by India Lee
Azura lifted herself from the couch, walking around the coffee table to take a seat next to Gemma. She put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze.
“I’m still rooting for you two,” she said. “But it’s just gonna have to wait.”
AGNO’S ALLSTAR HOLIDAY GUEST LIST
The Manhattan Local
December 25th
Harper Gunn and boyfriend Ian Marsh were spotted spending Christmas at Gunn’s Flatiron raw, vegan, alcohol-free restaurant, Agno. Gunn’s father and food industry mentor, Hudson Gunn, was also at their family table with Mira Hunter of Roebling-Hunter and her niece and nephew, Gemma and Gavin.
Agno has been the place to be seen since its inception. Gunn, once known more for her hard-partying habits than her business savvy, has been enjoying the success of her restaurant and lifestyle blog. When asked to what Gunn credited her array of new achievements, the rehab graduate answered with a laugh.
“Reinventing yourself. Change. There’s no way to get what you want when you’re stagnant. Action only comes when you stay in motion.”
DAMIAN EVANS’ UNCONVENTIONAL CHRISTMAS PLANS
Celeb-O-Matic
December 25th
NBA point guard, Damian Evans, was spotted at a club in downtown Los Angeles after securing a win against the Lakers for their Christmas game. Evans, whose family hails from Beauford, New Jersey, allegedly turned down a teammate’s offer for a Christmas dinner at his own family home in favor of partying with the spontaneous crowd outside of Staples. The unnamed teammate expressed his surprise.
“I invited him because I figured he’d need plans since he wouldn’t make it back to the East Coast in time. I thought he was crazy for going out partying… especially because most people would be at home with their families. But he managed to find enough people so I guess that’s cool.”
Looks like wherever Damian Evans is these days, there’s a party. Add that to his list of growing talents!
MERRY CHRISTMAS, DAMIAN EVANS’! LOVE, DUI!
The Pop Dinner
December 26th
Okay, we lied. He just happened to be in the car of person who was busted for a DUI. Damian was too busy getting serviced by some club bimbo in the backseat, or at least that’s what we heard.
Hey, is there a law against having it way too easy when it comes to women? No? Fine.
There were a number of invitations in her inbox for New Year’s Eve parties in both New York and Los Angeles. She filed through them, realizing that each and every one came with a risk of running into Damian.
Azura’s words had gotten to her. She had meant well, but she had gotten Gemma thinking about things that she wasn’t prepared to address. After her conversation with Lucas and now Azura, was everyone saying the same thing? Was Gemma imagining the slightly accusatory undertone of their advice? As much as they both insisted that their words were meant to be taken at face value, Gemma couldn’t help but think they were implying that she alone was responsible for the situation she found herself in, as if Damian ending their friendship was completely on her. But she knew better than to dismiss them as crazy. Had it been just one person who hinted at it, perhaps she would have let it fly. But two people had now suggested that she wasn’t and hadn’t been the friend that Damian needed. Were they right?
But even if they were, what chance did she have now to make up for that fact? It was too late. She had had six years of opportunities to be for Damian what he had always been for her, but she had taken it for granted. Gemma recognized this now, but it was hard for her to understand how she could let something like that happen, especially to someone she truly cared so deeply about. Had she really been so selfish that she just didn’t realize?
On New Year’s Eve, Gemma found herself taking a car to her old Beauford home. Mira and Hudson were away on vacation and she just wanted to be alone, far away from everyone else. But when she arrived to the empty house, she still felt too close to everything – too accessible. She knew if Zoe or Gavin or Leah or Harper had discovered her plan of being alone on the holiday, they wouldn’t let it happen. Beauford wasn’t far away enough for them not to drive on out and drag her back to the city.
The worst part was that everyone seemed to be terrified of leaving her alone, no doubt assuming she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown or something. But she wasn’t. She just needed to ride out the remainder of the year before getting back to the new, amazing job that was waiting for her in Los Angeles. And she wanted to do it without all the questions about Damian, all the advice she didn’t want to hear anymore.
Not that her mind would leave her alone. Every time she had gotten her head just clear enough, she would see herself with Damian, dressed in their clothes from that night in Vegas. She would relive, in brilliant detail, little moments between them that she had thought were forgotten. And as much as she wanted to just enjoy those memories, she couldn’t. Not with where they were now.
In Gavin’s old room, she found an old phone, disconnected but still functional and filled with his contacts from high school. She scrolled through it, looking for the owner of the shore house they had stayed at the night of Gavin and Damian’s senior prom. It was almost masochistic to be spending a romantic holiday alone in the house that she had almost slept with Damian, but the memory was almost diluted by their many pathetic attempts that followed.
“It’s actually already been rented,” said Robert, the owner of the shore house.
“Really?” Gemma was shocked. It was the middle of winter, not exactly the high season for renting houses by the beach.
“Yeah, you know. We have a couple properties that get taken for big parties on the holidays, even when it’s this cold. I don’t know what they’re thinking either,” Robert chuckled. “I don’t see the appeal in being by the ocean when it’s freezing. But if you’re interested, we have a couple other smaller spots. Not on the water, but that might even be better considering this weather.”
