I walked out of Gabe’s bedroom at eleven and saw Naomi passed out face-first on the couch, clad only in her bra and with half her pants off. What the hell? I shook my head and abandoned that mystery for the kitchen where I pulled out a carton of eggs, milk, an aluminum mixing bowl and a frying pan. I felt like a cliché as I started making breakfast in nothing but my underwear and Gabe’s button-down flannel from the night before, but God help me if I didn’t absolutely love it.
Today was Thanksgiving, and it’s possible that the four of us getting trashed the night before (Naomi allowed me one more allowance on account of the holiday) wasn’t the best idea, especially since we were still going to try making a traditional Thanksgiving meal. But one drinking game led to another, which led to another… and yeah… we were wasted, and truthfully I didn’t remember much after midnight, but based on the delicious soreness between my legs I was guessing the Gabe and I were… productive. Hopefully we remembered to use condoms. Being productive is one thing, but I certainly didn’t want to be reproductive. I snorted at my lame pun and seriously considered the idea that I was still drunk.
I had already cracked eight of the twelve eggs and poured in the milk when Gabe’s voice sounded behind me. It was deep and scratchy like he had just woken up.
“What are you doing?”
“Riding a bike,” I deadpanned. I turned around, cradling the bowl against my stomach and whisking the eggs as he walked to the fridge and grabbed the orange juice before drinking straight out of the container. We smiled warmly at each other and he returned the juice to the fridge without breaking eye contact.
“Can you toss me the stick of butter while you’re there?” I nodded toward him.
“Course.” He continued to hold my eyes until I turned around and started the stove. The butter slid across the counter under my arm, already sliced and on a plate, ready to be put in the pan.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
Gabe nuzzled my neck before wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder. “No problem.” We were silent for several minutes as I put the butter and whisked eggs and milk into the pan, watching them cook.
“Maybe you should put some pants on… not that I mind the view.” I shivered as his hand disappeared under the shirt and his fingers dipped into my underwear. “But I really don’t want Derek walking out and enjoying the view either.”
I rolled my eyes and turned around in his arms, allowing his hand to glide along my hip and rest on my butt. “I have known Derek since I was a kid, and unfortunately he was very present for the period of time where I seemed to hate wearing clothes. So he has probably seen ‘the view’ more than you have at this point.”
He pinched my cheek and kissed the smirk off my mouth before whispering against my mouth. “Unless you started puberty extremely early, I think quite a bit has changed.” The hand on my butt squeezed, while the other came up and rolled my nipple until I was moaning against his mouth. He growled in response and roughly brought his lips flush with mine, plunging his tongue into my mouth. I could still feel a hand on my backside and fingers around my nipple, but I quickly realized that one of those sensations had to be a phantom feeling as a seemingly third hand slipped between my legs, finding my bare flesh.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he whispered against my lips as he slipped two fingers inside me and slowly started pumping. We stumbled to the side away from the stove. I fumbled to turn it off as he picked up speed and the heel of his hand rubbed my clit. As I reached back to grab the counter, I hit the empty mixing bowl and several unused eggs, barely acknowledging them as the bowl scraped the wall and the eggs cracked on the ground. Gabe’s hand froze.
“Please don’t stop,” I begged, roughly grabbing his wrist and pushing it against me, filling me deeper.
“But, Naomi…” He trailed off, sounding torn between finishing what he started and getting caught. Pushing up on my tiptoes, I groaned as his fingers slowly left me until only the tips remained. With a quick glance over his shoulder, I saw that Naomi hadn’t moved an inch. For good measure my eyes flew to Derek’s door and found it also undisturbed.
Satisfied that no one heard, I sank back down quickly until his fingers were lodged and his palm cupped me once more. Unable to speak, I simply shook my head and urged him to continue as I rolled my hips. His eyes were dark and hooded with lust, but his hand was tentative and way too slow. I growled in frustration. “Jesus, Gabe. She’s not… awake… Derek’s door… is… closed,” I panted out as I rubbed myself against his practically immobile hand.
