“Maybe,” I said, dropping my eyes, but his laugh had them jumping back to him.
“I thought I was the only one who was that obsessive.”
I joined in his laugh, relieved he hadn’t been teasing me. “I couldn’t help it. I was too curious.”
“And I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be disappointed,” he admitted.
I squeezed his hand. “You could never disappoint me, Gabe.”
His response wasn’t what I expected. The smile faltered, and his grip on my hand loosened. I tugged it, forcing his body to veer closer to mine.
“Don’t do that,” I told him.
The space between his eyes crinkled. “Do what?”
“Get in your head and leave me like you do.”
His eyes widened before they scrunched. “How do you?—”
“Because I just do.”
Pulling our hands so they were behind my back, he guided us to a spot in the shade and off the main path. His expression had turned so serious, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
He took my face in his hands. “I get in my head sometimes, Tori. There are dark spaces there, ones I can’t share with you yet. Ones I don’t want to bring into what we have for fear of infecting it. But trust me on this, I never leave you in those moments. And I never will.”
There was such certainty in those words that I believed them. Maybe I should have been leerier since what we had was so new, but it was hard to doubt him when there was no room in his words to do so.
I reached around his neck and forced his head down, kissing him. He grabbed my waist and yanked my body into his, deepening the kiss. The world fell away, all awareness that we were standing in the middle of the zoo with families walking past us disappeared. All that mattered was the way Gabe clung to me as if he needed me and letting me go would break him.
“We should stop before they add us as an exhibit,” I mumbled between kisses.
A smile formed, and his lips separated from mine, lifting to kiss my head. “Let’s go feed some giraffes,” he said.
I stopped him from moving, and he glanced down at my hand on his forearm before he looked back at me. Reaching up,I swept a tuft of his auburn hair back from his forehead. “I’ll be your moon in the darkness, Gabe, and when you’re ready to bring me into that darkness, I’ll be there, holding your hand.”
A swell of emotion flashed in his hazel eyes before his mouth crashed into mine again. I clutched his shirt, afraid of tumbling over with the intensity. Free-falling and unable to stop myself, I spent the rest of the day floating as if clouds cushioned my feet.
“Did you learn Italian from your mother?” I asked later that night as Gabe pulled a movie up for us to watch.
My fingers worked through my hair, freeing it from the tight braids. The grinders he picked up on our way back from the zoo sat on the coffee table with his beer and my bottle of water.
“Yeah. Only a few words, though. Things she picked up from her grandparents, who had come over to the States when they were first married,” he said, picking his beer up. “We traveled to Italy every year when I was young, but my father…”
I waited. Gabe barely spoke of his father, and I’d surmised that they didn’t get along well, thinking he was part of the secrets Gabe kept from me.
He took a swig of beer, his eyes taking a far-off look. “My father hated her family, so we always went without him.” He stared down at where his hand clutched the bottle. “We stopped going when she died. He forbade it just like he forbade speaking the language.”
My chest burned with the pain that had seized it. He took another long drink. “She still snuck words in when he was at work,” he said, the darkness clearing from his eyes. “One day I’ll take you there.” Again, the surety erased any doubt that should have been there.
I took his face in my hands, sweeping my fingers over the corners of his eyes. “I’d like that very much. I’ve never traveled outside of the country.”
“No?” He looked surprised, and I couldn’t help but be curious about his assumption that I had.
“Nope. My parents are workaholics. The resort is their passion. The most exotic thing we did was travel to Quebec one year.”
This had him snickering. “Quebec may be beautiful, but it is not exotic.”
Elbowing him, I gave him my fiercest scowl, but all it did was encourage him to drag me into his chest. He planted a kiss on my head and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “I’ll take you to any exotic location you want, Tori. The world is yours. Give me five years, and I’ll hand it to you on a platter.”
