Chapter Fifteen
James
James: I’m in the mood for the beach. Wanna go jet skiing later?
I fired off the text to Gabrielle. I had just dropped Harper off at day care, and Mrs. W. was off doing whatever she did while Harper and I weren’t there. I was clearing some toys from the lounge when my phone dinged with an incoming message.
I grinned as Gabrielle’s name popped up on the messaging app.
Gabrielle: Jet skiing!!!!
James: I’m gonna go ahead and take that as a yes.
Gabrielle: How very astute of you. What time?
James: Now. Meet me at the same place.
Gabrielle: How very demanding of you. I kinda like it ;-)
James: I know. Now get that tight ass moving, woman!
I smirked at my phone. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Gabrielle roll her expressive eyes and curse at my last text with her brow furrowed in annoyance.
The walls of my house were closing in on me already. I looked forward to getting out and spending some time with Gabrielle. She’d been studying since Tuesday, mostly with her study groups, so we’d been limited to mostly texting back and forth.
My eyes darted from the kitchen, littered with plastic cups and pink cutlery and crockery that was still lying around from our hurried breakfast, to the lounge that was perpetually covered in toys despite my best efforts.
For the first time, I wondered what Gabrielle might think of my life. At first, I hadn’t seen the need to tell her about Harper, and I never imagined I’d actually be considering telling some girl about her, and bringing her home to meet her even. But Gabrielle wasn’t some girl. Not anymore. I wasn’t sure what she was, but it wasn’t just some chick that I was banging.
The house was nice enough. It was open and airy. Spacious, but comfortable. It was decorated with furniture that looked like someone actually lived there, not like the leather display pieces I’d boasted back in the bachelor pad.
The flooring was a mix of laminate and marble. The ceilings were high. The main living area was an open design that led to a hallway that housed our bedrooms and the four guestrooms, one of which I’d converted into a playroom for Harper and another into an office/game room for me.
There was a large back patio behind the house, with a built-in grill that I actually used and a sparkling blue swimming pool beyond that. It had a swim-up bar.
I didn’t think that I’d had anyone but some of my teammates and a few select other friends over since we’d moved in. None of those friends had been of the female variety.
Mrs. W. and my interior decorator had managed to give the place a homey feel while keeping the lines clean and modern the way I liked them. Pretty soon after we’d moved in, Harper had learned to crawl, and the place had never been the same since.
An unfamiliar feeling rose in my stomach as I wondered what Gabrielle would make of it all.
Fuck it, I decided, pushing the strange feeling back down.
It wasn’t like Gabrielle and I were dating by any stretch of the imagination. We’d fucked twice and hung out a couple of times. I was not going to waste time wondering about her reaction to Harper, or Harper’s reaction to her.
Gabrielle pulled up to the beach a few minutes after I did. Round black sunglasses perched on her cute nose and her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore a deep purple beach dress thing, I had no fucking idea what those things were actually called, and a bikini in the same color that was visible through the sheer material.
There was a familiar stirring in my cock as I remembered the moans that had rolled off of those pouty lips only two days before and the feeling of her deepest muscles clenching at me as she came all over my cock.
“So, jet skiing, huh?” she called as she came closer, a huge smile on her face. She was giddy with excitement. “I haven’t been for ages. I love this idea!”
“Yeah, I thought that you might. That’s why I invited you.”
She swatted my arm as I smirked. “You probably would have invited me even if you thought I’d hate it, just to make fun of my complaining.”
She had me there. “I’d like to plead the fifth.”
“Whatever, I know the truth.” The tip of her tongue darted out of her mouth, and she pointed it at me before shooting me a smile and taking off in the direction of the jet ski rental stand. Memories of what she did to my thumb with that tongue came flooding back, and I quickly adjusted myself before jogging after her.
Then it struck me.
Had she actually stuck her tongue out at me?
I choked on a surprised laugh, and I gently tackled her to the sand. I caught her in my arms and rolled us so that she would land on top of me. She shrieked a laugh as we went down. “What was that for?”
“I can think of better things that you can do with that tongue.” Her smile brightened, but she stuck her tongue out at me again as her heartbeat quickened against my chest. “You were warned.”
I reached up and brought her lips down hard on mine. It didn’t take her more than a second to catch up as she opened her mouth and slipped her tongue into mine. I didn’t allow the kiss to continue for long before giving her a playful slap on the ass and helping her to her feet.
Pink flushed on her cheeks, and her lips looked mildly bee stung. It was a fucking sexy look on her. I briefly considered giving up on the whole jet ski thing and hauling her to a beachside motel I knew nearby, but then I remembered her earlier excitement.
