“Was that too much?” Tori asked me, and I looked over to see the worry return to her features.
“No. Your family is a blessing. They’re wonderful.”
She nudged me with her shoulder. “No, I meant the wedding plans.”
“Are you two getting married?” the flight attendant asked as she shut the overhead compartment. She handed Tori a blanket, a perk of the first-class seats I’d gotten us.
“Yes,” Tori answered, excitement bursting over in her voice. “He asked me yesterday.”
I almost rolled my eyes because telling people about my personal business was something I never did. It was hard enough to make friends, and I only had a handful from college and one from prep school. They knew I wasn’t a social person, so texts were usually enough, although I knew once I shared this news in the group chat that my phone would start ringing.
After a few minutes of wedding talk that I ignored by keeping my nose in my book, the flight attendant disappeared.
“How did I not realize how antisocial you are?” Tori teased me.
I peeked over my book at her. “I mask it well.”
She snuggled closer to me. “So then, going to meet my parents…”
“A struggle for social normalcy,” I replied, giving her a half grin.
“Damn, you had me fooled, Gabriel Hughes. Maybe I need to rethink this wedding thing.”
I dropped my book and took her chin in my hand. “I don’t think so, luna mia. You already promised yourself to me, and I’m going to hold you to it.”
“There’s my book boyfriend,” she murmured as I brought her lips to mine, giving her a searing kiss to affirm my statement.
That kiss burned away any doubt about my decision to marry her. As the flight continued and Tori curled up against me, I resolved to confess my plans to Liv when we returned.
A vow I didn’t keep, avoiding the conversation as the sense that something waited in the shadows to destroy my imaginarylife of happiness grew. And with it, the suspicion that I would never recover if it did.
Chapter 11
Tori
The bags thudded to the floor when Gabe dropped them at the door. I followed him into the apartment, glad to be back but homesick at the same time. The whirlwind trip had me exhausted, and both of us needed to work the next day.
“Chinese?” Gabe said, stretching. His long arms almost touched the ceiling, and I followed the rise of his shirt as it freed from where he had tucked it in his pants.
“Sounds fantastic,” I answered, grabbing my bag and dragging it to the bedroom. Opening it on the bed, I began unpacking. I heard him call in the order, one he knew well enough not to ask what I wanted.
So much had happened in the last two days. The engagement ring shimmered as I carried my makeup bag into the bathroom. I was getting married. To the man of my dreams. An amazing man who made me happier every day. Whom I loved beyond anything I thought possible.
A man I was still discovering, his pieces slowly coming together. Another secret, that he wasn’t social after months of thinking he was an outgoing, sexy, heartthrob type. How wrong I’d been. Granted, the sexy, heartthrob part had been right, and that side of him was all mine. But the outgoing side had been afaçade, and I’d never realized it because with me he wasn’t that way.
Perhaps I should have seen it in the bashful looks he sometimes had, the nervous way he rubbed his neck and struggled for words, but I factored those adorable traits as those of a man in love. They were moments reserved for me, and I loved them.
“Ordered,” he said, coming into the room and tossing his bag next to mine. “About twenty minutes.” His eyes perused me as I stood in the doorway of the bathroom. “Dinner in bed? Followed by dessert?”
Throwing my head back with a laugh, I replied, “Sounds like a plan, but maybe we could start with dessert?” I was craving his touch. He hadn’t done more than kiss me the entire trip, a sweet need to be respectful to my parents. His surprise at them letting us share a bed told me more about his upbringing than I thought he wanted me to know. He was proper, polite, well-mannered, something I’d always known, but it was even more evident around my parents.
“Why is it you never told me you don’t like social situations?”
His expression dropped, and I gnawed my cheek, hating that I’d been the cause. Sitting on the side of the bed, he folded the shirt he was holding. “I prefer to be solitary, but I function fine because…” That faraway look crossed his features, the one that told me he was in the past, facing haunting memories. My chest ached at the thought, and I crossed the room, scooting the suitcase over and sitting next to him. “I had to be social. There was no choice, and if I complained, it meant punishment.” He rubbed his face, that distant expression still there. “My father hosted parties, and his children were on display, examples of proper upbringing. Spine straight, mouth shut unless addressed, hands tucked to the side, behavior on point. Nothing to embarrass him.”
He fidgeted with the shirt, and I brought my hands over his to stop the motion. When his eyes turned to me, there was so much pain in them that I wanted to erase it, to wipe his memory of the past, but I couldn’t. “I always preferred being alone until you came along.” His hand moved to encompass mine. “When you came into my life, I never wanted to be alone again. You filled a space I hadn’t realized was there, an emptiness that had been waiting for you all this time. I can function, and I do it well, but my preference is to be away from people and now, to be with you.”
“And your friends?” I knew he had a text group of college buddies, and he’d told me about his friend from high school with whom he still talked.
