Page 89 of Last Night Was Fun

This time, she sighed. She gripped his shoulders and spun them around so his back faced the interior shower wall. She pushed him up against it and pinned him there. “I don’t think you get it, Olson,” she said in a low voice. A smile twitched her mouth at the pleasantly startled look on his face. “What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico,and we have twenty-four more hours in Mexico. I am not wasting any of them on a boat without you.” She kissed him, hard, and then bit his bottom lip. “Got it?” she said with his lip still between her teeth.

He smiled as much as he could with his lip pinched. A daring spark flashed in his eyes. “Got it.”

“Good.” She released him and slid down his wet body, savoring the dips and grooves of his muscles under her sparking fingers and kissing a trail all the way to the flat indent of his navel.

He sucked in a sharp, hissing breath and tilted his head back against the tile. “Twenty-four hours,” Emmy thought she heard him mutter as she settled on her knees in front of him.

They never left the room that day. They only paused to order room service and briefly doze in each other’s arms. Every second that he wasn’t on top of her, beneath her, behind her, holding her up against the slick shower wall, felt like a waste of precious time. This man had lit Emmy on fire, and knowing they were going to douse the flame when they left had her desperate to keep it burning while they were together. She felt the same desperation in Gabe’s touch, the hunger in his kisses, the way he promptly peeled off any stitch of her clothing as soon as she put it on.

Late on Sunday night in the dim glow of the baseball game Gabe had somehow found on TV, Emmy, exhausted in the best way possible, traced her fingers along his bare chest. She lay nestled under his left arm; the length of her body pressed up against his with nothing other than the sheet tangled around them. Sleep beckoned her with an eager hand, but she wasn’t ready to surrender, not if it meant losing time with him. Gabe gently breathed with a comfortable ease Emmy felt syrupy and warm in her own veins. She was paying more attention to memorizing the contours of his chest, the hypnotic pattern of it rising and falling, than the game. She didn’t even know who was playing or what country they were from.

She dipped her finger into the U-bend of his collarbone and then traced it across to the other side. The soft ridges of his scar bumped along under her fingertip. She lightly shuddered. “Were you scared?” she quietly asked, and traced her finger back over it.

His breath hitched for a second, and Emmy worried she’d crossed a line. They’d gotten very well acquainted with each other’s bodies, but it might have been the most intimate thing she’d ever asked him. When Gabe shifted his weight to move, she wanted to take it back, but he turned toward her and settled with his head on the pillow inches from hers. His eyes shone even in the dim light, and she saw honesty bared back at her.

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said in a soft voice, almost a whisper. “I was terrified.”

Emmy reached out and pressed her palm to his cheek, wanting to take away the fear even if it was distant and faded. “What happened?”

His brow furrowed and the ghost of something dark flashed over his face. “I don’t really remember the accident, but I know I caused it. I was driving home from practice one day. It had been a bad day. I was pissed off at my coach for something that in retrospect was completely irrelevant. Someone cut me off on the freeway, and it was the last straw. I sped around them intending to cut them off as payback but didn’t see the slow car in the next lane.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I swerved into the median and flipped three times.”

“Jesus, Gabe.” Emmy had nearly stopped breathing. She moved her hand to the back of his neck and squeezed herself against him, somehow feeling like holding him close now would erase almost losing him before she even knew him. The thought of it terrified her. The accident that had ended her brother’s career and life had been slow and quiet. They’d been told he simply fell asleep and stopped breathing. Gabe’s accident had been metal and broken glass, blood and snapped bones. She shook with fear at the mere thought of it.

“Hey,” he said when he noticed her trembling. He looped his armover her and pulled her close. “I’m okay, Emmy. I survived. And luckily, it was only me. No one else got hurt.”

“Yes, but it could have been so bad,” she said with her face pressed into the crook between his neck and shoulder.

“Well, I mean, itwaspretty bad. I was in the hospital for a month. Honestly, the scariest part was when I woke up in traction and knew my career was over.”

“Gabe, you could havedied.” As soon as she said the word, she felt him stiffen. He remained tense for a few seconds, and Emmy couldn’t be sure if it was fear from awhat-ifhe’d surely visited many times on his own or the realization of why the thought had her nearly rigid with angst.

He softened and pressed his lips to her temple. Then he pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. “But I didn’t. I know I’m damn lucky to be alive. And I understand why this story is hard for you to hear given the parallels to your brother.”

Emmy’s chest felt like it expanded infinitely at the same time it splintered a crack. How was it that she was tangled up in bed with Gabe Olson already as close as they could get, and every word out of his mouth was somehow drawing her even closer? To a level beyond simply his skin touching hers. To a place that felt like they were sharing a heartbeat.

“It is hard,” she said, knowing she didn’t need to say any more. To justify or explain or downplay how thinking about her brother still felt like a cannonball to her chest.

He squeezed her close again. “I’m sorry,” he said as if he knew it was enough. She didn’t need to heartime will heal woundsorhe is in a better placeor any of the other standard fodder thrown her way. She just needed someone to understand and hold her while it hurt. Just like he’d let her empty out all her feelings that night on the beach, he held strong now. At once a rock and a soft place to land. It was a comfort Emmy had never known.

“Thank you for asking me,” Gabe said after a few moments.

Emmy tilted her head back from the warm cocoon of his neck. “About your accident?”

He nodded. “I’ve never really talked to anyone about this before. Well, other than my therapist. It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. I was happy to be alive, but I knew I’d fucked up big-time when I woke to my dad crying in the hospital.” He huffed a dark laugh that sounded layers deep.

Emmy could tell by the pain in his voice that he held certain beliefs about what those tears had meant. “Gabe, I’m sure your parents were relieved you were okay.”

His face pinched. “Sure, but they were also upset over the loss of the arm they’d invested my entire life in. I wrecked their dreams—and my own—and I’ll never make up for it.” He sadly shook his head. “That’s why I feel like I have to be the best at everything. Oddly, taking me out of the game only made me more competitive.”

Emmy ran her knuckles over his jaw that had grown deliciously scruffy and then traced his lips with her finger. “Well, you are much more than just an arm, but I get that. That feeling of having to make up for something. It’s part of why I chase this career, to make up for what my brother will never be able to do. He was going to go far, and my parents were so proud of him.”

He kissed the pad of her finger still lingering against his lips. “I’m sure they’re proud of you too. In fact, I know they are. I’ve seen it on their faces.”

“Maybe, but they don’t get it. Why this career matters so much to me. It’s part of who I am.”

“I get that,” he said with a nod. “I don’t know who I am without baseball. When I lost my career on the field, I pushed everyone away. I disconnected from myself and stopped even trying to connect with other people.” He softly shook his head. “Now I can’t.” He paused and looked so deeply into Emmy’s eyes the contact felt physical. His voice came out another near whisper. “Except with you.”

Those words again.The feeling that bloomed out into Emmy’s chest felt dangerously big. It pushed against all her edges, her barriers and beliefs about what their relationship was supposed to be, and filled her with a heady rush of possibility.