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Joy’s sweet, guileless smile was doing unacceptable things to Gabi’s stomach. Butterflies and somersaults, the whole damn circus. She shouldn’t feel this way about her ex.
Their argument was a line in the sand, keeping Joy on one side and Gabi on the other. She couldn’t cross it without dredging up all that bitterness and hurt and history.
Gabi had stolen Joy’s last night with her mother and had caused her unspeakable hurt. She couldn’t just walk back into her life and kiss her again, couldn’t feel this way again.
But shedidfeel this, and she did want to kiss her.
The wine. It had to be the wine.
She said, “You know how well relationships between two species go down. The mother is … traditional. Staunch. She hated Freya.”
“Doesn’t mean she did it,” Joy said, munching a biscuit. “Maybe she just didn’t want her son to get hurt by Freya.”
See, this was why it was so difficult to stay professional around Joy. She saw the best in everyone, even people she didn’t know. It was something Gabi both admired and couldn’t fathom. She didn’t giveanyonethe benefit of the doubt. In her experience, they didn’t deserve it.
“Maybe,” she replied, but didn’t truly believe it. Her first task tomorrow was finding out as much about Mrs. Brent as possible.
Joy snorted and shuffled around the coffee table.
“Maybe,” she parroted in Gabi’s neutral tone. “You always agree with me, even when you don’t.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Gabi replied, aware of the closing distance.
Not good.Not fucking good.
Her heart pounded, a trill of nerves joining the circus in her belly.
Joy snorted again. It was fucking adorable. Gabi suppressed a groan.
“Means,” Joy said, close enough to reach out and pat Gabi’s face, “you’re being toonice. I won’t break if you tell me I’m wrong.”
She placed her hands on either of Gabi’s cheeks, giving her a searching stare, and Gabi almost groaned at the touch, heat pooling inside her.
“You look the same. Same face, same dark eyes, same straight hair. Same grumpy frown.” Joy brushed her fingers over Gabi’s aforementioned frown, and Gabi shuddered, every part of her aching for more. She held herself still, but it was a losing battle; sooner or later she’d fall. “Did we travel back in time? Are we back there?”
Gabi swallowed, her hands flexing, a fraught moment away from grabbing Joy, hauling her close, and kissing her breathless.
“No,” Joy sighed, dropping her hands and inching away. “No, we’re still here.”
“Do you wish we were back there?” Gabi dared to whisper, surprised when her voice came out hoarse.
Joy nodded, a fall of pink hair hitting her face from her untidy ponytail. She looked so sad, and that threw ice water on Gabi's desire.
“So I could fix it,” she murmured. “So I could say sorry. Not even … not even so I could fixus, because I missed that up so badly. But I don’t want you to think I hated you. I never did. Notever.”
Gabi blinked, dropping her gaze. Her face had warmed even more. She felt unreasonably like she was about to cry.
“I never hated you either,” she said, voice still raspy and raw. Gabi wasn’t a fan of how her emotions were on full display, ragged and fragile. “I just wanted to say sorry and to make it right. To take back that night on the beach, so you could be with your mum in those last hours.”
“She’d have been furious with me, you know?” Joy said, a flicker of a smile on her mouth. “For shouting at you. And then for what I said… She’d have told me to stop being so mean and stupid andblindedby how much it hurt. She’d have told me to say sorry, and maybe I would have stopped being angry before you left. Maybe I’d have apologised and fixed it all.”
“Maybe doesn’t matter,” Gabi said, lifting her eyes to Joy’s face; she was close to crying, her face blotchy and her mouth set. Gabi wanted to touch her, but couldn’t find the bravery, too afraid of rejection. “We can fix it now. I’ll go first.” She sat straighter and kept eye contact. “I’m sorry.”
Joy gave a tentative smile, her eyes as glassy as brown crystal. “I’m sorry, too. More than you’ll ever know.”
“There,” Gabi said decisively. “All fixed.”
Joy looked more relieved than Gabi had ever seen her. Then the look in her eye changed, something Gabi couldn’t interpret, when she said, “You can’t drive like this, you know?”
