Tina and Tyler didn't give me too hard of a time. I'd worn a long-sleeved shirt and leggings so that they wouldn't see the abrasions around my wrists and ankles, and their only reaction was to tease me about what they assumed was a sex-filled weekend at Gabe's place. I didn't correct them. They had enough to worry about as it was.
My father was a lot less pleased and let me know that if I intended to spend such long periods of time with a man, the least I could do would be to introduce him. I made a face at that idea.
Gabe and my father in the same room would make for an... interesting encounter. I could just imagine my father's disapproving gaze taking in all the tattoos and the sheer amount of attitude that rolled off him.
I simply acquiesced sheepishly and promised that they would all meet him soon.
Amanda simply watched me curiously, perched at the kitchen counter.
"I'm sure he's an amazing young man." She said in a placating tone, a hand resting on my father's shoulder.
I smiled at her thankfully and then went to Tina's room, and proceeded, with a certain amount of dread, to call Nirvana.
I had no choice but to tell her a slightly altered version of the truth. I told her that Dominic slipped me a roofie, but I left out the whole blackmailing plot as well as the less savory parts of the story involving drugs, theft and my involvement in all of it.
She had been shocked into silence and then she'd burst into tears, begging me to tell her that what she think had happened hadn't actually happened, unable to even say the right word to describe it.
I reassured her, and she calmed down a bit, and then proceeded to apologize profusely, beating herself over the fact that she hadn't kept me safe.
"No one could've seen it coming," I said truthfully –even I had been blindsided by Dominic's plot. I never would have suspected him of being capable of such a thing. Aidan? Yes, definitely. I wouldn't have put that kind of twisted deed past him, but quiet, handsome, unassuming Dominic? Never.
I promised her that we'd go to lunch together tomorrow, assured her that I didn't blame her for anything than had happened and we hung up after one last tearful apology on her part.
"I'll make it up to you, I swear," she said fervently in guise of goodbyes. "I'll bake you more cookies, and I'll chop his balls off, if you want."
I couldn't help but laugh.
"I'd be more than down for the cookies, but maybe skip the ball-chopping part."
"We'll see about that," was as much as she conceded.
~~
Gabe kept dodging me by telling me he was busy.
He kept me updated on the whole Dominic situation, but other than that, it was as though I was trying to establish communication with a brick wall.
Dominic's father had not at all been pleased with his son's machinations, all done behind his back. From what Gabe told me, he'd been furious and had pretty much immediately shipped Dominic off to the UK. With some sizable donations, he'd made sure that he would continue his studies at a top notch university –Oxford, to be precise -but far away from his father's business.
Marco Belmonte had also assigned Gabriel to check in on Dominic's activity from time to time, and Gabriel had enlisted his cousin Alexander's help to keep track of Dominic's phone and bank accounts. He assured me that Dominic would never cross paths with me again, and I believed him. We'd spoken on the phone and the steel in his voice had been inflexible.
It was the only time since that morning we'd spent together, that I'd actually gotten to hear his voice. We'd spoken on the phone and he'd explained everything to me.
"Hey, why was Dominic so sure you were still in Miami when he had me locked up in that apartment?"
"I'd spoken to a few people who were at the same club as you –I know a couple of bouncers that work there. They told me a guy that matched Dominic's description perfectly had to drag you out of there, you were so intoxicated, and I figured out it had to be him. I knew he would probably try to keep track of what I was doing –we know a lot of the same people thanks to our family connection." He said "family with a sarcastic note in his voice. "So I didn't tell anyone that I was leaving Miami. I wanted to surprise him."
I mulled it all over quietly even as I chewed another potato chip. I was sitting cross legged on the bed we'd just hauled over from our old apartment into Tina's room, a bag of BBQ chips in my lap. T&T had helped me put it back together and I realized that I'd missed the familiarity of it, the slight dip in the middle of my mattress – "your ass imprint," as Tina had elegantly put it.
"When can I see you again?" I asked, changing the subject abruptly. "It's been forever, Gabe."
A beat of silence.
"I don't know, Isis. I'm pretty busy, we're planning the opening night of Rêverie."
Rêverie was the name of the nightclub he was launching. It seemed to occupy him every waking moment nowadays –it was always his excuse for being unavailable.
"Can I come, then?"
Another silent moment passed.
