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The airbrush-quality to her face and her artfully twisted blonde hair hint that she made more than a pit stop in the makeup trailer before her flight. The only sign she’s been out in the rain is the damp umbrella tossed by her feet. Zipped into the shortest dress off the wardrobe rack, she easily owns the majority of the males in the lobby, their heated gazes sliding over her curvy chest, her hips, her legs.
Wonder if any of them know—or care—she’s a week from seventeen.
With all the attention she’s snagged, the chances this reunion won’t be posted on the internet plunge to zero. What the hell was I thinking meeting her in the lobby? Kim doesn’t know how to fly under the radar. She sucks in adoration like oxygen.
When she finally glances my way, it takes her a second to notice me in the hoodie. “Gabe!” She shouts, hurrying toward me.
I expect the soldier-home-from-war smile. I don’t expect her to jump into my arms and lock her legs around my waist. Out of instinct, my hands dart out and grab her thighs so she doesn’t fall.
She runs with my unintended show of affection, grips my neck, and yanks me into a kiss.
And it’s all wrong.
She’s all wrong.
She doesn’t taste like mint tea. She doesn’t smell like spring. Her body doesn’t fit mine. And she doesn’t yield, she takes. What I don’t want to give.
“Gabe?” And that’s when I hear my name again, only this time it’s coming from behind me in a gasp that rips through me so loud it overpowers the rain tapping against the atrium.
chapter 55
Jess
T told me he’d never kiss another girl. That I’m “it” for him. It’s the same for me. We connect in a way that’s impossible to explain. He’s not just my best friend or my boyfriend. He’s more.
~ from the diary of Elizabeth Sara Thorne (age 17)
Gabe’s kissing a girl.
My heart beats once.
A girl who’s not me.
My heart beats twice.
A girl straddling his waist, while he grips her bare thighsthe way he held me last night.
Gabe lifts his head.
Our eyes meet.
Time winds to nothing as I sink, sink, sink into myself. In the background, rain batters the atrium glass, people drift closer, and voices vibrate through the low rumbles of thunder rolling through the lobby.
A burst of lightning flashes strobe-light strong, slamming me into real time so hard my heart gets whiplash.
Years too late, Gabe pushes at the girl fused to him.
Her heels hit the ground. Her head turns. Kimberly Kane in person—so much worse than Kimberly Kane onscreen. She’s no longer just some flawless image. She’sreal.She’s here. Every picture of her and Gabe kissing, every love scene they’ve filmed jumps from fiction to fact.
I sprint across the lobby. Cram into the first open space in the revolving door.
“Jess!” Gabe yells behind me.
I shove the door over and over. Move! But it won’t spin faster. And he’s closing in. The door finally opens to the outside. I inch through the narrow gap and veer left, bare feet slapping against the wet sidewalk. Rain pelts my face, drenches my hair, soaks my clothes. But I run. Past people holding umbrellas. Past the hotel parking garage. Past a tall building.
Gabe’s hands touch my back.
I misstep over a pile of rocks. A stinging pain sears through the arch of my foot. I yelp, fumble, start going down.
