“Tommy—”
“Whatever.” He throws his hand up in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “It’s none of my fuckin’ business anyway.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Then don’t come crying to me when he’s getting roped into marriage with that bitch because neither of you had the balls to make a move.”
I shake my head and walk away, because as much as I love the guy and his ability to tell it like it is, he’s getting on my last nerve.
Iuse the restroom and head back out to the car parked on the street. Gabe sits in the back, stretched out across the seat, as much as any man over six foot can stretch out in a piece-of-shit Dodge Charger.
I open the door and climb in, giving him two seconds to move or get sat on. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Look, I know it’s weird when people talk like that, but that’s all it is ... talk.”
“Is it?”
Oh shit.He knows. He knows I’ve been in love with him since the second we met.
“What are you talking about?” I feign nonchalance and play with my bright blue hair.
“I mean, sometimes I wonder what it would be like.”
I turn and stare at Gabe, my best friend, the love of my life, and either I’m having an outer body experience and just hallucinated, or he’s saying he has thought about a life with me, one where we’re not just friends.
“And then you’d remember that we’d never work because we’re practically the same person and we’d drive one another nuts if we actually dated?”
“Would we though? I’m not so sure.”
“Well, you have a girlfriend, so it’s not like we’re going to ever find out.”
“But if I didn’t?” Gabe takes my hand, threading his fingers with mine.
My heart kicks into overdrive.Seriously, I don’t think it’s healthy for a heart to beat this fast. “If you didn’t, then maybe we’d be having a different conversation right now.”
Mace and Tommy approach the car and Tommy’s mouth quirks up in a knowing smirk.Rat Bastard. Mace takes one look at us in the back seat and his eyes narrow before he climbs in the passenger’s side. Gabe shifts on the seat next to me, but his hand doesn’t leave mine the rest of the way to the Airbnb.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gabe
I’m fucking beat, but it isn’t just the drive that’s done me in, or the two-hour long texts with Annie after she got off her shift, and was seriously pissed that I didn’t stay. It’s not like she didn’t know about the trade show. I’ve been planning this shit for months. I know what her rage texts are about. The woman next to me, my best friend, my fucking better half.
Lo had fallen asleep about an hour after we left Big Pine, and her hand had slipped from mine, and curled underneath her cheek, as she shifted to her side and snuggled in. I’d watched her for the better part of that hour, before Annie’s irate texts became intolerable and even Mace turned in his seat and looked at me like he was planning on shoving my phone up my ass if I didn’t respond immediately.
I knew the magazine photos were going to cause drama, I just figured I could dodge that bullet until I returned to Venice. The way Lo had looked at me, as if I was more than just her person, I was fucking everything—her person, her world, her whole fucking universe, and I’d loved it. When Kathleen had sent me all of the proofs, I couldn’t stop looking at them, each one showing me more and more how Lo felt about me. But Annie had seen, and I was likely going to be paying for it for weeks to come.
“Almost there,” Tommy says, too loud in the quiet car because his headphones are screaming Korn. I turn to Lo and curl my finger, stroking the freckles on her nose. “Wake up, Lo.”
She twitches and bats my hand away with a groan.
“Can you smell snow?”
Her lips quirk up before she opens her eyes, and then her lashes spring open and she sits up in her seat, her belt knocking her against the seatback.
She grins at me and presses her nose to the glass. “Tommy, stop the car.”