’t actually thought he was going to break up with me. But I hadn’t thought we were close to marriage either.
“Do you think…?” I paused, now unsure if I wanted to voice my hopes. “You really think Gabe wants to marry me?”
“Of course he does. He’s crazy about you,” Sherry said, smiling over at me.
“Every single fucking day she saves me. And all I want is to do the same.”
Sherry and I both turned to Naomi, confused. Before we even had to ask, she explained, “That’s what Gabe said. When you left that night after you guys had that huge fight. That’s not the kind of man who walks away. He looked into the worst part of you, saw you at your most vulnerable, but instead of running away, he ran toward you. And he’s been running, full speed, ever since, Alara.”
I grabbed both of their hands and squeezed. “Thank you, guys. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Wither and perish,” Naomi immediately answered.
“You’d survive,” Sherry countered. “You’re a survivor.”
“She’s right.” Naomi paused, being serious for a moment before reverting back. “But seriously your life is undoubtedly better because we’re in it.”
We all started laughing, but I knew she was one hundred percent right.
I took a long lunch, deciding to stop by Pick Your Poison, the bar where Gabe worked, before heading back to the lab. The hostess smiled and nodded when I said hello before returning her gaze to her phone. It was a little after two o’clock, so the place was relatively dead.
Gabe must have been on his break because he was sitting at the bar, his strong forearms resting against the wood as he looked at something on his phone. His expression was intense, like whatever he was seeing required his full attention and was of the utmost importance.
I stopped moving and smiled, just taking him in.
It was hard to believe there was ever a time when I wanted to push him away. When I thought I could live without him. Fear could make a person do incredibly stupid things. And that was the only thing that made me push him away for so long: fear.
Not a lot of people could understand depression. Not everyone could comprehend that sometimes the most dangerous place in the world was your own mind. Where there was no escape, where the fear and pain felt so much bigger than what you were capable of handling.
But Gabe did. Not right away, but he came to understand it better because he’d wanted to stick it out with me.
People talked about getting better like it was the ultimate goal. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. There was always going to be something in the way; that was life. The goal, at least for me, was acceptance. And the big bonus was having someone like Gabe in my life.
Some days it honestly felt like he was made for me. I was pretty sure that was the reason my fear sprouted up. I didn’t actually believe he didn’t want me. There was too much love in his eyes, too much thoughtfulness in his everyday actions, for me to believe I wasn’t the one for him, too. But it was terrifying to love someone the way I loved him. I couldn’t imagine my life without him.
My grin widened as I watched him lift his hand and scratch his beard. He’d been keeping it fuller ever since I told him how much I liked it. But it was clearly still an adjustment.
With a shake of my head, I started walking toward him when I realized I’d been standing in the middle of the bar like a lovesick idiot for the past five minutes.
I made my steps quieter and when I was close enough, I grabbed his sides and whispered, “Boo!” in his ear, resting my chin on his shoulder.
A grunt left me as his stool flew backward into my stomach. “What the hell?” he asked, immediately pocketing his phone, before turning around.
I suppose sneaking up on a man I’d already noted as jumpy probably wasn’t the best idea…
Grimacing, I ran my hand over the area I was pretty sure would have a bruise by tomorrow.
“Shit.” Gabe kicked the chair away and lightly grabbed my hips. “Are you okay? It was an accident. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” I smiled and took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not you. I’m just…” he trailed off, scowling, probably realizing he couldn’t explain without telling me why he was on edge.
Standing on my tiptoes, I gave him a light kiss before whispering, “Hi.”
“Hello. It’s good to see you.” He smiled against my lips, punctuating it with a squeeze of my hips.
“Hey guys.” We pulled away at the sound of Derek’s voice. He ran a hand through his already wild hair before grabbing a serving apron from behind the bar.
“Is everything okay?” Gabe asked with a frown.
“Yeah. I’ve gotta go talk to Mickey.” Without looking back, he walked down the hall.
“He’s been kind of weird since Sam got back,” I observed. Gabe’s sister, Sam, left last fall to go to school at Dartmouth. It was very sudden and no one knew why she’d done it. But then, just as suddenly, she returned to Carillo about a month ago.
“I still can’t believe she’s back.”
“And living with Derek,” I added. “Do you think they got into a fight?”
“About what?”
Shrugging, I ran my hands through his hair until they rested at the base of his neck. “I don’t know. But he’s been a little… I don’t know, crazy, this past year… hasn’t he?”
Derek’s feelings for Sam were pretty apparent a year ago, but I had no idea what he felt now after so much time had passed.
