Page 40 of It's Always Been You
That ship has completely sailed. We’re going away together, so in my head, it’s already a whole thing.
“Then fine. Take me to San Francisco.”
“I would love nothing more.”
“Can you text me the dates so I can put them on the shared calendar I have with the girls for work? Julie gets irritable if we don’t keep it updated.”
“I’d be happy to, but I don’t have your number.”
Molly stares at me. “You own a company that literally manufactures phones. I just assumed you would be able to get anyone’s phone number you want.”
“I guess I probably could, but I think federal regulators would frown on me violating users’ privacy for my own purposes. Besides, you don’t have the Redwood.”
She holds her hand out for my phone, and I hand it to her. She inputs her number and then texts herself. I grin at her.
“What?”
“You wanted my number, too, didn’t you?”
“It’s only logical.” Molly hands her phone back to me, and I smile even wider when I see she saved herself in my phone asRory. For some reason, this makes me unreasonably happy. I slip the phone into my pocket and look up at her.
“You ready to go, fiancée?”
“You’re seriously going to call me that?”
I stand and hold out a hand for her. “I like the way it sounds. If I have to be fake fiancés with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.”
She studies me for a second and then puts her hand in mine.
“I’m glad it’s you too.”
Chapter Thirteen
Molly
Gabe reaches out a hand and touches mine when he pulls his car up to the curb outside my house.
“Stay there—I’ll get the umbrella.”
I glance out the window at the rain still pouring down. It should irritate me, but it doesn’t. Right now, I don’t think anything could. Talking with Gabe tonight was unexpected. I knew we were going out tonight totalk. I was low-key dreading it. I thought it would be hard and sad, like opening old wounds and examining the worst moments of my life.
It was none of those things.
It was everything.
I look at Gabe and smirk at him. “No umbrella necessary.”
Before he has a chance to say anything, I push open the car door and jump out onto the sidewalk, leaving my raincoat behind.
I’m instantly drenched. I stretch out my arms and tip my face up to the sky, closing my eyes and letting the rain pour over me and the wind blow my hair. It feels amazing. Cleansing. Like a baptism of sorts, washing away the anger and sadness that have been embedded in my soul for a decade. As they seep away, I wonder how I lived with them for so long because in their placeis a wide-open space waiting to be filled. A space that feels like potential and possibility. Anticipation and hope.
Me. It feels like me.
In this moment, I am more myself than I have been in ten years. Arms still stretched wide, I spin in a circle and laugh at the joy of it.
“Rory.”
In a split-second, joy turns to lust because Gabe’s voice is low and deep, and I wonder how I can hear it over the pounding of the rain, but then I realize that’s a stupid thing to wonder. Gabe is a part of me. I would hear his voice in a crowd of a million.
