by Lili Valente
“Holding it together is overrated,” Gabe says, that wicked smile on his lips, the same one I remember from all the times he made me beg him for my pleasure before delivering on his promise to make me see stars.
I smile up at him, fighting the urge to lunge for his lips and kiss him senseless all over again. If I start kissing him, I’m not going to stop until our clothes are off and his mouth is warm on my skin and his cock is hot in my hand and we are racing toward the edge of oblivion so fast we’re setting the brush at the side of the road on fire.
“Give me five minutes,” I say in a husky voice, visions of me and Gabe, naked and entwined, filling my thoughts. “I’ll meet you at your car.”
“I’m parked right next to the lobby,” he says. “And leave the bikini on under your clothes. I want to untie the strings with my teeth.”
The words send a rush of desire sweeping through me, and for a second I think I’m going to faint for the second time in my life, only hours after fainting for the first. But instead I laugh, a laugh that is every bit as wicked as the gleam in Gabe’s eyes, and spin to rush back to my lounge chair.
I get everyone out of the pool, dried off, and headed up to the room in record time, swinging by the exercise room on the way to tell a still-brooding Danny that supper will be arriving in fifteen to twenty minutes.
“I won’t be there, so you’ll be free to enjoy your meal,” I say. “I’m going out with Gabe.”
Danny turns on the weight bench where he’s been watching TV, making direct eye contact with me for the first time since we left the wake. “Good. You shouldn’t fight with him, Caitlin. He’s the only person who’s always been on our side, no matter what. You know that. He’s got your back like nobody else.”
“I know,” I say, not ready to tell Danny that Gabe doesn’t remember everything about the night he saved my life, or necessarily approve of how far we went in the name of protecting the people we cared about.
Danny and I have never discussed that night in detail, but he suspects that Gabe and I killed Pitt, and I know it would upset him if he thought Gabe wasn’t the same Gabe anymore. Danny hated Gabe at first, but by the end of last summer, my brother had a pretty decent case of hero worship going where my boyfriend was concerned. Gabe wasn’t your typical role model, but I figured Danny could do worse than idolizing a man who would do anything to protect the people he loves.
After this afternoon, I have hope that, with a little help, Gabe might be that man again very soon.
CHAPTER SIX
Gabe
“I have seen a medicine
That’s able to breathe life into a stone.”
-Shakespeare
Visions of all the times Caitlin and I were naked together dance in front of my eyes as I guide the Beamer through the sleepy Sunday streets of downtown Giffney, headed for my father’s office. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but of all the things I’ve remembered about Caitlin so far, our time in bed has returned with the most clarity.
“I can’t remember your birthday, but I remember fucking you in seven different positions,” I confess, because I’ve decided to be honest with her, even when it’s embarrassing, even when it’s hard. Realizing my parents are such accomplished liars made me determined to excel at telling the truth.
Caitlin shifts in her seat as she turns to face me, causing the jean skirt she pulled on over her suit to ride up her tan thighs, and my blood pressure to spike. “It’s April tenth, the night we ran into each other at the club.”
The words trigger a chain reaction in my brain, like dominos toppling in a line, and I suddenly remember. “We were dancing, and then you ran away…but I followed you and started talking to Sherry. She said it was your birthday, but you weren’t in the mood to party because…”
I trail off, heart beating faster with excitement as more memories flood in. “That’s why we robbed that pawnshop. So you and the kids could keep the house.”
“Yes!” She reaches out, squeezing my leg through my shorts, her excitement obvious in the way her fingers dig into my skin. “All the robberies were like that, Gabe. We robbed the people we found in your father’s old files, people who deserved to be in jail for the horrible things they’d done.”
“And we put the money in your college fund,” I say. “Have you—”
“I’ve already finished a year of my degree in social work,” she says pride in her voice. “I’m hoping to finish in another two years.”
I smile. “So you decided to go for the big money career, huh?”
“You know it,” she says, with a chuckle. “But seriously, I don’t need that much money to be happy, and I like the idea of helping kids that are in situations like the one I was in growing up. I certainly know what it’s like to be in their shoes.”
I glance at her, hating myself for being so quick to judge her this afternoon. I should have known better. “I’m proud of you.”
“Don’t be too proud. I haven’t graduated yet, and I’ve had…other things keeping me busy. Things I’m not so sure…” She trails off and her fingers tangle in her lap, the way they do when she’s nervous. I remember that. I’m remembering so much more quickly now that Caitlin is back in my life.
“Tell me, please,” I urge. “This is helping me remember.”
She sighs and glances down at her hands. “This isn’t about our history together, but you should probably know…” She looks back up and I feel her watching me as I take a left toward my father’s office. “I’ve been pulling jobs on the island, helping people in impossible situations.”
The phrase sparks something in my brain. “Impossible situations?”
