LAUREN

 

The next few days at work were filled with secret smiles and knowing glances. Gabe’s bruising faded and he was content with the way things were between us. He stopped sulking and I did my best to relax a little, even allowing him to pull me into the storage room for make-out sessions when no one was looking. By the time Christmas approached, we were in a good place and I was dreading leaving him to go visit my parents, even if it was only going to be for a couple of weeks.

“I’m going to miss this,” I said as we kissed, surrounded by bags of coffee beans and sleeves of takeaway cups.

Gabe nuzzled into my neck, cracking the door open and glancing out to the café to make sure it was still empty. His mouth had me hot and bothered and I desperately didn’t want to stop. Sometimes, just the mere sight of him made me wet. I reached down and pressed my hand under the waistband of his jeans. He sucked in his breath as I wrapped my fingers around his hardened cock.

“Careful,” he warned as I began to stroke his length, teasing and pleasuring him in ways I knew couldn’t be continued. He pulled away a little but I gripped harder. “Seriously,” he panted. “Careful.”

I jerked him back to me and stroked harder, attaching my mouth to his earlobe and nipping the flesh with my teeth.

He sucked in air sharply. “Mark’s going to walk in from his smoke break any minute. We should stop.”

I removed his hand from where it was placed against the door and guided it between my legs, knowing the wetness and warmth he would find.

“Oh god, Lauren.” His fingers moved over my swollen clit before sinking inside. “Lauren,” he panted.

I moved my hand faster, wrapping it around his bulging cock which strained against his jeans until Gabe jerked his hand out from my pants. “Shit,” he said, pulling away from me. “Shit, shit, shit. Mark’s back.” Gabe looked down at the large bulge in his pant. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he said, looking up at me. I reached over and ran my hand over him, delighting as he twitched in response. “You’re not helping, Lauren.”

I laughed and pushed open the door, grabbing an unneeded bag of coffee beans. “See you out there.”

For the rest of the shift, Gabe couldn’t keep his eyes off me. Every time I bent down, I would get back up to find his eyes attached to my backside or my chest. Every time I concentrated on a task, I would look back up to find him fixed on the way my tongue ran over my lips. And every time we found ourselves alone, he would stride over to me, forcefully bringing his lips to mine and shoving his hand down my pants, groaning each time he still found me wet.

After another close call when we repelled from each other before Mark’s entrance, Mark stood leaning in the doorway of the kitchen and crossed his arms. “So?” he asked.

My heart raced in my chest, certain that this was the time we had been caught.

“What are everyone’s plans for Christmas?”

Gabe breathed a sigh of relief and laughed even though there was nothing he should have been laughing about.

“I’m heading up to my parents’ place for a couple of weeks,” I said, turning my back on a chuckling Gabe. “You?”

“Home with the family,” Mark said dryly. He looked between Gabe and me. “As much fun as it is seeing you two squirm and trying to hide it, I know.”

“Know what?” I asked, attempting to look innocent.

“About you and him.”

The grin that overcame Gabe’s face was huge and he lifted an eyebrow at me. “I didn’t say a word,” he insisted. “I swear.”

“He didn’t,” Mark agreed, reaching into his pocket. “Here.” He extended his hand to Gabe. “I think I owe you this.”

Gabe took the notes and fanned them out, laughing. “Cheers,” he said. “This will come in handy for Christmas. There’s a certain lady I need to buy for and she did kind of help me earn it.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. 

Our shift finished and it seemed no time at all before Gabe was leaning through the window of my car, planting a kiss on my forehead, my bags resting on the back seat.

“Do you have to go?”

“It’s only for a couple of weeks,” I said.

“It will feel like forever. You’ve got to send me naughty pictures, okay? I’ll need to relieve the pressure while you’re away and you are kind of leaving me with rather blue balls since we never got to finish what we started earlier. Unless—” He tugged on the door handle but it was locked. “Never mind,” he muttered and feigned a pout.

We kissed goodbye and soon I was making the four-hour trip to my parents’ house. Gabe interrupted my journey with numerous phone calls and the four-hour trip soon turned into five. It was dark when I finally pulled up the drive. Morgan and Alistair’s car was already there so they must have arrived before I did. Mother came to the door before I cut the engine, and stood with arms crossed in the light of the doorway.

“You’re late,” she said. “Your father has been worried sick, afraid that you had driven yourself over the edge of a cliff by travelling this late at night.”

I opened the door and hopped out, grabbing my bags from the back seat. “Hello, Mother,” I said, leaning over to kiss her cheek and earning a wink from Dad as he came up behind her.

She swatted me away and threw a tea towel over her shoulder, reminding me of Peta, before retreating inside.

“How’s my girl?” Dad asked, patting me on the back. He had never been much of a hugger.

“Your girl is wonderful,” I said.