She laced her fingers with mine as we walked to rent our jet skis. She chose one with yellow and purple coloring that almost matched her bikini and expertly fastened her life jacket. I liked that she could handle herself.
I’d half-expected her to feign fear of her own jet ski so that she could ride with me. I’d been jet skiing with a few girls, and that seemed to be the modus operandi of choice.
Gabrielle, of course, insisted on her own and then yelled that she would race me as soon as she got to the water’s edge.
She threw a long, tanned leg over the seat, shot a grin at me, and opened the throttle. Her laughter carried on the wind as she took off at a speed that would have some of my battle-hardened teammates shuddering.
I stared after her for a second as I mounted my own jet ski, considering just letting her win our impromptu race. But my competitive streak won out. I pulled back on the throttle and tore off in her wake.
We raced around for what felt like hours, laughing and flirting as we sprayed each other with the warm ocean water.
The sun sat high in the sky by the time Gabrielle pulled up to me. “Damn, my arms are getting tired.”
“Is that an official surrender?” I asked.
“Never.” She grimaced playfully. “I’ll win next time. I’m just hitting the pause button for today.”
“Next time, huh?”
“Yup, you know you’re going to invite me out here again.” She pulled back on her throttle and cruised towards the beach, gliding easily onto the sand and hopping off with ease.
As I followed her out, I realized that she was right. I definitely wanted to do that with her again.
She produced a blanket-sized towel from the beach bag she’d retrieved from her car, and I spread it out a ways down the beach from where the crowds gathered.
I still wore my sunglasses, and I had a cap pulled low over my ears, but not because I was being a celebrity asshole. The day actually warranted both, but I was still grateful for the trace of anonymity they provided, surrounded as we were with tons of other guys wearing the same.
The towel was brightly colored and was easily big enough for both of us to spread out comfortably. We lay on our backs, our hands lightly clasped together between us as we talked.
Eventually, the subject turned to family. Gabrielle told me about growing up with Richard as a father, how she had been raised by an army of nannies after her mom had left and subsequently passed away when she was young.
A frisson of fear ran through me, but I dismissed it quickly. Mrs. W. was not an army of faceless nannies, and I was with Harper as often as I could be.
I never wanted Harper to be speaking about her childhood the way that Gabrielle was. A renewed determination took hold in my gut. I had to make sure that I gave Harper a childhood that she wouldn’t have to recover from.
Gabrielle’s voice cracked as she spoke about her mom, and I tugged her closer to me. Her head rested on my shoulder, and I stroked her back and listened to her story.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” I said.
Her pain radiated from her body in the way her shoulders hunched forward, and in the way she held on to me as if I was a life raft she clung to to keep from breaking into a million pieces.
“Thanks, it was a long time ago, though.”
I knew just as well as anyone who’d ever lost a parent that the pain didn’t really ever go away. You just learned to live with it. Every now and then, you’d talk about them or hear a song that they’d liked, and the grief would come flooding back as real and as devastating as it had been at first.
With everything Gabrielle was going through and her recent fight with her father, it didn’t surprise me that talking about her mom brought that grief back now.
“Long time or not, it never really goes away. I know that; you never have to explain yourself to me. Some days, it hurts like it just happened.”
“You sound like you have experience with grief,” she said.
I breathed out. I didn’t even really talk to Ryder about this, but I wanted to tell Gabrielle the truth. “I do. Both of my parents passed away when I was young.”
I waited for the sympathy that I didn’t want. She displayed the same empathy that I felt for her, but there wasn’t a single trace of pity in her voice.
Talking to her about it felt good. I liked that we were getting closer. Suddenly, not telling her about Harper started feeling like a lie. Worse yet, like I was ashamed of Harper. I wasn’t.
I didn’t like sharing her with the world, and I wanted her life to be as normal as possible. So, I kept her out of the public eye as much as I could, but it was time to tell Gabrielle that she existed.
“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle’s eyes were worried as she lifted her head from my chest. She’d folded her sunglasses on the towel next to her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your body just tensed, and your heart started thumping so hard that I swear my head nearly bounced.”
“There’s something else that I need to tell you.” This was it. I sat up and tugged her onto my lap, almost like I subconsciously wanted to be able to hold onto her if she decided to run once she learned the truth.
“Okay.” She rested a hand on the back of my neck and locked our fingers together as she met my gaze dead on. “You can tell me anything.”
“I have a daughter. Her name is Harper. She just turned 2.”