“Did he ever say anything to you?” I asked.
Gabe shook his head. “I know he missed her. They were friends…”
I rolled my eyes. Apparently Derek’s feelings hadn’t been obvious to everyone. Maybe if the girl had been someone other than Gabe’s little sister, he would have noticed.
“So what brings you by?”
“Just saying hello,” I said with a smile.
“Oh.” His own grin widened. “I could get used to that. It’s a nice surprise.”
“As long as I don’t get a gutful of chair every time I do.” Gabe didn’t share in my laugh as I grabb
ed his hand. “Lighten up.”
“I don’t like that I keep hurting you.”
“How about I accidentally punch you while I’m sleeping tonight, will that make you feel better?”
His lips twitched and he brought his arm around my shoulders, guiding me toward the exit. “C’mon, silly girl. Let’s go get you some coffee.”
“Ohh… I like that plan much more.”
“I know the way to my girl’s heart,” he teased, holding the door open for me.
I smiled wide because yes, he absolutely did.
September
“I LOVE YOU. I can’t imagine my life without you, and I don’t even want to try. I am the best version of myself when I’m with you. I want to wake up wrapped around you every morning and go to bed watching over you every night. You’re the one. You’re everything. Will you marry me?”
My jean-clad knee was cushioned against the carpet as I knelt down, an open ring box in my palm, asking Derek the most important question of my life.
His brows furrowed as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, man. This feels kind of sudden. Do we really know each other well enough for this kind of commitment?”
I cracked a smile as I stood up and pocketed Alara’s engagement ring. Bouncing on my feet a few times, I asked, “Seriously, how was it?”
“I think she’ll say yes,” he teased. “But honestly, she’d probably say yes even if you just kept it simple and asked, ‘will you marry me?’”
“No, no. It needs to be perfect.”
The words had to be perfect. Even if I was one hundred percent certain Alara would say yes, she still deserved the time and effort put in to a perfect proposal. It needed to be more than simple. It needed to be romantic, and beautiful, just like her. She deserved more than just those four basic words that any guy could give.
But the more I thought about everything I just said, the more I realized that that was exactly what it had sounded like. Generic.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “I’ll think some more.”
Derek gave me a reassuring smile and patted me on the back. “Relax, Gabe. It sounded good.”
I didn’t bother sharing more of my worries with him. I hadn’t seen him with a serious girlfriend in the nearly two years since I’d known him. He wouldn’t understand. And I was happy to see him a little more upbeat. Ever since Alara pointed it out, I had noticed he was more withdrawn, but today he seemed better.
“What the hell are you two doing back here?” Mickey, our boss at Pick Your Poison, shouted as he stepped into his office.
“Nothing, sir.” Derek saluted him before walking out the door and down the hall, back toward the bar. Our boss rolled his eyes. I was about to follow my friend when Mickey’s words stopped me.
“Good job earlier.”
I frowned. “Earlier?”
“Diffusing the situation with that angry, hotheaded customer.”
“Oh.” I looked down the hallway.
“Have you ever considered managing a restaurant someday?”
“Managing?” I repeated. Because no, that wasn’t something I’d ever considered. I’d spent most of my life building and chasing a plan. But after my mother died, I realized life couldn’t be planned. I wanted to enjoy the time I had now, not be miserable in the hopes I’d find joy later.
Mickey shrugged. “It’s just something to think about.”
Apparently I had many things to think about.
The next morning Alara and I were relaxing on the couch, her sock-covered feet in my lap while mine were propped up on the coffee table. She was dozing as I trailed my fingers up and down her bare calf.
“I’ll go get us some coffee,” I said softly. After standing up and lifting her legs, I gently rested them on the couch before moving toward the kitchen.
When I walked back in she was sitting up, her back against the armrest. I handed her her coffee before sitting down next to her. I tucked one leg under the other and carefully brought the cup to my lips.
Alara frowned down at the light blue cup, turning it in a circle. “This is new.”
“Yeah.” I took a small sip. “I picked it up last week.”
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
It was a fair question. We had more coffee cups than we knew what to do with, and there wasn’t anything seemingly special about this one that would warrant me buying it.
Grinning, I wrapped my hands around my mug and shrugged. When she finally finished she was smiling as she stared into the cup. I didn’t have to ask, I knew she was seeing the words I love you carved into the bottom.
“I have to go to the mall.”
“What for?” she asked as she grabbed both our cups and moved to the kitchen.
“I need new work shoes.”
“When are you leaving?” Alara raised her voice over the sound of the running water she’d just turned on.
“As soon as you can get ready.” I walked in behind her and leaned a hip against the counter.
