AllFreeNovel
Share Us
MaybeI don’t like pretending with youmeant he wanted more openness. Maybe he meant he wanted us to actuallybewhat we’d been pretending to be.
Isn’t that what was happening now?
“He did great,” Jasper said.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe he actually came to this one.”
I turned to fully look at him. “Why not?”
“He’s always too busy, plus he hates these kinds of things.”
“So it’s the merger,” I said. “It’s that important to him because he can do more good.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean? What else would it be?”
Jasper gave me his easy smile. “Couldn’t say. He’s not much of a sharer.”
But that smile said plenty. He thought Gabriel was here somehow because of me.
Maybe Gabriel and I didn’t have to pretend, because everything we did—the fighting, the getting along, the hottest sex to ever be experienced by anyone ever—maybe it was all real.
Finally, Gabriel reached us.
I whispered in his ear, “Are you ready to make a run for it?”
His fingers flexed. The flat line of his mouth turned down at the corners.
Had I said something wrong?
“Don’t tell me you’re having fun. It’s clear you’re not,” I said, confused.
“We can leave,” he said. “Jasper, are you ready to go?”
“I’ll get a car later on. You two go ahead. Great work tonight.” He gave Gabriel a clasp on the shoulder, then left the two of us alone.
Gabriel didn’t say anything else as we went out to the car. He told Wallace to return to my place. But our arrangement as it was ended tonight, and I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet.
“I was thinking we’d go to yours,” I told Gabriel. “If that’s cool.”
“My place,” he relayed to Wallace.
We didn’t sit across from each other this time. We sat together, side-by-side. And something heavy hung in the air, maybe the conversation we needed to have about intentions. But I didn’t want to talk until we were actually alone. And putting up the separator wasn’t enough. Or maybe all of that was just an excuse.
Once we reached his place and went inside, he poured us each a glass of wine and led me to the sofa. My pillow and blanket were here, the ones I’d brought by for the photoshoot in the garden.
I patted the pillow. “This is mine.”
“I know.”
“You do really need some throw pillows of your own,” I told him.
“Pick what you like, and I’ll buy them,” he said, his voice tight. Everything about him was tight. He looked at me like he was in pain, but he didn’t say why. I’d thought leaving the gala would put him at ease, but it hadn’t.
“Maybe I will,” I said.