Dad lifted an eyebrow. “Wonderful, you say?”

“Wonderful,” I repeated.

Morgan, Alistair and Madison appeared out of the lounge and Madi threw her arms around me. “Merry Christmas, Aunty L,” she said excitedly as I hugged her back. Morgan merely nodded in my direction and Alistair stretched out to shake my hand.

“Did you bring me a present?” Madi asked, scanning the bag I carried. “I can go put it under the tree.”

I looked to Morgan questioningly. “A tree?” Mother had never allowed us to have a Christmas tree growing up. In her mind, having a tree did nothing but distract from the true message.

“She’s getting soft in her old age,” Morgan whispered.

Mother, coming in from the kitchen carrying a tray of hot chocolates, squinted her eyes and shook her head at Morgan. “I heard that, young lady. Your mother might be getting old, but her hearing is just fine.”

Christmas Eve was spent singing carols in our house. Mother would pull up a chair to the old electronic organ sitting in a corner of the lounge, and the notes of Silent Night and The First Noel filled the room. As much as I was dreading the time spent away from Gabe, it was good to be home.

Gabe texted through most of the evening, updating me on his mother’s strange habits, the organic, dairy and alcohol-free egg nog she had made, the quality of the weed they smoked, the vegan meal for dinner. The way he explained it all had me thinking that it was my family that was the saner of the two. Mother kept looking at me disapprovingly each time my phone buzzed, but I ignored her looks and replied each time a text came through, trying not to smile at his comical descriptions of his mother.

“So,” I said, putting the phone down, and turning to Alistair once the organ music had stopped. “How’s the app coming along?”

Alistair’s eyes lit up. “I sold it.”

“Did you not notice the new car in the driveway?” Morgan asked proudly.

“It was dark,” I replied.

“Made a pretty bundle on it too,” Alistair said. “At first, I was worried as there were certain hurdles I just couldn’t overcome, but then some developer got wind of it and offered to buy it off me. They were way ahead of me in the game, anyway. In fact, there were a number of apps already out there, but they still saw the value in mine. I couldn’t believe my ears when he mentioned the figure. It’s done very nicely for us.”

“Would have been better if you had you actually worked out those kinks,” Morgan said, taking a sip on her second hot chocolate.

I could have murdered a wine, but Mother refused to have alcohol in the house.

Alistair swallowed and smiled tightly. “I’m sure your new wardrobe would disagree. And the jewellery. And the makeup. Oh, and of course the students who now have access to a whole lot of new instruments.”

“They were ordered long before you sold the app, Al.”

“But they weren’t paid for,” Alistair said firmly.

I smirked a little as he held his ground.

“We’re all very proud of you, Alistair,” Dad said, interrupting Morgan and Alistair’s staring competition. “Aren’t we, Morgan?”

Morgan took another sip of her hot chocolate and simply shrugged her shoulders. “Would be nicer if we didn’t have the nuisance lawsuit to deal with now.”

Alistair rolled his eyes and turned to me. “There’s another developer claiming I stole his idea, all because we used the same graphic on one of our marketing packages. It will all wash over as soon as the judge sees the evidence.”

“Hopefully,” Morgan muttered.

I took out my phone and flicked through a text to Gabe.

 

Me: I love you.

 

His reply was almost instant.

 

Gabe: You don’t know how much that made me smile.

 

I thought back to when I first met Gabe and how afraid I was that his interest in me was merely for his amusement. I had been scared I was nothing more than a challenge or that he would use me. And then my mind drifted to the way Gabe must feel, knowing that I wouldn’t tell anyone about him. I was saying I liked him, but not enough for other people to know about it. My breath caught in my throat when it dawned on me that I was treating him exactly the same way I had been scared he would treat me.

With tears springing to my eyes, I excused myself from the room and dialled Gabe.

“Fuck, I miss you,” he said as a way of greeting. His voice was light and happy and a little slurred. “Sorry,” he said and laughed. “I’m a little wasted. Lynda grows some excellent weed.”

“I need you,” I said.

“Oh, babe,” he said, and I smiled to myself, having never heard the word ‘babe’ out of his mouth before. “I need you too. Want to try phone sex? I think it would work a lot better on a video call.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Believe me, it’s not in the gutter. Do you want me to tell you where it is? What it’s thinking of?”

“I want you to come up here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to come and meet my parents.” There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Properly,” I added. “As my—” I paused trying to think of the right word. Partner seemed too clunky, too old for the relationship we shared. Lover sounded weird and significant other just wasn’t right. “My boyfriend,” I finally settled on.

“For real?” Gabe asked.

“For real,” I said and couldn’t help the smile that crept into my tone.

“I probably shouldn’t drive right now,” Gabe replied.

“Tomorrow?”

“First thing,” Gabe confirmed. “Lauren?”

“Yes, Gabe?”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”