"Yeah, of course. I'll send you a VIP pass on your cellphone," he said. Did I dream it, or was there reluctance in his voice?
With a pang in my chest, I realized that the feeling I'd had as I'd watched him leave on that fateful day two weeks ago was actually a premonition.
He had been saying goodbye.
And now he was trying to ditch me, gently, by dodging every single one of my attempts at seeing him.
He always answered my texts within a reasonable time frame, but his answers were always polite and brief. Sterile.
He sounded as though we were only acquaintances, nothing more. He never told me he missed me, even though I let him know that I did, regularly. He never asked to see me, never texted me first.
It was as if now that he was sure I was safe, he was washing his hands of me. I was no longer his responsibility and thus he no longer needed to pay me any mind.
"Gabe, I'd really like to see you," I said softly. "I miss you." I whispered the last part, barely audible.
I could hear a different voice coming from his end –it sounded like Johnny, and Gabe's tone became distracted.
"I'm really sorry, Isis, but I really barely have the time to sleep right now. We'll be in touch, alright? Bye."
He didn't even wait for me to answer before he hung up.
Hurt, I stared at the black screen of my phone for several seconds after the line went dead.
I rolled the bag of chips closed and hopped into my worn pair of Converse. In the kitchen, I put the chips back in the pantry, before I went into Tina's room to arrange my hair into a semblance of order. After staring at my reflection in her mirror for a second, I opted to add some mascara and lip gloss to top it off. Once I was kind of presentable, I changed from the old shirt and shorts I was wearing into a floral print dress, that fell loosely to about mid-thigh.
"Hey, Tina, can I borrow your car?" I called out, grabbing her keys from her desk before she could even answer.
"Yeah, whatever. Just bring it back before nine AM tomorrow, I'm seeing Cam!" She yelled from the bathroom.
There was an iron sort of resolution in me as I made my way out of the apartment and to Tina's car, parked further down the street.
If Gabe thought he'd be getting rid of me that easily, without even having to explain himself, he was mistaken.
After all, if he'd planned to break up with me, he should have taken back the key to his apartment from me.
~~
"I love you!" I cried out, staring intently at my own reflection above the bathroom sink, in the bathroom adjacent to Gabe's bedroom.
Huh. Not dramatic enough.
I put a hand on my chest, shook my hair out so that it would be messier and tried again, arranging my face into an anguished expression. "But, I love you, Gabriel!"
I'd gotten to his apartment two hours earlier, to find it empty. Just as I'd presumed, he wasn't home, and so at first, I'd decided to wait for him in the living room, so that he would see me as soon as he opened his front door. After about fifteen minutes of sitting there idly, mentally rehearsing what I would say to him once he got there, my stomach churning with nerves, I'd finally lost patience.
I'd paced up and down his living room, poured myself a glass of water, turned the TV on and then off, and then danced about in his bedroom, trying on the shirts he'd left on his desk chair, pretending that his bedroom, which overlooked the living room, was a stage, and I, a popstar prancing over an adoring audience.
Then I'd fallen asleep in his bed, and once I woke up, the sun had begun to set and I'd gone back to rehearsing what I would say once he would arrive, this time pretending my reflection was Gabriel.
I couldn't keep still and I nearly threw up when I heard him opening his front door, my reflection in the mirror momentarily frozen with an expression of shock so intense that it would've made me laugh under other circumstances.
I gripped the marble counter of his sink to quell the trembling in my hands, took a deep breath and then went back to his bedroom.
He was still downstairs, standing in the middle of his living room, staring down at his cellphone, one hand running through his slightly disheveled coffee-dark hair.
He sighed deeply and then tossed his phone onto the couch.
I couldn't help but wonder if it was my (unanswered) text he'd been looking at, but I pushed the thought away. It didn't matter now.
He started unbuttoning his shirt as he began making his way up the spiral staircase to his bedroom, but froze once he looked up and saw me standing there.
All the words I'd rehearsed were now stuck in my throat as I looked down at him. My airways seemed to constrict and tears filled my eyes, because the emotion etched on his face was not happiness –it was dread.
He made his way up to his room slowly, his eyes never leaving mine as he unbuttoned his shirt all the way down.
"What are you doing here, Isis?" His voice was calm, cool, controlled. Nothing slipped past the still façade he'd almost instantly composed his face into.
