Without thinking, I close the last inches between us. My head tilting, lips hovering breathless above hers, waiting to see if she backs away. When she doesn’t draw back, I take the gesture as invitation and seal my lips to hers.
Warm, soft lips press against mine, her hands breaching the water’s surface and wrapping around my neck. I pull her impossibly closer to me, swiping the tip of my tongue over her lips and relishing in the sensation when she parts them and lets me in.
Her mouth is sweet and hungry on mine. And when a small whimper echoes in her chest, I am a goner. My hands roam her body under the security blanket of the water, kneading and caressing her hips. We stay like this, the measure of time nonexistent.
But when I feel her legs wrap around my waist, her strength locking us together at the hips, I break my mouth from hers, gasping. At this rate, things will progress much quicker than either of us is prepared to handle. In public, no less.
“Why’d you stop?” she asks, confusion lacing her voice.
“Because we have forever. And I don’t want to rush anything with you.”
She leans into me, pressing a sweet, brief kiss to my lips. “I like the sound of that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Gavin
Present
“I don’t understand the issue, man,” Micah harps from the driver’s seat. “I may not grasp what’s going on between the two of you. Honestly, I never have. But you got to do what’s best for you.”
Why is it so hard to talk about women and relationships with guy friends? Unless they are in a relationship, everything comes out piggish.
Over the years, I’ve had several female friends. One of my best friends in Cali is female. We could talk about anything. Have in-depth conversations, no matter the topic, and come out feeling resolute. None of that is happening right now. Maybe because Micah has never been in my position. Never felt torn or anguished or helpless because of someone else.
“That’s the problem. I’m not sure I know what’s best for me anymore,” I groan. “Before my mom took the promotion and moved us across the country, I had everything mapped out. Things changed days after we landed in California. Not only was my life turned upside down, everything I thought I’d have was ripped away from me.” I pause, taking a swig of water before continuing. “Over the last decade-plus, she’s always been the one thing I held on to. Even if I was the only one who knew. And now…”
Music blares from the speakers, masking the silence between us. Micah has no comprehension of what I am going through. My inner turmoil. A waging war roaring inside me. One side says I should head back to California when this shoot ends, leave her behind and allow her to resume the life she has built without me. The other side screams at me to return to California, sell my shit, strategize my future gigs and return to Cora’s side. Sensible versus senseless.
The decision is one only I can make, but I was hoping for some form of support. Maybe some strong words of advice. Or just some if I were in your shoes talk. And unfortunately for me, Micah is no help whatsoever.
“And now, someone else is trying to step up to the plate,” Micah states over the music. He states the obvious and my blood runs cold. I shiver at the thought of Cora being with someone. Someone who isn’t me. Yes, I am a selfish ass for even thinking that way. But I left my heart with her all those years ago. I refuse to let an outsider stomp his steel-toes on it and whisk away my girl.
He steers the car into a parking lot, finding a spot amongst the crowd. We step out of the car and head for the entrance. Music blares loud and obnoxious every time the doors swing open. As we climb the few steps, I slap the back of his shoulder. “Thanks for bringing me out tonight. And thanks for listening.”
“I’d be a dick if I didn’t.”
The whole situation with me and Cora is the furthest thing from what Micah wants to discuss, but he has always been a good friend. If anything, he probably just wants us to get things figured out—whichever way it turns out—and be done with all this back and forth shit.
We walk through the doors and the music hits me like a wall. Micah gestures to the bar when he steps up to the hostess stand and she signals us to head over. Both of us park on a stool and order a beer when the bartender comes over. After she deposits them in front of us, we each take a sip before sparking more conversation.
Micah and I catch up on life, avoiding all subject matter that could lead to Cora. He relays how the nightclub he manages is going. I suggest he brings me out there before I leave. He talks about an older woman, Rochelle, he dated for a little over a year. How serious his and Rochelle’s relationship was until he found her fucking another guy. A guy ten years younger than Micah, and twenty-three years younger than Rochelle. Many heated words were exchanged between the two of them, but Micah said he would never be able to trust her again.
Since the relationship with Rochelle, Micah hasn’t committed to anyone. He no longer sees the value in devoting yourself to one person. In his words, “setting yourself up for pain and heartbreak.” Now, over the last year since they broke up, he is a proud manwhore. And when he tells me this, a pang of guilt hits me over the manwhore moments I have had myself.
Because over the last thirteen years, I have never wanted a relationship with anyone other than Cora. Although, I have gone on dates. Fucked a sea of women. Never once feeling guilt over suppressing the loneliness inside me. But now that I am back here. Now that I am within proximity of her. Everything is changing.
Micah prattles on about themed nights they do at the club, and I zone out while my eyes wander around the bar. The place is packed, which isn’t abnormal for a Friday night anywhere. Bodies dancing on a makeshift dance floor. Tall tabletops littered with brown bottles, fried foods, and pint glassware. Horrible, screechy voices up on an eight-by-eight stage attempting to sing lyrics on a prompter. No matter where you are in the States, bars are bars. The only thing different is the accents and clothing.
As I make a final visual circuit of the bar, I freeze when I hit a tabletop close to the corner of the room.