“That could change any minute.” Gabe’s hand slowed again, but his voice was ragged and his eyes were slightly mischievous. He wasn’t going to stop this time, but he sure was enjoying torturing me.
My hands left the counter and clutched his shoulders, my nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. “Then you better be able to finger me in a minute.” His hand froze again as his eyes widened at my crass words, but I felt no embarrassment. I was surprised too, but it was simply a testament to how comfortable I felt with him. I knew I was safe here. I knew I was loved here.
I would have laughed at his expression if the throbbing between my legs hadn’t crossed the line from uncomfortable to downright painful. “So make it fast… and hard.”
“Are you trying to kill me?” Gabe’s words came out on a groan, his eyes flaring and his control snapping as he lips landed on my neck, roughly sucking the skin there. His hand went from zero to sixty, causing a whole different kind of pain. A pleasurable pain. A pain I would beg for. Gabe’s rough fingers continued to work me over and within a minute I was spiraling. He saw the signs and brought his mouth to mine to silence my cries. I bit his lip as I bucked against him, riding the delicious aftershocks until I was limp in his arms.
We were silent for a few minutes until Gabe slowly removed his hand and moved back enough to bring his hand between us. “Well, well… who knew you’d be into voyeurism?” Gabe smirked as he brought the fingers that were just inside me to his mouth. My face heated up at his words, but I still returned his grin and impulsively grabbed his fingers just before they reached his mouth and brought them to my own instead.
He groaned as I slowly licked them clean. “Definitely.”
“Definitely what?”
“You are definitely trying to kill me.”
We grinned as we continued to come back to ourselves and looked at our surroundings. My mind was reeling; I couldn’t believe I’d just had an orgasm in Derek’s kitchen. Eggshells littered the counter behind me, reminding me of my breakfast plans.
I laughed when I saw four broken eggs on the ground. My head fell against Gabe’s chest, shaking slightly from his own chuckles. “I guess I should probably throw this out, right?” I nodded to the pan containing only slightly burnt eggs. “It’s probably not very sanitary.”
“I see no reason why we can’t eat it.”
“We should probably clean this up before—”
Just as I was about to say before anyone wakes up, Derek’s door creaked open and he came stumbling out. He was shirtless and his hair stuck out in every direction as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“What the hell?” he asked while pointing to his half-naked sister. Gabe and I remained frozen. He shook his head and walked our way but came to a halt at the entrance of the kitchen, his eyes going between the mess on the floor and us. Clearly he was still half asleep because his eyebrows were drawn tight for several seconds before they shot up into his hairline. “What. The. Hell?”
“Morning?”
“Alara…”
“Derek…” I mocked.
“Ughhh… you know what? Whatever… you’re an adult. You can do what you want.”
“Thank God, now I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
Gabe smiled at me before whispering in my ear, “pants,” and nodding his head toward Derek. I laughed since he was far more interested in his phone than anything living, but with another quick peck to his lips I complied and walked to the bedroom, absolutely powerless against the smile overtaking my face.
I watched her walk away, only looking away once she’d disappeared from my line of sight. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like absolute shit. How are you so unaffected?”
“I didn’t have much, plus Alara and I found… ahh… activities that sobered us up quite a bit before we went to bed last night.”
Derek rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something when three loud knocks echoed through the apartment, causing him to wince and cover his ears. “Fucking shit, who the hell?” When we were both too slow to answer, the knocks sounded again and Derek bolted for the bathroom, looking like he was ready to throw up.
I walked over to Naomi and shook her awake, trying to keep my eyes away from anything other than her face. She moaned and shifted. “Naomi, come on, get up.” I shook her with a little more force. “There’s someone at the door and whoever it is, I don’t think you want them to see you like this.”
“I don’t give a fart,” she slurred. I squeezed her shoulder and whispered, “please.” She begrudgingly got up and headed for my bedroom where Alara was. I was crossing the apartment as the third set of knocks sounded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming…” I trailed off as I reached the door. I froze as soon as it was fully opened and my mind registered who was in front of me. Several seconds passed and neither of us said anything, until…
“Gabriel.”
