Keeping Secrets in Seattle (17 page)

He touched his nose absently. “They do not.”

“Yes, they do. I’ve been your best friend for twenty years.” When he looked away, I knew that I’d won.

“I don’t mean to avoid you.”

“Yes, you do. Ignoring me isn’t cool.”

He looked up, chagrined. “I’m sorry, Vi.”

I couldn’t help it when my voice shook. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I just don’t want to be ditched by my best friend.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Hey, shh.”

My voice was rising. I didn’t care if I made a scene. Whatever it took to make Gabe listen to me. “I know that my timing on this sucks, but there are some things you need to know about
her
.”

“Come on, let’s not do this,” Gabe said, gently guiding me through the front doors of the building.

I followed Gabe around a corner, where we stood by a brick wall. “You don’t have a clue what kind of woman you’re marrying.”

“Of course I know who I’m marrying, Vi.” Gabe’s frown pulled his features down. “She’s my fiancée.”

I looked into his eyes. “Even though she’s a liar?”

“Where is this coming from? I thought you and Alicia got along?”

“We did before. Sort of.” I folded my arms across my chest.

“Before what? Before we almost kissed?” He lowered his voice. “That was—”

“A giant mistake? Yes. I realize that.”

“It wasn’t a mistake.” He put his hands in his pockets, and shifted between his feet a few times. “It…”

I folded my arms across my chest. “What, Gabe? Spit it out.”

He looked around nervously, even though there was nobody around. After a few beats, he just shook his head without saying a word.

“Fine.” I put my palms out. “Fine. I get it. It was an awful mistake.”

His features softened. “I was going to say amazing.”

My anger fizzled, but confusion flared. “Oh…I guess.”

“I haven’t been returning your calls this week because it seemed safer not to.”

I shook my head. “Are you really that afraid of being alone with me?”

Gabe’s eyes darkened. “Yes.”

“So you’re going to avoid me for the rest of our lives?”

His cheeks flushed. “That’s the plan, yes.”

I pushed his chest. “What the hell? I’m in your wedding. I go to every holiday at your parents’ house. How will you avoid me forever?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Things are changing, Violet.”

There was nothing being said, but the air between us was thick with everything unsaid. I started to release his hand, but he laced his fingers through mine. My gut twisted. “I’m sorry that it happened.”

“My Vi.” He sighed and stepped closer to me.

A vision of Landon in his apartment, cheerfully dropping folded shirts into a suitcase, popped into my head, but I quickly shoved it to the back of my mind. “I have some things to tell you, Gabe.”

He looked down. “Every time I’m around you, I can’t keep my hands off you. What’s wrong with me?”

I could feel that all-too familiar magnetic pull between us, and my resolve started to crack. If Gabe kept touching me, I wasn’t going to be capable of fighting my desire much longer, and I was going to suggest making out in the parking lot soon. I had to get everything out that I’d come here to say before he came any closer. When I put my palms on his chest, I noticed his pulse thudding through his shirt. I took hold of his wrists and stepped back. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” he asked.

“Touching me like that.” I still felt tingles where his palms had been.

“Like that?” He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Like we’re more than friends.”

Gabe glared at me. “I’m
engaged
, Violet.”

“That’s what makes this so wrong.” I gestured between the two of us. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you, and we can’t stay off each other!”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I jutted my chin out at him. “Your fiancée is a liar and a phony. And her parents aren’t rich. They’re normal middle class people. With a normal middle class house, and a normal middle class grandma living with them.”

A long line appeared across Gabe’s forehead. “What? How did you find this out?”

“I…looked into her background a little bit.” I glanced away, embarrassed.

“You did what?” His brows knit together.

“I did it for you.”

“You snooped into Alicia’s background for my sake?” Gabe’s eyes had glazed over, and his jaw locked into place.

“Yes. You have no idea what kind of a person you’re engaged to. Do you know what she was like in high school?”

“I’m supposed to care what she was like in high school?” He ran his hand over his head.

“You should care about some of the things I heard.” I took a step closer to him. “She’s a gold digger. A girl she went to school with said that she—”

“You know, I never took you for the jealous type. All these years, and you never acted at all envious.”