Rage gushes in my bloodstream. My heart bashing against my ribcage like a boxer to a punching bag. Everything inside me molten lava and I am ready to beat the shit out of someone. Specifically, the brown-haired motherfucker touching my girl.
I kick back the stool, hitting the person behind me and causing Micah’s head to swing my way. “Dude, you okay?” he asks.
My eyes fix across the room, hands balled into fists at my sides, breath heaving in my chest. Micah touches my arm and I flinch at the contact. When I don’t answer him, he follows my line of sight and mutters fuck me under his breath.
“Let’s just go, man. They’re friends.”
I hear his words, but can’t take my eyes off his hand on her thigh. Friends, my ass. They may be friends, but he definitely wants to be more than her friend. And I am not having it.
Yanking my wallet out, I drop a twenty on the bar and storm off, half my beer forgotten. As I weave my way through the crowded bar, I hear Micah yelling for me, telling me to just leave it alone. But there is no chance in hell I am walking out of here and ignoring the two of them together. No fucking way.
I am ten feet and three bodies away from them when Cora looks up, her eyes going wide and her body scooting off the stool. She reaches me before I can get close enough to the table. Close enough to beat the shit out of this guy.
“Gavin!” she yells at me over the music. My eyes lock on his, and the self-assured smile he throws at me has me trying to push Cora aside. But her hand comes to my face and instantly stops me. “Gavin!” she yells again. This time I look down at her, noticing the fear in her soft green eyes.
We stare at each other a minute, her eyes trying to tell me that everything is not as it appears. I want to believe her. God, how I want to believe her. I have no reason to doubt her or her truths. But my insecurities sit on my shoulder, mocking me and whispering falsehoods into my ear. Telling me I will never have her again.
Reminding me how I lost her once and how I will lose her again.
“It’s not what you think,” she whispers, and I have to read her lips over the noise.
“And what was I thinking?” I prompt.
“That we’re on a date. That we’re more than friends.” Her voice grows loud enough to break the volume barrier, but not loud enough for others to hear us.
“His hand looked quite cozy on your thigh. For someone who’s just a friend,” I sneer.
Her hand runs down my chest and squeezes my hand. “Come outside with me.” And then she pushes past me, towing me out of the bar and away from him.
We weave through the crowd, exit the front and continue walking until she stops us beside her car in the back of the lot. When she spins around, she drops my hand and hits me with years of anger and frustration.
“What the hell, Gavin!”
“Sorry I interrupted your date with mister auto shop,” I jab, laying the sarcasm on thick. “I thought you two were just friends. Looks like he seems to think otherwise. Maybe I should go back inside and reiterate the definition for him.”
“First of all” —she points her finger in my face— “you have no say in regards to who I date and who I don’t. Second, why do you suddenly think you’re all high and mighty? What… you stroll back into town and think the whole place stopped existing when you left. That everything is exactly as it was when you left. Newsflash, asshole. Nothing is how you left it. Nothing.”
“I can see that,” I seethe, stepping closer into her space. “If it was how I left it, this conversation wouldn’t ever happen. We’d be…” I bite my tongue.
“What? What exactly would we be doing, Gavin?”
God, she is gorgeous when she gets angry. Dangerously so. And before I can form a rational response in my head, I reach for her face and drag her into me, crushing my lips to hers. Her hands shove and beat against my chest, her lips trying to pull away. But I strengthen my grip and get lost in the feel of her. The warmth. Her taste.
In two breaths, her will caves and she melts into me. Her hands fist my shirt as she kisses me with a fervor I have never known. I wrap one arm around her waist while the other hand skims up her back and gets lost in the length of her strands.
The kiss is packed with anger and frustration, fear and worry, happiness and pain. But most of all, it shares the depth of our deprivation. How neither of us has been complete since the day my mother put me on a plane and flew me thousands of miles away. How we have gone about life, but had forgotten what it was like to live.
She breaks the kiss, gasping for air as she tries to come back down to earth. When both of our bodies have calmed, she peeks up at me. “Gavin…” My name a blessing and a curse on her tongue. “Please. Please don’t hurt me again. I can’t…” she pleads. Begs me not to put her through the heartache she suffered thirteen years ago.
I yank her impossibly close to my chest, my arms cocooning her frail frame. “Shh. I know, baby. I know.” The ease with which the term of endearment slips out isn’t lost on me. It also doesn’t appear to bother Cora. We stand like this—her clutching me and me pressing her to my chest, rocking her—for minutes, maybe hours. Letting her go isn’t an option I am comfortable with, so I hold her and wait for her to break the connection. Praying she never will.
“Can we go somewhere to talk? I really don’t want to stand in this parking lot all night,” she whispers.
“Yeah. Wherever you want to go, baby.”
Somehow, we land on the beach. Of all the places we could have gone, not quite sure why she picked the beach. The park across the street from her house is more her style. But maybe she chose the beach because it is mine. Or maybe she chose the beach because that is where everything evolved for us. Where everything went from friends to something words can’t describe.
Either way, she is with me now and it is the only thing I focus on.