My dad was standing there. When I was seven and got stuck in a tree, I wanted him there. When I was ten and wanted someone to teach me to catch, I wanted him there. When I was twelve and broke my arm, I wanted him there. Hell, even when I was eighteen and graduating and I knew what an ass he was, I still wanted him there. And he wasn’t there. Not for any of it.
So I didn’t know if life was being cruel or ironic. Because now that he was here, I definitely didn’t want him.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
His eyebrows rose like he was shocked I’d be mad. “You should be with your family, it’s Thanksgiving.”
“I am with my family,” I gritted out, looking down the hallway toward the bedrooms. “And we’re actually going to be leaving soon, so if you wouldn’t mind…” I began closing the door; after all, there was nothing he could say that would change my mind.
“And what about Samantha?” he asked right before it shut.
Except that. I froze, cursing under my breath before I reopened the door. “I invited her over for Thanksgiving, but she said she’d rather be with you.” Which frankly I still couldn’t figure out, but she was adamant about it.
“She said that? She said she’d rather be with me?” he asked dryly.
“Yes, she said…” I trailed off as I thought about it, and no, she hadn’t said that. She had said that she needed to be home. And what she meant was Mom’s home; she had to be there for Mom. I hung my head in shame and stupidity. It never occurred to me that she saw that place as a shrine to Mom, since I had only ever thought of it as our dad’s prison.
I saw my father’s eyes brighten; apparently my thoughts were painfully obvious. “We both know how she feels about these holiday parties I host. It would mean a great deal to her if you were there.”
“If you know how she feels about them, then why don’t you cancel the damn things?”
He clucked his tongue. “You know I can’t do that. Business doesn’t take holidays off.” He paused and looked over my shoulder. “Speaking of business… have you forgotten about our agreement?” I remained silent. “Our agreement was that you had a year to get your dalliances out of the way before you came back to your,” he paused and allowed his gaze to shift over my shoulder once more before continuing, “real life. And I think coming home for this Thanksgiving party would be an excellent reinstatement of and commitment to that agreement.”
A throat cleared and I turned around to find Derek and Alara at the end of the hallway. Derek was glaring at my father while Alara simply wore a mask of confusion.
“Gabe?” she asked softly.
I walked over to her while rubbing the back of my neck. “Hey, maybe you guys should grab Naomi and head over to your apartment without me? I need to talk to him some more and then I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done?” I phrased it as a question, trying to show her how much I didn’t want this, but I also hoped she realized it was something I had to deal with right now. Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked a little unsure, but finally she nodded her head.
“Sure. I’ll see you in a bit.” She glanced curiously at my dad before disappearing into my room.
“Is everything—” Derek started.
“Everything will be fine. I just need you to get them out of here.”
Derek was starting to look a little pissed, but he nodded as well and fifteen minutes later they were all gone, leaving just my father and me.
“My real life is here,” I said, realizing that all that bullshit from earlier was for Alara’s benefit, designed to hurt her. “You can’t force me back into anything.”
My father’s eyebrows rose and a mocking smile adorned his face. “You’re right, I can’t force you into anything. But I can offer incentive.”
“I don’t want your fucking money.”
His eyebrows rose. “I wasn’t planning on giving you any. You’ll earn more than enough when you’re at the company.”
My nails dug into my palms as I fisted my hands. “I’m not coming back to the company.”
My father looked down at his watch before sighing. “This really isn’t the time or place to have this discussion.” He looked around like the apartment personally offended him. “The party starts in three hours. I expect you to be there, and even if Samantha says she isn’t expecting you, she will still be hoping you show up. So think about that while you’re with your family.”
…
I blew out a sad, tired breath as I hung my head and stared down at my phone.
Me: I’m so sorry but I won’t be able to make dinner tonight
Alara: Okay? Is everything all right?