"I –I came to talk to you," I stammered, my voice weak and shaking –I hated how I sounded. I wanted to seem strong, sure, even though I didn't feel it in the slightest. But I probably must've looked like a little girl right then, lower lip trembling slightly, eyes glassy with unshed tears.
"I told you... I'm busy," he said, his tone patient and calm, as if he were explaining this to a child.
"I just –it won't take long, alright? But I need to understand why... why you're being so distant." He opened his mouth to reply, but I raised a hand to stop him. "And if you're about to tell me, once again, that you're just too busy, don't bother. I'm not buying it."
Gabe shrugged his shirt off and sat down on the edge of his bed heavily. He ran both hands down his face and then he just looked at me, those traces of dread I've seen when he'd first glimpsed me visible through the cracks in his shield.
"Look, Isis, I just don't think this is going to work out," he articulated slowly, watching me with wariness in his dark eyes.
"Why? Is it because of what I did? Of what I've gotten myself into?"
"Yes and no."
"Gabe, I'm not the same person I was before. I know I messed up, and I know that what I did before –it's just plain wrong. I'll never do that again, I swear. I understand it now, the ends do not justify the means. I had no business stealing from people. It didn't make me noble, it just made me a thief."
Gabe shook his head. "Isis, you don't have to explain yourself to me."
"But then why?" My voice broke on the last word, and I had to breathe deeply a couple of times to keep any semblance of composure. "Is there –is there somebody else?"
"Oh, Isis, no. That's not it, of course that's not it."
"Then what is it?"
"I told you before, this was never a good idea from the start. I can't do this friends-with-benefits thing with you. I can't."
"I know that I was cruisin' for a bruisin' when I said that, but I don't understand why you don't even want to be friends. Because the way you've been in the last few weeks, I don't think we can even call that a friendship. It's like you don't want anything to do with me. And I just don't understand."
"I don't want to be your friend." My face must've crumpled visibly, and he quickly continued, "I don't want to be your friend, because being your friend makes me want more than I should."
He hid his face in his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees. "I can't do this with you, because we're not really friends with benefits. We're beyond that. I can't seem to set boundaries with you, or maybe I can, but you just barrel right through them, and I can do nothing but watch you do it."
"I –I'm sorry if I... if I didn't respect your boundaries," I said carefully. "I'll try to, if that's what it takes."
"Oh, Isis. You're not the problem, I am. I've accepted a long time ago that doing what I'm doing means that I don't get to have the normal life most people have. I don't get to have a normal relationship that leads to a normal marriage and a white picket fence house with the average 1.9 children per Americal household. I don't even get to have a normal family. I barely ever see my sister and my mother. And you can now see why. Every attachment I have to anyone is a liability. It's a weakness. And eventually, someone will try to take advantage of that weakness. Just like Dominic did. He could have killed you, Isis. You could have died."
"But I didn't. I got out of there and you came to get me in time."
"That's true for this time. But what about the next time? What if next time, you can't escape and I'm not there in time? You get raped? That's the best case scenario? What if you get killed?"
"There won't be a next time," I said, my voice surer than I felt. I knelt in front of him, my hands firm on his knees. "And even if there is, I don't mind taking that risk, if it means that I get to be with you."
"Well, I mind, Isis. I mind it a lot. I won't let you –"
I interrupted him. "You don't get to make that decision for me. I'll tell you how I feel, and it's up to you –you can take it, or you can leave it. But I know what I want and what risks I'm willing to take to have what I want. And if you want the same thing, then I think it's only fair we give it a try, a real one this time. None of that friends with benefits crap."
I breathed in deeply, eyes searching his.
"I love you, Gabe." There was none of the dramatic flare I'd rehearsed in those three words. No artifice. It was nothing but a statement of fact, and even though I'd never felt more vulnerable, my voice was steady, certain.
Gabe didn't say anything for a long time. His prolonged silence made me nervous, my palms clammy, my throat closing up once again.
"I love you, too." he finally whispered, and it was as if I could breathe for the first time in weeks. "Of course I love you, Isis. How could I not?" The lightness that filled my chest made my head spin and my heart soar even as it pounded frantically in my chest.
The grin I aimed up at him made his tired face relax into a small smile of his own.
He leaned down and kissed me, and it was warm and soft and heavenly all at once.
