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This worn old thing has gotten me through so many lonely nights, so many days of self-loathing. It never felt wrong to have it, but when my fingers brushed it this morning, that changed. I’m not the same woman anymore. Instead of being a comfort, the shirt is a deep stab of guilt.
Maybe, if he had given it to me, it would be different. Maybe, if that shirt hadn’t meant so much to me for years, it would just be a shirt. But it’s not. It’s my obsession, my desperate need to be loved by a man I don’t even really know. A man I now recognize I don’t love.
Stone picnic tables are scattered under the trees, and I walk to the closest one. There’s no ceremony to it. I set the folded shirt on the table and hope that maybe some random traveler will pick it up. Someone who will never know who this shirt once belonged to.
I walk back to the car quickly, just as Gabe emerges from the men’s room. Stretching my arms overhead, like I’m just out here stretching and not saying goodbye to a huge part of my past, I smile at him as he walks up to me. When he reaches for me, though, it’s all too much and I dodge him. “Be right back,” I call on my way to the ladies’ room.
I stop at the sink and splash cool water on my face.
God, if he had any idea…
He’d think I’m crazy if he knew what that shirt was. Christ, I hope he doesn’t recognize it and put it back in the car thinking I’d left it by accident…no, I’m pretty sure he didn’t see me leave it. There’s no reason he’d recognize it as mine.
I do my business, then head back outside. Gabe is waiting for me, leaning against the passenger door. My heart immediately speeds up. He looks too good standing there, that T-shirt stretching across that broad chest, his jeans doing the same across his thighs. What the sunglasses and baseball hat fail to hide is more than enough to tell that he is handsome as fuck.
This time, I walk into his arms. He smiles down at me, and while he doesn’t look in the direction of the shirt, I can feel its presence. I ignore it, pulling him down for a kiss just as scorching as the sun beating down on us. “Let’s go,” I say, pulling back before either of us can reach the point of no return.
He pauses. “You’re ready?”
“So ready.”
He grins, dimples popping, and kisses me again, quicker this time but no less dirty for the brevity of it. He opens my car door and I slide in. When he crosses in front of the car, my eyes track him and I notice the shirt still on the table, but I don’t look directly at it.
Gabe climbs in and starts the car, tossing the baseball cap into the back seat and turning his attention to me. “Sure you’re ready?”
What the hell? Why is he so reluctant to leave this rest stop? “Yeah, the ladies’ room isn’t clean enough for a quick fuck. Let’s go.”
He laughs but throws the car in reverse. I can’t be sure because he’s still wearing the mirrored shades, but it looks like his gaze might linger on the picnic table with the shirt for a few seconds. I don’t look in the mirror as we drive off. Gabe glances at me, then reaches over and puts his hand on my leg. It’s warm and firm and I place my hand over the top of his.
We stop at the Grand Canyon and take selfies like any normal couple would, and it feels so real, this thing between us. So much more than the physical relationship I think we both want to pretend it is.
Talking comes easy between us now. Emptying all our trauma yesterday took away the roadblocks and today we talk about the good times. He tells me about growing up with Cora and her unwillingness to give up on any injured or broken creature. It takes me a little while to come up with any, but the moments are there, in the cracks and spaces in between. Moments shared with Wendy, and with my cousins when we were younger. Even with my Aunt Celia. It makes me long for what could have been. For how many more happy memories I might have had, if I’d done things differently back then.
I don’t talk about Nic. Gabe doesn’t ask about him.
In Vegas, we let people photograph us having dinner at some trendy restaurant because we’re obligated to, but then we go to our suite. I ride Gabe on the sofa overlooking the lights of Vegas until the only name he knows is mine, and everything is perfect.
Chapter twenty
Gabe
AshleyleftNic’sshirtbehind, and the next morning, waking up in Vegas with her in my arms, I want to shout,Fuck yeah—she picked me.
I don’t know if that’s true. I didn’t even know the cologne-scented shirt was Nic’s until I saw her stepping away from where it lay folded on a picnic table. I don’t know how she got it or how long she’s had it, though it’s not big enough to fit him, so I’m guessing it’s pretty old. When she never once gave it a second glance—it clicked into place. She’s letting him go. Her heart is hers again.
Maybe I should worry about what that means for us and whether she’ll be able to walk away when our time together is up, but I can’t. Not when she feels so good pressed against me and the scent of her is in my lungs and on my skin.
Fuck, I don’t want to leave this bed. So we don’t, not for a while. Not until we’re both satisfied—Ashley a few times over.
I don’t know what gets into me. Maybe it’s the way everything feels so right when I’m inside her, maybe it’s a moment of madness. Instead of pulling my shirt over my head, I slip it over hers.
Her eyes are round with surprise and panic when I tug it down. Like she recognizes what I’m doing. Before she can protest, I haul her onto the table in front of the huge glass window, push her legs apart, and make myself useful. The T-shirt stays on, even though she’s swimming in it.
It looks better on her than his ever did.
Today is our last day on the road. I’m not ready to go home. My car smells like her now, and she looks too good in the passenger seat. I bet she’d look amazing in the driver’s seat, but when I ask, she confesses she doesn’t know how to drive a manual.
I’m not about to teach her on my baby, but maybe there will be time. I have other cars, ones more forgiving.