“Maybe,” Gemma replied, disappointed by her quickly nixed plans.
“Well, you got my number.”
As soon as she hung up, Gemma’s phone buzzed.
(3) New Text Messages
Gemma opened them, wishing, naïvely, that one would perhaps be Damian. But instead, there were two from Zoe and one from Azura. Zoe’s were the simple questions that Gemma had expected – just one about where she was currently and another asking what she had planned for the night. Gemma had no plans but she knew she didn’t want to spend the night wherever Zoe and Gavin were. As much as they would be sensitive to her current state of mind, she wouldn’t be able to keep from being a third wheel.
And then there was Azura’s text. It was a group message.
it’s new years in LONDON – my first stop of the tour, so happy new years all my loves. wishing everyone a crazyass time tonight. remember if you mess up, tomorrow’s a new year for you to start right over ;-)
~
Tonight, Gemma’s idea of a crazy time would be driving down to the shore in the middle of winter without a plan. Robert had said they had some properties available, so she wouldn’t be completely stranded even if she didn’t give him a call first.
Gemma wondered what the ocean looked like when the beach was covered in snow. It wasn’t an image she had seen much in photos, let alone in real life, and she had gotten herself strangely curious at what it might look like.
She felt bad about ignoring Zoe’s question about where she was, opting to just message back with, staying in, sleeping early, love ya night! When Zoe persisted with more texts and then some calls, Gemma ignored it. She knew Zoe would eventually understand. She had seen and gotten used to Gemma’s tendencies to run off for a bit. It had kind of become a habit. She reasoned with herself that at least she wasn’t running off to Croatia in the middle of a party to jump off a cliff. I’ve matured that much, Gemma smirked. Mira had left spare keys to her Yukon on the kitchen counter and Gemma was sure that she wouldn’t mind if she would borr
ow it. She would have asked, but Mira didn’t have reception wherever she was vacationing.
It was snowing lightly, the flakes clinging gently to the ground. With her headlights out on the open road, it looked as if she was driving through a million tiny stars. Gemma hadn’t driven in a long time, possibly as far back as when she was still living in Los Angeles. Being able to do so now was strangely relaxing. She had hated driving while out in L.A. but as she coasted down the highway, with nowhere in particular to go, it felt calming and peaceful.
But that feeling didn’t stay for very long. The drive reminded her of the one she had made one night from her home with Tyler in Los Angeles to some random hotel in San Francisco. Tyler had thought she had deliberately driven up to see Damian, but that wasn’t the case. At least she hadn’t thought so at the time. “Come find me,” she had said to him when she arrived. And he did. Dutifully. Without a second thought.
He had spent the night listening to her complaints about Tyler, all the security guards, her lack of a job. She talked with little pause, venting and unleashing without a filter. She was embarrassed to learn, after all her complaints, that Damian was going through a breakup. He had just ended it with Nicki, had his own things to think about, and yet he sat there with his full attention on her. But when she had apologized for being selfish, he quickly corrected her, saying that being selfish was underrated. He reassured her that there was nothing wrong with putting herself first, because she was nineteen and it was the age to do it.
But she wasn’t nineteen anymore. And in the three years that passed since she was, so much had changed. So much more than the three years between sixteen and nineteen.
She realized this when she arrived at the old shore house, the one that she hadn’t seen since she was sixteen. Gemma parked the Yukon outside, standing on the sidewalk in front of it and studying the house. Since she was last there, the place had been repainted to a robin’s egg blue and the old, rickety door had been replaced with a bright red wooden one. The lights were off inside. Gemma wondered if perhaps Robert had made a mistake when he said it had been rented for a party. Perhaps it was another one of his properties, because save for a new car parked down the road, there weren’t nearly enough vehicles around for a party.
Maybe it was cancelled, Gemma said as she trudged up the driveway in her snow boots. Unless everyone lived close by, she couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to make a drive in this weather to go to some party by the shore. She was the only person crazy enough to do so.
To her surprise, the bright red front door was cracked open. Gemma stared at it for a moment, remembering how the easiest route to the beach was through the house. The other option was trekking around the block to the path towards the ocean, but it didn’t seem ideal with all the snow. She thought to call Robert and have him double check the available properties, but it was nearing midnight. It probably wasn’t an appropriate time to call him. She shrugged, figuring if she had already gone this far – she might as well go the rest of the way. Gemma pushed the door opened, kicking her feet together to stamp off some snow, before making her way into the house.
Though the outside looked different, the inside was still the same. Gemma remembered the layout, walking herself to the nautical themed room that she and Damian had originally gotten stuck with. He had ended up playing Gavin in a one-on-one game for the best room in the house, winning and sticking Gavin and Leah with the cheesy downstairs room facing the restaurant dumpster. Gavin and Leah, Gemma laughed to herself. They used to be a thing. It was a detail she often forgot since everyone had moved on with their lives since then. And though no one really acknowledged or remembered the fact that Leah and Gavin had once dated, including Leah and Gavin themselves, Gemma knew that it wasn’t just some blip in their history. Leah had helped Gavin see that he was capable of committed relationships, capable of feelings beyond something quick and purely physical. And though they didn’t last, they had both moved on, armed with what they needed to have what they had now.