“Ugh. Really?” Her lips dipped down into a frown. “But Sundays are so busy.”
She hated the mall on her best day.
“It’ll be a quick trip. Minimal human interaction,” I said with a grin. She was fighting the smile on her face, and that was how I knew I’d won.
“Fine.” Alara rolled her eyes like it was a big inconvenience. “But I’m staying in my pajamas.”
Since her pajamas was a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, I didn’t really care.
Five minutes later, after she threw a bra on and pulled her hair back into a messy bun, she was ready to go. Her face was free of makeup and the only jewelry she wore was my olive branch necklace.
“Why are we heading this way?” she asked after we’d been driving for ten minutes.
“The shoes I need can only be found at the Desert Hills mall.” It was about a fifteen minute drive from the mall we usually went to.
Alara shrugged and went back to looking at her phone. She was catching up on some emails from work.
Once we got there and I parked, I met her at the back of the car and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. Alara slipped her hand into the back pocket of my jeans.
A blast of air conditioning hit us as we stepped through the automatic doors and were greeted with the bustling sounds of shoppers and the shrieks of children. We were both quiet as we weaved between people.
“Hey, look,” I said, pointing to the giant black box a couple feet away. “A photo booth.”
“I didn’t know they had one here.”
“Me neither,” I lied. The fact was that this was the only mall I could find with a photo booth. It looked just like the one we made out in a few years ago, during one of our first dates. It was slightly bigger and there was a light outside that said when it was in use. “Let’s go.” I tugged her forward, even as she groaned and said she looked like crap.
“You’re the one who insisted on wearing her pajamas.” Stopping when we reached the booth, I cupped her cheeks and tilted her face up toward mine. I gave her chin a nip, eliciting a tiny laugh, before I solemnly said, “You’re beautiful.”
Her face flamed, the sweet shade of pink working its way down her neck.
“Fine,” she whispered, a small smile on her lips, as she pulled back the black curtain and disappeared inside.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, shaking out my hands. The nerves that other people talked about had been absent, but now that I was faced with the moment, with the do-or-die, yes-or-no, biggest moment of my life, I was terrified. The ring box felt like a hundred-pound weight in my pocket and my mouth was bone-dry, making me wonder if I’d even be able to ask the question.
“Are you coming?” Alara called out a second before she stuck her head out.
Wordlessly nodding my head, I climbed inside. The look of affection in her eyes and the grin on her lips gave me strength. A woman didn’t look at a man like that unless she was hopelessly in love with him, right?
Love wasn�
�t really the issue, though—I knew she loved me. But marriage? That was a whole different ballgame. I didn’t even know if she wanted to get married. We never discussed it. Alara could be one of those women who thought marriage was a silly piece of paper that meant nothing.
I swallowed roughly, my tension returning tenfold. God, what the hell would I do if she said no?
My palms grew sweaty as Alara leaned forward to insert money. I quickly reached into my pocket, tightly wrapping my fingers around the ring box. With a deep and steady breath, I pulled it out and opened the lid.
“Okay, so what—” she started as she turned back toward me. But she stopped short and her gorgeous green eyes grew wide when she saw the ring. Tentatively, she lifted her already tearful gaze to mine.
“Gabe…” she whispered, her voice shaking.
I set the open box on my knee before grabbing both her hands and squeezing. “I love you. You know that. Everyone knows that.” I smiled softly, thinking about all the times Derek made fun of me for being “whipped,” before getting serious again. “But what you might not know is how in awe of you I am. When my mother died, I couldn’t function. I ended up running away, leaving my sister, and trying to disappear into a different life. It wasn’t until six months later that I could even contemplate trying to step back into my life to face my sadness. But you wake up every day and face yours. I’ve seen you struggle and I’ve watched you soar, and I’ve loved and admired you through all of it.”
Alara was alarmingly still, her tears were frozen in her eyes, none having spilled, and I didn’t think she’d taken a breath since I started. I heard the clicks of the photos being taken in the background but I never looked away from her. Staring down at the light blue teardrop stone, set in a band of rose gold, I whispered, “Some days you’ll run and some days you’ll crawl. And either way, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter to me, because it means you’re trying, that you haven’t given up. I just ask that you let me be a part of it.”
Lifting my gaze, I saw the fresh track marks down her cheeks. I dropped one of her hands and brushed a stubborn tear, hanging on her upper lip, away. “I’m not asking you if you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.” I cradled her cheek and smiled. “I want to know if you’ll give me the privilege of letting me spend the rest of mine with you?”
Unveiling Forever Page 2