Me: yeah, I just really need to be here for Sam
Alara: Okay, well, have a good thanksgiving.
Me: you too. I hope you know I’d much rather be there, I already miss you
I sent that last text four hours ago and had heard nothing back.
“Hey.” I looked up toward Sam’s soft voice and nodded my head before gazing out at our backyard. My mom’s garden was no longer vibrant and alive like it once was.
Sam sighed as she leaned on the railing and looked out with me. “You didn’t have to come. I know how you feel about—”
“Sam, I want to be here for you.”
“But you’re not.”
“What?”
She turned toward me. “Gabe, you’ve been on your phone or out here ever since the party started. And I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, but it’s obvious that you don’t want to be here and I’m really okay if you leave.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before slowly releasing it. “No. I promised myself I’d be there for you more when I returned, but then I got caught up with…”
“Alara,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, and she’s important to me.” I turned to face Sam so she knew the importance of my next words. “But so are you, and its time I started showing you that.”
Sam gave my hand a squeeze. “I already know that. You don’t have to make yourself miserable to prove it.”
“I’m only miserable because I’m choosing to be. C’mon. Let’s go liven up that party,” I said, offering her my arm. As Sam greedily accepted and a huge smile broke out across her face, I tried to assure myself that I’d made the right choice. But somehow, some part of it still felt wrong.
…
Later that evening when Sam was off talking to some of her former friends, Miranda and my father cornered me.
“Evening, Gabe.” Miranda opened her arms for a hug, which I halfheartedly returned, before she placed a swift kiss on my cheek.
“Miranda, you look very nice.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m glad to see you two are getting along again,” my father interrupted.
I groaned and scrubbed my hand down my face. “This isn’t going to work. It isn’t going to change anything,” I said, cutting right to the chase.
Apparently this was fine by my father. “Gabriel, this is all you’ve ever wanted. I don’t want to see you throw everything away over some girl—”
“What the hell are you talking about? First of all, no, this is not all I’ve ever wanted. Maybe at one point I thought I wanted this, but all I was really doing was settling. It was a default choice.” I paused, grimacing when Miranda flinched, but I had to carry on. “And Alara has nothing to do with any of this. I made this decision before I met her. How do you even know about her?”
My father gave me a patronizing look before shaking his head. “I don’t think you understand how serious I am about this. So, yes, I’ve looked into the people you’ve been spending time with.”
“Well, stop it—”
“How much do you even know about this girl? Do you know she’s on antidepressants? That she—”
“I love her, Dad. That’s what I know.”
Miranda looked embarrassed as she cleared her throat before nodding to the exit. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”
“And what about Samantha?” my father asked, barely registering Miranda’s departure.
“What about her?” I asked slowly.
“She’s not eighteen until next May, and while she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself, I will be gone for the next few months and I could easily justify sending her to live with Wendy for the duration of her senior year.”
I stared at him as my jaw flexed and my fingers curled into fists causing my nails to cut into my palms. We stayed silent for several moments as I surveyed the man in front of me and tried to see the father I once admired, the husband my mother once loved. But he was no longer there. Despite Sam’s insistence, he was gone. Or maybe he was never really there and it was all an act; either way, it felt like a blow to my stomach to really, truly realize that I didn’t have a father. Because being a parent wasn’t just about giving a child life, it was also about teaching that child how to live.
“I really don’t understand how you can be this cruel and coldhearted. You know I’ll stay to keep that from happening. But it won’t keep me forever. You’ll never win.”
“This isn’t about winning. I’m trying to do what’s best for you; you just can’t see it right now. After you spend some time back in your old life, you’ll see it’s where you belong. I don’t want you throwing all this away and waking up one day regretting the choices you made because you were grieving.”