Gemma knew she should have just continued through the house and out the back door towards the beach, but she felt compelled to see that room that Damian had won for them. She remembered the beautiful view from the corner bedroom of the second floor, how the Atlantic Ocean stretched on forever and out into the sky. The view wouldn’t be the same tonight, if Gemma would manage to see anything at all.
She climbed the stairs slowly, letting her hands drag up the wood banister as she recalled her last night in that room. Gemma had jokingly asked Damian to be “mean and awful” to her, to make it easier for her to let him go. But he wouldn’t do it. “I could never be mean or awful to you,” he had said. “I don’t ever want to see your heart broken.”
Gemma stopped, swallowing as she heard a quiet sob escape her throat. He had, without a doubt, meant those words with all of his heart when he said it. And now Damian was the source of her broken heart. Not that he’d be able to see it, since he refused to see her at all.
At the end of the hall, Gemma could see the moonlight streaming through that corner room’s windows and spilling out onto the end of the corridor. She looked at her phone. It was a quarter to midnight. She wished she had thought to bring herself a bottle of champagne, so she could sit and bask in the moonlight as she rang in the new year, enjoying the alone time before she shipped off to work on some big film set in Hawaii. But the moment she stepped into the room, she realized she had gotten ahead of herself, forgetting that Robert had said the house was already rented.
She froze. A dark figure was silhouetted against the window, turning at the sound of her footsteps. She gasped, stepping back and covering her mouth.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” she exclaimed. “It’s just that the door was open and I –”
Gemma’s mouth snapped shut as the figure came into focus. Quickly replacing her shock and fear was her absolute confusion. I’m imagining things, she told herself staring at the person who stood in the corner room.
Damian.
She shook her head. She had been having those vivid flashbacks of their night in Vegas – was it happening again now? Gemma frowned. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t wearing the outfit he had worn in Las Vegas. He was dressed in a heavy sweater and blue jeans and a long winter jacket. On his feet were snow boots, glistening with a hint of melted snow.
“What are you doing here?” Damian asked, his voice low despite an expression that appeared just as surprised as Gemma felt. Though his eyes looked startled, they were soft and warm like Gemma was used to, nothing like they were the night at Azura’s launch party. She recognized his gaze again. She couldn’t have felt more relieved. And she couldn’t have been happier to see him – to see him at all, let alone in their old room from post-prom, somehow the place that they had both thought to spend a freezing New Year’s Eve at four years later. Overwhelmed, Gemma flew across the room, jumping into Damian’s arms and hugging him tight.
“What are you doing here?” she cried, burying her face in the fleece collar of his coat before she could stop herself.
He surprised her by holding her back, instinctively kissing away the tears that had quickly run down her cheeks. The gesture only made her cry harder as she clutched his sweater in her hands, pulling her to him. Even with her entire body pressed up against his, she felt like she couldn’t get close enough. She wanted to bury herself in him and disappear.
“How is this happening?” she asked. “How could we possibly both think to…” He brushed back her hair, leaving his hand just under her jaw as he cupped her face.
“I wanted to be by myself for New Year’s Eve. I didn’t feel like going out with the guys or drinking. There’s nothing special about that these days and I wanted something special,” Damian frowned, as if he were disappointed with himself. He lowered his gaze to her lips, brushing them gently with his thumb. “But I also wanted to be somewhere where I had good memories… so I didn’t feel completely alone. Even if I was physically alone.”
“Is
it okay that I’m here?” Gemma asked. Damian nodded.
“Why did you come?” he whispered.
“I wanted to be away from everything too. It felt like it was the right thing for me to be alone tonight.”
“So,” Damian laughed. “We basically just ruined each other’s plans.”
“No,” Gemma protested, her lips turning up. She looked up at him. “At least that’s not the case with me.”
“Yeah.” He gazed down at her, seeming unable to help himself as he held her chin, touching the corner of Gemma’s little smile with his thumb. “It’s not the case with me, either.”
Savoring the tenderness in his touch, Gemma closed her eyes. She felt Damian pull her closer and tilt her face up, tracing her smile with his fingertip before pressing a gentle kiss against it. Sighing against his lips, Gemma felt him gently pushing her back toward the bed.
And then somehow, she found herself under the covers. They were kissing but Gemma wasn’t even sure when that had started, nor was she sure how their jackets and boots had gotten unzipped and untied, left in piles on the floor. With Damian’s warm body on hers, Gemma recognized the chill in the air. She hadn’t realized how cold it was without something to compare it to.
But she didn’t care how cold it was, not even when her clothes started to come off. She delighted in the chill that danced across her skin as Damian pulled off her sweater, exposing her to the icy air. It wasn’t long before they were completely naked, lazing in each other’s arms, as they had been so long ago.