I was taken aback. “Well, you haven’t been engaged to any of them.”

“So it’s the engagement that has you acting so crazy?”

I wanted to scream. “This isn’t crazy. Why do I have to keep explaining that to everyone?”

“This is ridiculous.” Gabe’s jaw twitched, and a muscle in his neck bulged. I was in the weeds now. “You followed me here so that you could tell me what Alicia was like in high school?”

“You aren’t listening. I know that this all seems weird, but I have a point.” I was shouting now.

He looked at his watch. “Alicia is going to wonder where I’m at.”

I sighed. “You’re being too stubborn for your own damn good. It doesn’t even matter that Alicia is completely wrong for you, because on paper, it all works.”

“Listen.” Gabe took hold of my shoulders. “I know this is hard for you. All this change is hard for me, too.”

“You can’t marry her.” My quavering voice was almost drowned out by a passing car.

Gabe’s eyes softened. “Vi, don’t say that.”

“Please don’t marry her.” My eyes moistened, and I stared at him with every ounce of intensity burning inside me. “She will hurt you worse than I ever did. I can promise you that. She doesn’t want kids. Did you know that?”

His mouth opened and closed without a sound.

I couldn’t stop there. “Ask her the name of the nursing home where her grandma lives.”

“Please stop,” he said tiredly.

“Just ask her about her policy on men.” My voice shook, and it was clear by the defeated expression in his eyes that he’d stopped listening to me minutes ago, but I pressed forth. If nothing came from this conversation at all, I knew that I had at least tried. “Ask her what her policy is on upgrades, Gabe. Just ask.”

Gabe pushed a strand of my hair away from my forehead, making a shiver tiptoe town my back. My breath caught in my throat. “Vi…”

He stepped closer to me, and my heart thudded in my chest so hard that I swear he could see it through my dress. Alicia, Cameron, and all of my anger and frustration slid to the back of my mind, and all I could focus on were those eyes I’d loved since I was six years old. He touched my cheek, and I shuddered.

Fingers trembling against my face, Gabe took a shaky breath before whispering, “You need to go home now.”

His words hit me like a punch in the gut, just as the doors to the concert hall swung open with a bang. We pulled apart, almost in slow motion, as Gabe’s eyes deadlocked on mine. “Intermission…”

“Please.” I tried to catch my breath. “Just listen.”

His voice was strained when he spoke again. “You’ve got to stop trying to dig up dirt on Alicia. I appreciate your concern. I know that you’re doing this because you care about me. I get it.”

“Just let me finish—” I reached for him, but he ducked away.

His face was stoic. “You will always be my best friend.”

“I-I…” I closed my mouth and held my breath. I’d just been rejected at point-blank range. He just looked me dead in the eye and told me that he chose Alicia over me. And worse yet, I
still
hadn’t told him my secret about Cameron.

Anger churned in my belly like the rolling waves of Puget Sound, tossing and turning like there was a storm brewing inside of me. My natural reaction in any other circumstance would have been to open my mouth and unleash the fury of Violet Murphy on him. Under any other circumstances, and with any other man in the world, that would have been exactly what I’d done.

If Gabe was willing to flush his life down the toilet for a marriage based on lies, was I really comfortable with sacrificing our friendship to try to save him? I pressed a hand to my aching chest. The dull, silent pain I’d gotten so used to when we were sixteen years old had returned.

I locked my jaw in place and stood at my full height. “Your decision has obviously been made.”

He released a long breath through his clenched teeth. “I hope you’ll still be my best man.”

I put up a hand to stop him. If he explained how much he loved Alicia, I was going to throw up. “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way.”

Gabe ran his hand arm, and I shuddered. “I’m so sorry, Vi.”

This time it was me who ducked away from the contact. “Don’t. I have to go.”

He looked at me intensely, his mouth turning downward. “I wish…” Gabe’s voice petered out, fading into the sound of the nearby crowd.

“You wish what?” I pressed a hand to my roiling stomach.

“I wish things had worked out differently between us.”

“Well, it didn’t, did it?”

