Page 29 of It's Always Been You
Brad lets my arm go and I whirl around, coming face-to-face with the angriest version of Gabe I’ve ever seen. He may be sporting a superhero T-shirt with glasses hooked into the collar and sweatpants, but nothing about him right now says geeky casual. His eyes are so filled with fury that I’m surprised they don’t shoot fire, and his hands twitch like he’s restraining himself from punching asshole Brad. His whole demeanor temporarily distracts me from the fact that he just called me his fiancée, and what the fuck is that all about?
Brad holds his hands up. “Look man, I don’t know what you think you saw, but my colleague here and I were just?—”
Brad cuts himself off at whatever look Gabe levels him with.
“Get. The fuck. Out.” Gabe’s voice is low and dangerous, and I guess Brad is just as much of a coward as he is an asshole because without even a single glance at me, he turns and makes a beeline for the exit.
“Come with me, Rory.”
Gabe snakes an arm around my waist and guides me around the corner of the busy restaurant into the hallway where the bathrooms are. I’m too stunned at what just happened to do anything but follow him. He takes the bags off my shoulders and arms and places them on the floor, then picks up the arm Brad was holding and examines the finger shaped bruises already starting to form. His expression is still murderous, but his touch is feather-light, and when he speaks, his tone is soft.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but Gabe, what the fuck was that?”
“He hurt you.” Gabe’s voice is pained, and he’s still gliding his fingers over my arm as if he can erase the bruises by his touch alone.
“I appreciate the save, but you just called me your fiancée. Your fiancée, Gabe, in front of the nephew of my biggest client. The asshole nephew who is absolutely running to his uncle right now to do some preemptive damage control for himself. And I assure you it won’t come up that Brad had his hands on me. He’ll spin it so I wronged him in some way because he’s an entitled dick bag asshole with well-honed survival instincts he substitutes for hard work and dedication. And my client is an old-fashioned guy’s guy who will probably believe his nephew because bitches be lying, you know what I mean?”
Gabe closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, they’re less mutinous and more regretful.
“I’m really sorry. I wasn’t thinking. His hand was on you, and I saw red. There were, like, a million ways I could have handled that better, and none of them involved calling you my fiancée. Although I do like the way that sounds.”
His voice is filled with hope and amusement, and then he grins at me. This whole thing is so surreal and ridiculous that, for lack of anything better to do, I burst out laughing. I laugh so hard that tears leak out of my eyes, and I have to lean back against the wall to steady myself.
“What are you even doing here anyway? This is my work neighborhood. You don’t live here. Unless you bought two houses.” I’m joking, but then I realize that Gabe is a billionaire and could buy a house in every neighborhood in the city if he wanted to. “You didn’t buy two houses, did you?”
He snorts out a laugh. “No, I didn’t buy two houses. Just the one is enough for me. I needed new running shoes and there was a pair I wanted to try on. Apparently, the best running store in the city is right near your office. I stopped in here afterward to grab lunch. You being here was just luck. It’s like the universe wants us to keep running into each other.”
“The universe?”
He shrugs and grins again. “Thirty-two years in Northern California.”
I look down and see the bag emblazoned with the running store logo hooked around his arm, and I know from Emma that it is, in fact, the best running store in the city, so his story checks out. I pride myself on not overreacting to shit unless overreacting is necessary, and this doesn’t feel like one of those times.
“Okay. It’ll be fine. Brad is the king of gaslighting, so I’ll just do a little gaslighting of my own and give him a taste of his own medicine. I didn’t hear you call me your fiancée, did I? Brad must have misheard.”
Gabe shakes his head. “That definitely doesn’t seem like something I would say. How could I possibly be your fiancé when I just moved to town like a week ago? That’s not logical.”
Now it’s my turn to grin. “Exactly.”
I think for a second and make another quick decision. My instincts haven’t failed me yet, so I’m just going with it. This really was an excellent day until asshole Brad. It’s time to reclaim the excellence.
“Did you eat yet?”
He shakes his head. “No, I saw you as soon as I walked in, so I never ordered.”
“I’m here picking up food for my friends. It’s probably ready now. We all managed to coordinate our schedules, and we’re having a big noisy lunch at my office. Any chance you want to come? There are a lot of us, and we’re pretty loud and sometimes kind of obnoxious, but in the loving, family way.”
Gabe swallows hard, and his eyes fill with an unexpected well of emotion.
“Can I…um…would it be okay if I hugged you?”
I smile at him even as butterflies flit through my stomach. “Yeah, Gabe, it’s okay.”
Gabe drops his bag on the ground and steps forward, folding me into him, one arm around my waist and one hand tunneling through my hair. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I lay my head on his chest and close my eyes as the scents of ocean and pine surround me. The sound of his heartbeat in my ear is familiar, like a long-buried memory come to life.
Even though his body is bigger and more muscled than it was ten years ago, everything else about this hug is the same. His thumb drawing circles on my lower back. The way he leans his head against mine and lets out a little happy sigh. Gabe holding me against him like he never wants to let me go. My body fitting perfectly against his, like we were made for each other. Everything inside of me settles as he holds me against him. The kiss he presses to the top of my head. The one word that filters through my mind when I’m in his arms.
