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“I’m more than okay,” I said, threading my fingers throu
gh Gabriel’s dark locks of hair. “I’m just relieved, you know? Everything worked out.”
Gabriel lifted his head from where it had been nestled against my neck to gaze down at me. A relieved smile tugged at his lips, too.
“Me too. But we still need to talk,” he said.
I smiled up at him, not willing to let him roll away just yet. I wrapped my legs tightly around him to keep him pressed up against me. I savored the feeling of his hard body lying flush against me, skin on skin, with nothing in the world separating us.
“Talk about what?” I asked.
“For starters,” he said, tracing my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “We have to talk about what we both want and expect in the future.”
“What do you want?” I asked him.
Gabriel gazed down at me for a long time while he thought about the question intently. He rested on his forearms so that both of our bare chests touched one another. It brought him even closer to me, something that I gladly accepted.
“I want to be with you, not just now and not just in bed. I want a real relationship. I want to go places together, do things together. I want all of the mundane everyday life things with you. All of it,” he said.
“I want that too Gabriel, more than you know,” I answered him.
A smile graced my lips as I rolled over to drape myself over his bare chest. I could feel the pounding of his heart slow back down to a calm and steady rhythm beneath the palm of my hand.
“I have to give it to you,” I said. “Convincing my mother was going to be one of the most difficult things to do about this, but you managed to ease her worries without too much effort.”
Gabriel shrugged. “I reminded her that once upon a time, she knew the type of man I am. That eased her concerns about our relationship because she knew I was going to take care of you, no matter what happened.”
“You are?”
“Of course, I am,” he said, circling an arm around my back protectively. “I don’t want to think about you going back to school at the end of this break, but I’m willing to make it work if you are.”
“Absolutely,” I replied and traced a finger down the center of his chest. “It’s going to be hard to leave at the end of the break. I don’t want to go back to school after everything that has happened.”
“You have to go, though. I am not going to deprive you of your degree. Our relationship will be here when you’re done.”
“What do we do in the meantime, then?” I asked.
Gabriel pressed a kiss against the side of my head with a smile. “Well, I’m buying you a brand-new phone. We can call and text every single day if you want to, until you’re done with school in May. I can even come out for a weekend here and there if you don’t have exams scheduled.”
“There is spring break, too,” I said. “It’s for an entire week in March. Not long like winter break, but I could come here to Chicago to stay with you if that is possible.”
“Hmm.” His fingertips trailed up and down my spine. I let my eyes slipped closed at the contact, my senses being lulled to sleep from the simple touch. “Maybe a trip to somewhere nice and warm would be better. It’s rarely springy around her in Chicago in early March.”
“What are you thinking then?
“A nice sandy beach in Hawaii,” Gabriel said, sighing. “That sounds better to me than anything else. Digging my toes in the sand, watching you play in the sea with a bikini on. That’s an ideal type of spring break vacation for me.”
I opened my eyes to gaze up at him. “What about Alyssa? I don’t want her to feel like the odd man out throughout this.”
“Alyssa already has plans for spring break. That’s why I’m suggesting Hawaii.”
“She does?” I asked, propping myself back up. “What are her plans? She hasn’t said a word to me.”
“California with Scott,” he said. “She told me about it just yesterday. The two of them plan to fly to California to spend some time together there, since both of their breaks are at the same time.
I studied Gabriel’s face intently. “And you’re okay with your daughter dating? There was this big thing about it for a long time, according to Alyssa.”
“It’s not easy letting your kid go out on their own,” Gabriel said. “She’s always going to be my baby girl. No matter how old she gets, I still see a little girl. That’s how your mother sees you, too. It doesn’t matter if you’re an adult at this point—we still see our babies.”