I took off for the front of the building. I needed to find Kim and Betsy so we could get the hell out of there. The ache inside was ripping me open, and I was afraid that my soul was going to spill out all over the sidewalk, tearing open the scars that had slowly healed over the last nine years. I wondered how many times I was going to be able to withstand my heart being broken because of Gabe Parker before it stopped beating altogether.

“There you are,” Betsy called over the roar of the crowd. She and Kim came weaving through the clump of people. “You missed the whole first half.”

“It was beautiful.” Kim sucked on a cigarette. “Are you better? Did you get it all out of your system?” She blew a long plume of smoke out of the side of her mouth.

“You’re coming back in now, right?” Betsy applied a fresh coat of lip gloss.

“Do you want me to run to the pharmacy for some Pepto?” Kim reached up to smooth down my hair, which had been mussed by Gabe’s fingers just a few minutes before. “Good grief, what happened to your hair?”

At that moment, Gabe emerged from around the corner, his hands back in his pockets, and his face pointed down. Nodding curtly at my roommates, he stalked past us, ducked into the building, and was submerged in the crowds of people.

Kim’s mouth dropped open. “Gabe is here?”

I nodded pitifully.

She frowned at me. “Were you two talking just now?”

I cringed. “Yes.”

Her eyebrows pulled down low on her forehead. “Oh geez, is that why you brought us here?”

Betsy scowled. “No way, Vi. Really?”

I felt moronic. “You guys, I am so incredibly sorry. I thought this was the only way to get him to listen to me, and I didn’t want to come by myself, in case…” I covered my face. “In case
this
happened.”

Kim groaned. “Did you two get into an argument?”

“Yes.”

She tapped her toe on the pavement. “Did he even listen to anything you had to say?”

“No,” I said dully.

“Well, that’s Gabe Parker for you.”

Betsy sighed. “I hope you learned your lesson.”

Wiping at the sweat on my forehead, I tried to level my voice. “I…I guess I did. Do we have to finish this thing? Can we get out of here now?”

“Aww, come on,” Betsy whined.

Kim looked at me closely. “What else is wrong?”

Another flash of Cameron walking up the stairs, buckling his belt, flashed in my mind, and my head throbbed. “I…” I gulped. There was that ball of broken glass again. “I have something I need to tell you guys.”

Betsy took my hand. “Hey, are you all right?”

“No.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and shook my head. “I’m not.”

They exchanged a glance, then linked their arms with mine. “Let’s go home,” Kim said softly.

I let them lead me away from the concert hall, tears streaming down my face as we went, leaving our seats and the second half of the performance behind. I was done with Gabe. Done trying to force him to listen to me. Done trying to save him from making the mistake of his life. I needed to get home, get changed, and call Landon. He needed to know my secret, too. If we had any sort of future at all, it had to come out.

…

Landon’s eyes were wide when he entered my apartment. He’d never seen me cry before, and when I called to ask him to come over, I’d been sobbing. “What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

I looked at him through swollen eyes. “Come in.”

“Why are you crying?” He followed me into the living room, where Betsy and Kim were sitting on the couch stoically.

“Technically, I’m not crying anymore.” My stuffy nose made my voice sound cartoonish.

Landon looked at the girls. “Hey, guys.”

“Hi.” Betsy dabbed at her own eyes as Kim looked down at her hands.

His gaze moved from them to me. “Violet, what’s going on?”

Kim rose off the couch and pulled Betsy up by her side. “Come on, babe. Let’s go to bed.”

“Thanks.” My voice cracked, and Kim scooped me into a hug.

“Love you,” she whispered.

“You, too.” I watched as they padded out of the room, then faced Landon, whose face was pale. It looked like he was waiting to hear who’d died. “Come on. Let’s sit down.”

We sat down on the couch, and Landon’s mouth stretched into a thin line.

“I’ve got something I need you to know about me before we go any further with this relationship. Something that might change the way you feel about me.”

He gathered me close to his chest. “Nothing could change the way I feel about you. But you’re kind of freaking me out.”

I drew a long, shaky breath. “I’m kind of freaking out myself.”

Landon’s callused thumb rolled from one knuckle on my hand to the next. “Why?”