I clenched my jaw and shook my head because he wasn’t even listening. “That’s not what this is. Yeah, I grieved for a long time. But it made me realize that I want to enjoy every bit of life. I know there’s good and there’s bad and that’s always going to be the case, but I’m going to fit in as much good as I can. I’m not going to settle for a job and muddle my way through it, telling myself I’ll enjoy the weekend when it comes. I want to love every part of my life. The bad should only be things we have no control over, like dying and heartbreak and pain-in-the-ass parents. It shouldn’t be things of our own choosing, like a job or a girlfriend or a lifestyle. I’m sorry you don’t agree. But there is no scenario in which you come out on top here. So I guess you’ll just have to ask yourself whether you’re okay with me hating you or not. I’ve lost one parent, and as much as we disagree, I’d really hate to lose another. But if you force me to make this choice, that’s exactly how this will turn out.”
I hadn’t seen Gabe since Thanksgiving five days ago, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. We weren’t exactly fighting but we’d only shared a handful of text messages and phone calls in that time frame, and each and every time things felt off. I could tell he was stressing about something but he didn’t seem to want to talk about, which in turn made me not want to talk about… anything.
Apparently this made me extremely disagreeable, because Naomi spent the last two nights at Caleb’s place. Thankfully Sherry didn’t seem to notice anything, or if she did she blessedly said nothing about it. The two of us were hanging out at a coffee stand near campus; she had just gotten back from her mysterious trip last night and although we never talked about where she went or what she did, I always wanted to make sure she was okay. We had just sat down when—
“Hey,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned around and saw the last person I wanted to see. “Uh, hi.”
“It’s Alara, right? You’re friends with Gabe?”
“Girlfriend,” Sherry interrupted, already on the offensive.
I saw a brief flicker of pain and longing in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by resolve. “I’m Miranda.” She held out her hand to Sherry, which Sherry reluctantly shook.
“Sherry. So you’re a friend of Gabe’s?” Sherry asked, throwing the word back at her.
She looked sad as her gaze traveled over to me. “Actually, I’m his fiancée.”
Fiancée? “What?” I croaked out.
Miranda held up her left hand, displaying the very unique wedding ring that Gabe’s mother wore in the picture on his desk. My eyes widened and my stomach dropped.
“I’m sorry to be so tactless about it, but I thought it was time you knew, and I knew he would have trouble doing it himself.” She shrugged like she wasn’t ripping out my heart and stomping on it.
“Knew what?” Sherry asked, her tone razor sharp.
“When Gabe left for Europe, we put our relationship on hold. But it was always a temporary separation.” She looked at me with so much pity I wanted to smash something in her face.
Her words turned over in my head as I tried to process what she was saying. Gabe wouldn’t deceive me. No matter what she was saying, I knew I had to hear his side of things. But how else would she get that ring? I cleared my throat as she stared on, clearly expecting me to say more. “Why only temporary?”
“Grief does strange things to people, you know. People are always advised not to make major life changes after a loss, but Gabe… he turned his whole world upside down. I was just waiting for him to come back to himself. To his real life.”
I was going to be sick. His real life? Why did everyone keep saying it like that? Was I taking advantage of his grief? He was slowly making everything better for me, but was I really making things better for him? Or was I holding him back? I knew one of the things he wanted most was to repair his relationship with Sam, but how could he ever really do that if we were always together?
And what if he decided he did want to go back? Would he be able to tell me? Or would he feel guilty and worry about my reaction? As if she could read my mind, Miranda said, “He always wanted to take care of everyone and when he couldn’t, he got scared and ran away. His mother was sick and his sister was completely lost, and he could do nothing about it. But eventually he’ll realize that he can’t let that keep him from living his life. I hope you’ll help him see that this is the right thing to do. If you care about him at all—”
“Leave.” Miranda blinked in surprise at Sherry’s sharp command, and she actually seemed a little scared as she stepped back. With one final look between us, she gave me another pity-filled smile and walked away. And as I sat there, I couldn’t help but feel like part of my heart went with her.
…
“You okay?” I shrugged and twisted the coffee sleeve around the cup. “Do you want me to call Naomi?”
I shook my head. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest.”
