It’d been my first tattoo, one I’d had to use a fake ID to procure at a rundown tattoo parlor in Denver when I was only fifteen. Roxie had gone with me, and she’d held my hand when it hurt.
Gabe moved closer to me, filling in the few steps that had been between us, and he tilted his head. “What does that say?”
“Lusus naturae. It means ‘freak of nature’ in Latin,” I explained.
He shook his head, and his forehead creased. “Why would you get that?”
“Growing up in a circus sideshow, I always felt that way.” I shrugged, but his reaction made me feel self-conscious, so I hugged my wet dress to me, hiding the tattoo.
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said hurriedly, realizing that his words had stung. “I didn’t mean it like that. You’re just so beautiful and wonderful and kind, and I can’t imagine anyone ever making you feel like less than that.”
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know how to respond. I’d been called beautiful before, mostly by my mother, and by a few clumsy boys who’d said it as they fumbled with my bra hooks. But I’d never had anyone call me beautiful and wonderful, and really mean it, not the way Gabe did.
There was a weight in his words, and a look in his eyes, and a softness in his touch. The way when we walked together, he always slowed his pace to match mine, and he tilted his body toward me whenever he was close.
“I should get your dress in the dryer,” Gabe offered, since I wasn’t doing anything but staring at him. He reached out to take it, but I put my hand over his, stopping him.
“Wait,” I said, breathy and desperate.
His eyes met mine, confused and worried. “Why?”
Then, so I wouldn’t have to explain it to him, I dropped the dress and moved toward him. Gabe caught on then, wrapping his arms around my bare flesh and pulling me toward him as his lips found mine.
He picked me up, making me squeal in delight, and carried me back to his bed. As he laid me back down on the softness of his blankets, I realized just how badly I wanted to be with him. The few moments he parted from me—standing up to take off his shirt and reveal the wonderful sculpting of his body—felt like an eternity.
Then he was with me, his bare skin pressing against mine, and his mouth felt hungry as it trailed down from my lips to my neck. As his hands and lips warmed my skin, my body flushed with heat. For the first time since I’d gotten to Caudry, I didn’t feel a chill hiding anywhere inside me.
Somewhere in the distance—back in the real world, away from where Gabe had me enveloped in his arms, my hands clinging to his back—I was only vaguely aware of the sound of a door slamming.
“Gabe!” a woman’s voice called in a Southern drawl, and that snapped us both back.
“Shit,” he said under his breath, and sat up, kneeling between my legs on the bed. “That’s my mom. My parents are home.”
34. family
My dress was still soaking wet, so I quickly pulled on the Joan Jett T-shirt he’d grabbed for me. It was too big, but it was still very obvious that I wasn’t wearing any pants.
“You like Joan Jett?” I asked.
He looked at me over his shoulder as he hastily searched his dresser drawers. “I love Joan Jett. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Gabe?” his mom yelled up the stairs.
“I’ll be right down!” Gabe shouted back, then as he handed me a pair of sweatpants, he whispered an explanation. “I know that we’re adults and we can do what we want, but I am living at home for the moment, and I really didn’t want my parents’ first impression of you to be them thinking they caught us having sex.”
“Me neither,” I agreed, but my thoughts had gotten tripped on the words first impression. The addition of the word first implied there would be a second or more, that his parents would actually get to know me.
I understood for the first time that Gabe was treating this like a real relationship and me like a real girlfriend. That was part of what I liked so much about him, that he treated me like a real person, and not just a stopover as he went on with the rest of his life.
But the problem was that this couldn’t be a relationship. His sister asked me if I might consider staying, and I realized with great dismay that she’d probably asked because Gabe had brought up the prospect.
“Are you ready?” Gabe asked after I’d finished tying the drawstring of the sweatpants.
He stared down at me, his eyes wide and nervous. Then it hit me, making my breath catch in my throat and my stomach twist.
I was going to break his heart when I left.
Swallowing back the painful lump in my throat, I nodded. “I’m ready.”