“That’s what you said to me on my birthday last year,” she says. “That none of us know what we’re capable of until we find ourselves in an impossible situation. A situation that makes us think about the best way to use the time we’ve been given.” She pauses, adding in a softer voice as I pull into the parking lot behind my father’s office, “I remember the first night we came here. It seems like so much more than a year ago.”
I guide the Beamer into my father’s reserved space and shut off the car, but I don’t unbuckle my belt or move to get out. “So you’ve been stealing from people?”
She nods, but she doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are on the red door that leads up to my father’s second story office. “Just a few people so far. One man owed years of back child support, and another was blackmailing a woman into continuing their affair. The people they were hurting were in impossible situations and I guess…” She shifts her gaze, a naked look in her eyes that makes me want to pull her into my arms and kiss the furrow from between her brows. “I guess I was in an impossible situation, too.”
I thread my fingers through hers, waiting for her to continue.
“Trying to move on with my life without you was…so hard,” she says, a catch in her voice. “So much has happened. Awful things I should tell you, but I just…can’t right now. I’m not ready.”
“We agreed we don’t like the word should.” I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her soft skin. “Tell me when you’re ready. But I want you to know that I realize I was an asshole this afternoon. I’m in no place to judge anyone or anything. I’m stuck between who I was, who I thought I was, and who I want to be. I don’t know how everything is going to shake out, but I know I want to be with you when it does.”
“Me too,” she says, eyes shimmering with emotion. “I want that more than anything.”
“But I’m going to be honest with you,” I say. “I fucked about half of the town this summer. Any blonde between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight who would let me follow her home from the bar.”
Caitlin’s lips curve on one side in an unexpected smile. “Well, that’s very…you. Old you. Before me.” She narrows her eyes. “I hope you were careful.”
“Wrapped up tighter than a Cuban cigar every time,” I say with a grin that fades quickly. “But none of them meant anything to me. Only one w
as even a friend, and it never got more serious than that. I called her this afternoon to tell her it was over.”
“So you’re fresh from a breakup,” she says, brows drifting higher on her forehead.
“It wasn’t like that. She was a place to hide, not a place to find the things I’ve been missing.”
Caitlin nods, the tenderness in her expression making it clear she understands. But then, she seems to understand me better than anyone, maybe even better than I understand myself.
“I was with someone, too,” she says. “Isaac and I were living together until a few days ago.”
The way she says the name makes it clear I should remember this person, but I don’t. “Isaac is…an old boyfriend? Before us?”
Caitlin blinks before she shakes her head. “Sorry, I forget. No, Isaac is an old friend from Giffney. You two met once. Big guy, very protective of me?” I shake my head, indicating the description still isn’t ringing a bell, and she continues with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter, but I think you liked him. Anyway…Isaac followed me to Maui a couple of months after the kids and I left. Eventually we became a couple, but I never loved him the way he deserved to be loved. I broke things off right before we flew back for the funeral. I couldn’t live that…half life anymore.”
I make a considering sound, fighting to keep the spark of jealousy in my chest from catching fire. “So you’re fresh from a breakup, too.”
“Not really. Isaac will make someone a great husband someday, but for me…” She lifts one bare shoulder. “It was like you said, he was a place to hide. And I was tired of hiding.”
A shadow flickers across her face and I suddenly know what she’s not telling me. It is an instinctive knowing, a limb tingling as it sinks beneath cool water, something I couldn’t ignore any more than I could ignore my own arm or leg.
“You don’t have to hide anymore.” I stare deep into her eyes, willing her to see that I’m ready for her, all of her. “Don’t hold back with me. I want you to be exactly who you are, and if I can’t handle it, then I’m the one who’s failed, not you.”
“That’s not true,” she says. “People change, I know that. It doesn’t mean anyone has failed.”
I shake my head. “It does for me. I realized something this afternoon, when I found that memo in my father’s office. Ever since the surgery, I’ve been afraid of myself. I thought I was afraid of my dark side, but I’m not. I’m afraid I won’t have the guts to become the person I need to be, the person I obviously was when I met you.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, brow furrowing again.
“My parents have played with our lives like our free will doesn’t matter. We’ve been pieces in their chess game,” I say, rage and betrayal rising inside me all over again, the way they did when I sat in front of my father’s computer this afternoon. “I come from people who prove there’s no point in playing by the rules. There will always be someone bigger and stronger, with more power, and no moral compass, who refuses to do the right thing. And those people make it ludicrous to think decent people can walk the straight and narrow and expect the world not to go to hell in a hand basket.”
I swallow. “Deep down, I knew that sometimes you have to play dirty to make sure the bad guys don’t win, but until today, I was ignoring the signs, wanting to stay out of the shadows. Wanting things to be…easy.”
“I don’t think life is ever easy,” Caitlin says, laying her hand on top of mine. “But love can be.”
I look at her beautiful face and my heart flips in my chest and I no longer feel like a person who’s gotten the short end of the stick. I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world, because she’s talking about me, and there is a place in her heart that is mine.
