“I know you do,” Cary said with a sigh.
Unable to help myself, I opened the messaging app on my laptop and sent Gideon a text. I miss you.
He texted back almost instantly. Turn the plane around.
That made me smile. It was so like him. And so unlike me. Wasting the pilots’ time, the fuel . . . it seemed so frivolous to me. More than that, though, would be the proof of how dependent on Gideon I’d become. That would be the kiss of death in our relationship. He could have anything, any woman, at any time. If I ever became too easy for him, we’d both lose respect for me. Losing his love wouldn’t be far behind.
I returned to my new profile and uploaded a selfie I’d taken with Gideon that I synced from my smartphone. I made it the masthead image. Then I tagged him and gave it a description: The love of my life.
After all, if his photos were going to include him with women, I wanted at least one of them to be me. And the one I’d chosen was undeniably intimate. We lay on our backs, our temples touching, my face bare of makeup and his relaxed with a smile in his eyes. I dared anyone to look at it and not see that I had a private bond with him the world would never know.
I suddenly wanted to call him. So badly that I could almost hear that amazingly sexy voice, as intoxicating as top-shelf liquor, smooth with just a hint of bite. I wanted to be with him, my hand in his, my lips against his throat where the smell of his skin called to something hungry and primitive inside me.
It scared me sometimes, how much I needed him. To the exclusion of everything else. There was no one I wanted to be with more, including my best friend, who was at that moment needing me almost as fiercely.
“It’s all good, Cary,” I assured him. “Don’t worry.”
“I’d be more worried if I thought you actually believed that.” He shoved the bangs off his forehead with an impatient hand. “It’s too soon, Eva.”
I nodded. “But it’ll work out.”
It had to. I couldn’t imagine my life without Gideon in it.
Cary’s head dropped back and his eyes closed. I might have thought he was succumbing to the motion sickness pills, except his knuckles were white from gripping the armrests too tightly. He was taking the news hard. I didn’t know what I could say to reassure him.
You’re still heading in the wrong direction, Gideon texted.
I almost asked him how he knew that, but caught myself. Are you having a good time with the guys?
I’d have more fun with you.
I grinned. I would hope so. My fingers paused, then: I told Cary.
The answer wasn’t instantaneous. Still friends?
He hasn’t disowned me yet.
He didn’t say anything to that, and I told myself not to read too much into his silence. He was out with his guys. It had been asking a lot to even hear from him at all.
Still, I was super happy to get a text from him ten minutes later.
Don’t stop missing me.
I looked over at Cary and found him watching me. Was Gideon facing similar disapproval from his friends?
Don’t stop loving me, I texted back.
His answer was simple and very much Gideon. Deal.
—
“SOCAL, baby, I missed you.” Cary descended the steps from the plane to the tarmac, tilting his head back to look up at the night sky. “God, it’s good to leave that East Coast humidity behind.”
I scrambled down after him, eager to get to the tall, dark figure waiting by a shiny black Suburban. Victor Reyes was the kind of male who commanded attention. Part of that was due to his being a cop. The rest was all him.
“Dad!” I ran full bore toward him and he unfolded from where he’d been leaning against the SUV and opened his arms to me.
He absorbed the crash of my body into his and lifted me off my feet, squeezing me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. “It’s good to see you, baby,” he said gruffly.