Sadness consumed Sherry’s face as she nodded. “Okay. You know you can always talk to me, but I have to ask… why not go to Naomi? We both know she’s better at this.”
“Better is just a perspective. She’ll just give me all the positives and while that’s good… I need a little bit of realism right now too. Which is something you’re better at.” I tried to grin while elbowing her in the boob.
“Okay, so what’s the question?”
“Do you ever feel like you can’t tell me things because I’ll react poorly? Like you’re always walking on eggshells, waiting for me to crack?”
Her mouth screwed up in a frown as she thought about it. “Kind of, but not because I’m waiting for you to crack. I just don’t want to upset you, and not because you’re my friend who has depression, but simply because you’re my friend. Everyone has triggers and I try to be mindful of them. But at the end of the day if I think you need to hear something, even if you won’t like it, I’d tell you, because that’s also part of being a friend. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does.”
She studied me thoughtfully for a moment before commenting. “You can’t keep doing that, you know.”
I frowned. “Doing what?”
“You can’t keep separating pieces of yourself—it won’t accomplish anything. There isn’t you and then your depression. They aren’t separate things. They affect each other, and I know you think Gabe can’t possibly love that part of you. But all of it’s you, and if he loves you, he has to love that too because even though it sucks, it has made you who you are.”
My frown deepened. Just the other day I had said something similar to Gabe. That I was sick of letting my depression define me, and here I had let Miranda do just that. I had let her convince me of something that I had no actual proof for.
“You’re right.” I nodded my head and gave Sherry a grateful smile. “I know you’re right.”
“We all have nerves.”
Yeah, we did, and with this one open and exposed I’d have to be extra careful not to let anything hit it. Not to let anything make it unnecessarily worse.
…
I asked Gabe to come over tonight, and even though it made me uncomfortable I described the entire encounter with Miranda to him, the words, the ring, and the feelings (well mostly). He grimaced as I finished and he came to sit next to me. We were in my room; I was on the bed and he had been at my desk. “It’s not what you think,” he said, sounding exhausted.
My laugh was uncomfortable as I rolled my eyes, trying to look untroubled. “Words every woman wants to hear.” My joke fell flat as my voice quivered, revealing just how scared I actually was.
He gave me a small smile for my attempt and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, drawing me into his side. “I told you the truth about Miranda and me. We’re over, my dad and her just don’t want to accept it.”
“What was the deal your dad was talking about?”
“When I left he told me I had a year before he expected me to come back, marry Miranda and work at his company while finishing my master’s.” He hesitated, shoving his hand in his thick hair before his eyes slowly roamed over my face. “And I accepted it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked quietly as I brushed hair back from his face.
“It didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to do it. I only agreed to it at the time because I didn’t want to argue with him.” Gabe’s tone was laced with frustration.
“But now he probably looks at this like I’ve ruined the plan and somehow convinced you to change your entire life.” My voice was coming out harsher than I intended, but this whole conversation was leaving me confused. Why would he choose bartending and me over what his dad could offer and a steady, sane life with Miranda? It really didn’t make any sense. There was that pesky little nerve again.
“Yeah, I know. I think that’s why he’s been extra forceful with it.”
“So, what now? He clearly expects you to hold up your end of this, but what can he do? You’re an adult.” When I was met with silence, I twisted in his arms and rested my chin on his chest so I was looking up at him. “Does he have something that could compel you to do this?”
“He threatened to send Sam to his sister’s place on the East Coast for the rest of the school year. It’s her senior year, the few friends she has left are here and she’s still recovering from losing our mother, and that asshole wants to send her away… because of me.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“Yeah.” He gave me a sad look before turning his attention to the wall across from us. “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I didn’t think he was serious.”
“We’re gonna be okay, right?” I asked quietly.
“Of course,” he said automatically, but I could hear the fear and sadness in his voice. He wasn’t sure, and even though I wasn’t a religious person, I would pray. I would pray he wasn’t lying. Because for the first time since we started dating, I was truly worried we weren’t going to be okay.