I lean in, pressing a grateful kiss to her lips before resting my forehead against hers. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me…but there is something I would like.”
“Anything,” I say, meaning it.
“Take me inside,” she whispers.
I reach for my door—not needing to be asked twice—but she stops me with a hand on my arm. “But not the couch,” she says. “I want a new memory, without any ghosts in it.”
I nod, already knowing exactly where I’ll take her. To a place where I can watch the setting sun turn her tawny skin gold as I kiss every inch of her body, until she’s begging me to do more than kiss, and I sink inside her, and finally find out if real life can compare to all the dreams I’ve had of her.
Dreams of being shattered and made whole, dreams of finding everything I’ve ever wanted in one beautiful girl’s arms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Caitlin
“I love you not only for what
you are, but for what I am
when I am with you.”
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
We go in through the red door and head up the long staircase hand in hand. It’s lighter than it was the last time Gabe and I crept into his father’s office on a Sunday. The sunset light filters in through the window at the top of the stairs, turning the air a rosy gold that makes even a law office seem like the perfect setting for a romantic reunion.
I see the leather couch in the corner has been replaced by a larger couch with carved arms made of blond wood covered in striped canvas, and think maybe it would have been okay to make a memory there, after all, but Gabe doesn’t pause on his way through the room. He leads me through the office into the small bathroom, where he opens a crystalized window to reveal a metal fire escape.
“The roof okay?” He glances back at me, heat and caution mixing on his handsome face, making it clear I’m not the only one who’s feeling as anxious as I am eager.
Will making love with him feel the way it used to? Or will it be like being with someone new? I have no idea, and I’m not sure it matters, as long as it is wild and raw and sweet.
“The roof is perfect.” I follow him out onto the fire escape, and up the metal rungs leading to the top of the four-story building. It’s the tallest building on the block, so no curious neighbors will be spying on us, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a helicopter fly over Giffney. I feel certain we’ll have privacy if not comfort, but then we step over the concrete ledge at the top of the fire escape, and my worries about hot tar beneath my back vanish in a rush of delight.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe, drifting across the roof to the garden on the other side. Raised beds full of white daisies and violet verbena stand at right angles, surrounding a set of table and chairs, and two loungers with thick red cushions. Strings of bare bulbs crisscross overhead, and a stereo and grill stand in the shelter of a wooden cabana that hints at the gatherings that must have been held here.
“Charlene did all of this,” Gabe says, coming to stand next to me as I lean down to smell the verbena. “She and her husband come up here every Friday night. They’ve been married for twenty years, but still can’t get enough of each other.”
The mention of Charlene’s name is like someone flipped a dimmer, muting the golden evening. I stand, the lemon scent of the verbena leaving an astringent taste in my mouth. “I remember meeting her when I came to pick you up after work. She seemed so nice…” I shake my head, hating that the dark things have followed us up here, to this refuge from the world. “Why would she help your parents fake your funeral? Did she have any idea why they were doing what they did?”
“I don’t know,” Gabe says. “We’ll search her desk before we go, but right now I have more important things to do.”
He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling my back to his front, sending awareness coursing through me as our bodies slide into place, fitting together as perfectly as we always have. He presses a kiss to my neck, my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear, before he captures my earlobe between his teeth and bites down hard enough to make me suck in a breath through my teeth.
“Still like biting?” he asks, fingers digging into my hips.
“Still like biting.” My
pulse speeds and my nipples pull tight, celebrating the feel of his teeth raking across my skin.
He fists his hand in the hair at the base of my neck, forcing my head back as his lips return to my throat. “How about this?”
“Yes,” I moan, eyes sliding closed as my muscles go limp and my knees start to feel decidedly weak. I arch back against Gabe, until his erection pushes against the small of my back, making me shiver. He feels so perfect, the size and shape of him as familiar as my own face in the mirror, even after all this time apart.
“And what about getting fucked like I mean it?” he asks, the hitch in his voice making the course words sweeter than any of the endearments Isaac whispered into my ear.
My ribs contract and my heart lurches and I suddenly feel like I’m going to start crying the way I did when I saw Gabe’s face this morning, because he remembers. He remembers that last night, when there was nothing but him and me, and all the horrible, wonderful longing for more time, more love, more everything we were to each other. He may not remember every moment we shared, but he remembers that heartbreaking, soul-healing night, and right now that is enough.
“You always fuck me like you mean it.” I turn in his arms, twining my arms around his neck, echoing his response when I’d begged him to take me harder, to fuck me like it was the last, best thing either of us would ever do.
“Don’t be gentle,” I say, standing on tiptoe, kissing him with the words. “I don’t want gentle tonight.”
He curses beneath his breath, letting me know I drive him as crazy as he drives me. “I don’t think I could hold back right now. Even if I tried.”
“Don’t try,” I whisper, a startled sound escaping my throat as he swings me into his arms, sweeping me off my feet so swiftly my head is still spinning when he lies me down on the lounge chair and covers my body with his own.
