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.
With everything Gabrielle was going through and her recent fight with her father, it didn’t surprise me that talking about her mom brought that grief back now.
“Long time or not, it never really goes away. I know that; you never have to explain yourself to me. Some days, it hurts like it just happened.”
“You sound like you have experience with grief,” she said.
I breathed out. I didn’t even really talk to Ryder about this, but I wanted to tell Gabrielle the truth. “I do. Both of my parents passed away when I was young.”
I waited for the sympathy that I didn’t want. She displayed the same empathy that I felt for her, but there wasn’t a single trace of pity in her voice.
Talking to her about it felt good. I liked that we were getting closer. Suddenly, not telling her about Harper started feeling like a lie. Worse yet, like I was ashamed of Harper. I wasn’t.
I didn’t like sharing her with the world, and I wanted her life to be as normal as possible. So, I kept her out of the public eye as much as I could, but it was time to tell Gabrielle that she existed.
“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle’s eyes were worried as she lifted her head from my chest. She’d folded her sunglasses on the towel next to her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your body just tensed, and your heart started thumping so hard that I swear my head nearly bounced.”
“There’s something else that I need to tell you.” This was it. I sat up and tugged her onto my lap, almost like I subconsciously wanted to be able to hold onto her if she decided to run once she learned the truth.