Then it struck me.
Had she actually stuck her tongue out at me?
I choked on a surprised laugh, and I gently tackled her to the sand. I caught her in my arms and rolled us so that she would land on top of me. She shrieked a laugh as we went down. “What was that for?”
“I can think of better things that you can do with that tongue.” Her smile brightened, but she stuck her tongue out at me again as her heartbeat quickened against my chest. “You were warned.”
I reached up and brought her lips down hard on mine. It didn’t take her more than a second to catch up as she opened her mouth and slipped her tongue into mine. I didn’t allow the kiss to continue for long before giving her a playful slap on the ass and helping her to her feet.
Pink flushed on her cheeks, and her lips looked mildly bee stung. It was a fucking sexy look on her. I briefly considered giving up on the whole jet ski thing and hauling her to a beachside motel I knew nearby, but then I remembered her earlier excitement.
She laced her fingers with mine as we walked to rent our jet skis. She chose one with yellow and purple coloring that almost matched her bikini and expertly fastened her life jacket. I liked that she could handle herself.
I’d half-expected her to feign fear of her own jet ski so that she could ride with me. I’d been jet skiing with a few girls, and that seemed to be the modus operandi of choice.
Gabrielle, of course, insisted on her own and then yelled that she would race me as soon as she got to the water’s edge.
She threw a long, tanned leg over the seat, shot a grin at me, and opened the throttle. Her laughter carried on the wind as she took off at a speed that would have some of my battle-hardened teammates shuddering.
I stared after her for a second as I mounted my own jet ski, considering just letting her win our impromptu race. But my competitive streak won out. I pulled back on the throttle and tore off in her wake.
We raced around for what felt like hours, laughing and flirting as we sprayed each other with the warm ocean water.
The sun sat high in the sky by the time Gabrielle pulled up to me. “Damn, my arms are getting tired.”
“Is that an official surrender?” I asked.
“Never.” She grimaced playfully. “I’ll win next time. I’m just hitting the pause button for today.”
“Next time, huh?”
“Yup, you know you’re going to invite me out here again.” She pulled back on her throttle and cruised towards the beach, gliding easily onto the sand and hopping off with ease.
As I followed her out, I realized that she was right. I definitely wanted to do that with her again.
She produced a blanket-sized towel from the beach bag she’d retrieved from her car, and I spread it out a ways down the beach from where the crowds gathered.
I still wore my sunglasses, and I had a cap pulled low over my ears, but not because I was being a celebrity asshole. The day actually warranted both, but I was still grateful for the trace of anonymity they provided, surrounded as we were with tons of other guys wearing the same.
The towel was brightly colored and was easily big enough for both of us to spread out comfortably. We lay on our backs, our hands lightly clasped together between us as we talked.
Eventually, the subject turned to family. Gabrielle told me about growing up with Richard as a father, how she had been raised by an army of nannies after her mom had left and subsequently passed away when she was young.
A frisson of fear ran through me, but I dismissed it quickly. Mrs. W. was not an army of faceless nannies, and I was with Harper as often as I could be.
I never wanted Harper to be speaking about her childhood the way that Gabrielle was. A renewed determination took hold in my gut. I had to make sure that I gave Harper a childhood that she wouldn’t have to recover from.
Gabrielle’s voice cracked as she spoke about her mom, and I tugged her closer to me. Her head rested on my shoulder, and I
stroked her back and listened to her story.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” I said.
Her pain radiated from her body in the way her shoulders hunched forward, and in the way she held on to me as if I was a life raft she clung to to keep from breaking into a million pieces.
“Thanks, it was a long time ago, though.”
I knew just as well as anyone who’d ever lost a parent that the pain didn’t really ever go away. You just learned to live with it. Every now and then, you’d talk about them or hear a song that they’d liked, and the grief would come flooding back as real and as devastating as it had been at first.