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Gabi eyes me. “Why?”
I shrug. “I assumed I’d need to be the one to call you. After Thursday.”
She nibbles on her cheek then bobs her head. “I guess I’m trying to face my problems more head on than I used to.”
My stomach tightens at her words. “Is that what we are? A problem?”
“No.” She pauses, but then her head tilts from side to side. “And yes. Maybe a little bit.”
Well, that’s not encouraging.
I’m starting to get a better idea of what tonight is going to look like, and while I didn’t dare to hope we’d be fooling around in my car, I did think maybe it would be something on the more positive end of the spectrum.
“I think I’m just still trying to figure out how I feel about everything. The past and what’s happening now…” She trails off, bunches up the wrapper from her sandwich, and rolls it into a ball. “We were friends for so long, it makes sense that things feel so easy to just…pick up again. You know?”
“It does.”
“But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s right. Just because we have a lot of history doesn’t mean we’ll have a future.”
I wince, her words hitting me square in the chest, and I think they hit so hard because they’re true.
“Can I give you a different perspective?”
She nods, eyeing me briefly then looking back out to the lake in the distance.
“I feel like things between us aren’t easy. They’re natural, sure, but not easy. Yeah, we have so much history, but we also have…I don’t know…old assumptions about each other and probably at least a few wounds to heal.”
Licking my lips, I reach out and take her hand where she’s fidgeting with the wrapper on the table. I draw it into my lap and hold it between both of my own.
“But the things I’ve told you are true. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you and I don’t know how I ever lost sight of how incredible we are together.”
Gabi lets out a long sigh, and for a minute, I think what I’ve said hasn’t made any difference. Then she finally speaks again, putting my fears to rest.
“I’m nervous, Bishop. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But there’s also a fear in me that if I shut this out—this idea that, maybe, we have a second chance—I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
I lift a hand and tuck some of her loose hair behind her ear then stroke gently down her jawline.
“Is this a second chance?”
Her eyes scan my face, over my hair and along my lips then back up to my eyes before she nods.
“I think so.”
I watch her for a long moment.
“You think? Or you know?”
“I know.”
Lifting her hand, I kiss the inside of her wrist. I wish this were the time to tell her I love her, but I know we’re already walking a delicate balance. We’re already perching on the ledge, and I don’t want to tip us over too quickly.
Gabi needs time to think everything through. I can’t say something like that to her again until I know she already believes it. She has to feel it in her bones first, or else it’s just lip service, just another thing someone says that they can’t back up with anything else. With this woman who has spent most of her life dealing with important people letting her down—including me—I know I have quite a steep hill to climb before we get there.
Once we finish eating, we climb up onto the picnic table so our feet are resting on the bench and Gabi is sitting on the table between my legs. I wrap one of the blankets around us, snuggling her in close underneath, resting my chin against her shoulder. It’s the happiest I’ve felt in years, like my heart was searching for what it lost and has now found it again.
The two of us sit at Hilltop for another thirty minutes or so, until the last bit of the sun has disappeared behind the trees, leaving the sky a beautiful purple reflected in the lake below.
When we pull up outside Gabi’s later, I put my car in park.
