As if expecting pushback, Whitney leveled a challenging look at all three of them. "This weekend we're going to spend time at the club."
With the grace of a queen declaring war, she let that gauntlet gently fall before them, leaving them no choice but to comply. Ebony wanted to kick Gavin under the table, glare at him, yell at him and tell him this was all his fault, but what good would it do. It wouldn’t stop her mother's revenge.
Now practically every weekend had been hijacked by her mother. As a family they walked into the prestigious country club in Stardust Heights, another local institution founded years ago by Gavin's great-great grandfather. Dressed in new designer tennis outfits Ebony was paraded in front of Stardust's wealthiest families. As if a newsletter had gone out, the attendance at the club shot up. Families brought their sons and daughters to join the quiet showcase, each one hoping to score a match with one of the Rosebank heirs.
The only enjoyment Ebony got out of the whole thing was watching the small vein at Gavin's temple throb as guys invited her to play doubles, asked her to play golf, or sat with her at lunch on the veranda. Sadly, that small joy was ruined when the same happened with him. She had to watch as girls, far bolder than any of the polite if not posh guys she had to deal with, swarmed Gavin like bees to honey.
She did her best not to focus on him, even going so far as to take a golf cart and prepare to start the range by herself. But Gavin was quicker, moving as if he had read her mind, he brusquely sidestepped the girls and climbed onto her cart just as she took off. They didn’t even make it to the first hole. Pulled off to the side where a lonely little pond filled with reeds sat, they were at each other's throat.
"Why did you follow me? You could've stayed with your groupies,” she waved a hand back in the direction of the club house. “They looked very eager and determined to-"
"You weren't supposed to see me that night." he cut her off.
Ebony knew immediately what he was talking about. It didn’t have to be explained, but she lied anyway and looked away. "I don’t know what you're talking about."
"Why are you sending out for information about other colleges?" he pressed on. "What makes you think dad is going to let you go anywhere else but Harvard? What makes you thinkI'mgoing to let you go anywhere else?"
That snapped her attention back to him. Her blood boiling. "Let me?! There's no you letting me do anything, Gavin. And besides, do you think I want to do four more years of this utter torture with you?"
His hands shot up to frame her face, the movement so sudden it startled her. His touch shook with restraint as he held her in place. "I'm trying, Ebony. Why can’t you see that I'm fucking trying? I’m the one dying on the inside just to keep up the lie you want to live in.”
She thought about his words. They echoed in her mind along with the other cryptic statements.
You're so fucking dense. The whole fucking world gets it but you.
She thought about the things she didn’t say to herself. The off-limit thoughts she never allowed to take root. She couldn't. They weren't allowed. Of course she felt them, humming in her bones, pulsing beneath her skin like a heart buried alive. But not once did she ever allow herself to actually put words to those taboo feelings.
She moved through her days as if on autopilot, her thoughts spiraling like eddies in a river. Around her, days passed and the air grew cooler, the warmth of the fall officially disappearing, replaced by the brisk oncoming winter. It was when she received another anonymous text that things came to a jarring halt, pulling her out of her daze and back to the present.
This time it wasn’t just a text there was an image too. It was a picture of her and Gavin at the country club. Her dressed in her baby blue tennis dress staring up at Gavin. Her heart lurched at the image. It was the moment they argued—his hands framing her face, crowding her close, her expression a mask of anger and confusion, his twisted in pain and barely suppressed…what was that? Rage? Need?
Underneath the picture the text read:Are you thinking about me? I'm thinking about you.
Panic suddenly filled up her chest, sitting like wet heavy cement. This picture was of her and Gavin. That meant it couldn’t be-
"What are you doing?"
Ebony's head snapped up and she looked to see Gavin standing beside her. She was sitting in the garage in her car with her car door halfway open. She was supposed to be driving to school but the text had sent a scrambling shock to her senses.
Dumbly, she just stared up at him. That meant it wasn’t him, right? That picture just proved that, right? Over and over, her mind asked the same question in one form or another, fear mounting each time it went unanswered. The texts, the odd presence behind her at school, even the kiss. She had thought it was someone she knew. Cameron, or maybe even Garrett. Both options teased her thoughts, but if she was being honest—she had thought it was him
.
Gavin cocked his head to the side at her silence, clearly puzzled. "Ebbs?" grabbing the car door he leaned down, his face closer now and studied her face. "Are you feeling okay?"
If it had been any other moment she would have given him a biting reply. Or maybe shoved at his face. The simmering hurt and resentment she felt towards him would have demanded she react to his beautiful bright concerned eyes and worried expression. How dare he try to act like he cared for her now? But the text and all its implications had knocked the wind from her sails and all she could do was give a mute nod.
Gavin was silent for a moment and she could see his brain working. "Let me drive you to school," he offered in a gentle tone as if he was talking to a wild deer he wanted to coax out of the road.
Like an old computer struggling to boot, Ebony frowned in thought. "I have things I need to do after school."
"So," Gavin crouched down beside her. "I'll wait for you. Just text me when you're done."
She barely got out the nod before she was pulled from her car and put into the passenger seat of his Bronco. All thoughts of the text and its implications disappeared as they pulled out of the garage and onto their long driveway. Ebony had to turn her face and look out her window when he turned on her favorite band. Something inside of her softened a little. If she was being honest, he had been trying lately. Well, if she ignored his violent outburst at the hotel. Trying to talk to her here and there, attempting to eat meals together, or ask her to train, they were all attempts. In all honesty for the past month, it was her who was really keeping the divide standing between them.
A thorn of unwelcome guilt prickled her insides causing her to shift in her seat. Why hadn't she allowed him to bridge the divide?
Because it was a divide he created! The answer instantly echoed back in her head. He was the one who started all of this and created this awful distance between them. The brief moment of guilt burned away under a petulant tide of anger as she glared out the window at the passing cars. She didn’t want his attempt at patching up their relationship so it resembled what they once had. She wanted the real thing. She wanted his smiles and his hugs. She wanted to go back to sleeping on the couch with him or walking the beach together at night. She wanted him lying on her bed while she sat on the floor parting her hair and oiling her scalp. She wanted what they used to have! Not some restrained recreation of what they had dammit.