When we arrive at the beach, she pays a meter and we stroll north. After separating from the busier section of the beach, everything around us grows quieter and calmer. The only sounds are the crunch of sand under our shoes and the choppy water breaking on the shore. The air thick with humidity and salty on our skin. This part of the beach darker with the lack of businesses to illuminate it. A few residents out for a late-night walk.
Her hand presses softly against mine as she stops us from walking any further in the soft sand. Plopping down, our fingers still woven together, we sit on the beach and face the darkness of the Gulf. Neither of us says a word. We simply sit in silence and lean into each other for a while. Her ink-black hair whips across her face and mine.
The ease I have with Cora has never been replicated with any other person. Over the years, I tried dating. Tried putting myself out there and moving on, certain Cora was doing the same. And over time, I learned I would never find someone else who I’d want to be in a long-term relationship with. So, I shifted my ways. Became the polar opposite of how everyone knew me. Morphed into a slut. Because slutting around was easier than finding someone else and losing the one person you really wanted all along.
Because regardless of how things go between us now, Cora is it for me. The one soul on this planet, packed with eight billion others, meant for me. I have known it since the first day I saw her in high school, when she bolted into homeroom out of breath, making me out of breath. Confirmed it when we kissed for the first time, a beach not many miles from this one, and my soul sighed while my heart soared. I will never experience that with another person.
Nor do I want to.
“Gavin,” she whispers into the darkness, breaking me from my introspection.
I turn and kiss her temple. “What, baby?”
She rests her chin on my shoulder, the waning moonlight illuminating her enough to where I can make out the soft lines and strong features of her face. Eyes a muted green in the shadows. Skin seemingly paler. Lips red and full and inviting. “How can this possibly work?” Her question weighs heavy and is full of doubt.
How can I reassure her everything will work out? That I have the capability to move closer to her. How I don’t have to be located on the other side of the country to work. I know she should know this, with what she does for work. But there is only one way she will believe it all. Proof. And I have to give it to her.
My eyes hone in on hers. “I want to move back. The sooner, the better,” I admit.
She straightens her back, stiffening at my admission. A thick strand of her ebony hair whips across her face, hiding her eyes from me. She doesn’t move to swipe the hairs aside, and I force myself to keep my hands rooted in place, as challenging as it is. Minutes pass, the wind shifts and brushes the hair away. As desperate as she is to school her expressions, I read her like a book. Always have.
Curiosity. Speculation. Doubt. Fear. Elation. It is all written there in an ink only my eyes see.
I grab hold of the elation and press it close to my chest. Of all the emotions swirling in her eyes, it is the one that raises my hope for us. That we can find our way back to each other.
“But how?” Her question as wispy as the wind.
Cupping her left cheek, I brush my thumb over her plump lower lip. God, I want to kiss her again. But I must wait. Wait until she is certain that I am still what she wants. As much as it guts me to think of her with another guy, it isn’t right of me to assume she will come back to me as easily. I hurt her.
“Baby, I can live anywhere and do my job. With what you do, you have to know this.”
“But what about your life out there? Your parents? How can I ask you to leave everything you’ve built out there? It isn’t fair for me to do that.”
Her question about my parents strikes a chord in my chest. I’m not ready to update her on what has happened in that part of my life. Not until I know she is open to exploring us again. “You don’t need to worry about that. Since the day we set foot in California, my mom has heard nothing except my orchestrated plans to leave. And you may believe it isn�
�t fair for you to ask me to come back here. Back to you.” I reach forward and press my palm against her sternum. “But this is where I belong. This is where I have always belonged. You are all that matters. All that has ever mattered.”
She sucks in a breath as her eyes pool with unshed tears. In the shadowed night of the beach, everything is heightened and intensified. As if being in the darkness provides a blanket of security and you feel safe enough to expose your heart. There is something to be said about the darkness and its allure. Not just the darkness of night, but the yin in all things. That is what she is… my yin. The strong, feminine cosmic force who took hold of my heart and molded it with hers. Without her, I am a pointless yang. No balance, no life, no love.
Soft, thin fingers rest atop mine, encompassing my hand in the warmth of her skin. Below my palm, her heart beats wildly. Irrationally. While her heart tells me tales of excitement and joy, her eyes shed tears of insecurity and apprehension. Both of which I understand.
But a glint of something else resides there. Hope. A belief there is truth behind my words. That I am not just saying these things to taunt or mislead her. That there is an actual chance for us to rekindle something that never should have been diffused in the first place. A new opportunity to share the undeniable magnetism we have always had for each other. Hope for a new version of us. A better version.
“How?” The single word a question that rests heavy on her lips.
“I’ve been talking about moving back home for years. And now that my career has a better base, I can live anywhere. I don’t have to be in the thick of Hollywood for people to find me. It was different in the beginning. Being out there helped get my foot in the door. Got me in front of the right people. But now… now I can be wherever. Alyson deals with all the contractual and legal aspects. She lets me know when someone is interested in hiring me. Sure, me living out there makes life easier for her. But she can still be my agent no matter where I am. Technology allows people to be on opposite sides of the world and still work together.”
Through the Lens (Click Duet #1) (Bay Area Duet Series) Page 13