And I had never felt more at home than right there and then, with Gabe's lips against mine, his hand at the nape of my neck, keeping me close.
~~
Gabe looked –there was no other way to put it –nervous.
He fiddled with the last button of his white dress shirt, undoing it and buttoning it over and over again.
"Are you... scared?" I teased him, lightly nudging his shin with a bare foot.
I was wearing the yellow sundress he liked, and he shot me a dark glare in the mirror.
"I can't remember the last time I had to meet a girl's father is all," he muttered. "I guess it was just one of the unmentioned benefits of being friends with benefits. You don't have to meet your fuck-friend's parents."
He grinned at me in the mirror, his previous nerves replaced by his usual cockiness. "I kinda miss it now. Maybe we could go back?"
"If you want any benefits tonight, you'd better shut up now, before you say something else you'll regret," I warned, wagging a finger at him.
He turned around and was on top of me in an instant, his lips finding mine in a slow, passionate kiss that lit me on fire in all the right places.
"We could still skip it. Let them all meet and greet while we get to know each other too, all over again," he whispered into my mouth, his hands slipping under the yellow sundress and sliding up my thighs.
I sighed, pressing one last kiss to his tempting lips, grabbing his wrists before he got his hands past the point of no return. He could prove impossible to resist sometimes. He knew just how to reduce me to a hot mess with the right look and the right touch, and it was proving to be challenging to keep my mind out of the gutter when he randomly decided to eye-fuck me when we were out with his friends or mine.
"You're ruining my dress and my hair," I admonished half-heartedly. "You have to promise that you'll behave tonight."
He grinned that devilish smile at me. "I'll be on my best behavior," he promised between kisses, that he trailed down my neck and along the inside of my breast, exposed by the low neckline of the sundress I wore.
"Stop," I said, but my voice lacked conviction, even to my own ears. "Gabe, we should already be on our way."
Reluctantly, he hoisted himself up, his arms braced on either side of me on his bed. "Your father will hate me."
"Just don't make any dirty jokes at my expense and you'll be fine."
"But those are my favorite jokes," he protested.
"Then suffer the brunt of my dad's ire and hatred, I guess." I pushed him off me. "Come on. Let's go."
~
We entered straight into the backyard through the gate in the tall fence, Gabe leading the way. I could hear the low murmur of voices from the driveway, and finally, the nerves caught up with me as well.
There were fairy lights strung on the Ferreiras' veranda, and it bathed the whole scene in an angelic glow.
Gabe's mom was pouring lemonade into matching glasses arranged on the picnic table when we entered the backyard, and six pairs of eyes immediately fixed us. I couldn't look at my dad and so instead I surveyed everyone else.
Tina and Tyler sat with matching amused smiles, staring at us as though they could see exactly what Gabe had been up to right before we'd left. Gabe's sister just looked incredibly uncomfortable, her phone clutched in one hand. Gabe's mom smiled at us, welcoming.
Amanda, T&T's mom, was grinning at us as well. She wore a long, flowy dashiki dress, and wore a colorful silk wrap around her head.
She'd began chemo about a month ago, and she'd lost her all of her gloriously curly hair –Tina had shaved hers in solidarity and they both looked regal tonight.
My heart clenched when I saw them both, overflowing with love for all these people –they were my whole world. A fierce sense of protectiveness overcame me, and I was snapped out of my thoughts only when Gabe squeezed my hand and pulled me forward.
When I looked up at him, I realized that there had been tears in my eyes.
He smiled down at me tenderly, his thumb caressing my knuckles gently.
And for the first time in forever, there was nothing but joy inside me.
I was surrounded by everyone I loved, on a warm summer evening.
They were the people that grounded me, that held on to me through thick and thin.
All of them formed my recomposed, perfect little family.
And finally, without any doubt, I could say that everything was definitely going to be alright.
-A/N-
whew.
it's over.
it's finally over.
i'm not sure how i feel other than relieved. thank you all so much for reading. if it wasn't for you guys still commenting and supporting this story, i'm pretty sure i never would have finished it.
it has many flaws, more than qualities to be honest, but hey, i began writing this when i was a very different person than the one i am now.
anyway, once again, thank you for sticking with this story, even though i proved to be the absolute worst writer on this website when it comes to consistent updates.
i do hope y'all are safe and that your loved ones are as well.
i hope our paths will cross again in another (better) project, lol.
- diana