Keeping Secrets in Seattle (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Once Kim and Betsy were given their tasks, they put their game faces on and spent the next two hours curling, coiffing, and plucking me to sheer perfection.

Betsy loaned me a gown from a secondhand couture boutique in Ballard that fit my curves like a glove, flaunted my assets like a victory flag, and made no apologies for it. She’d bought it on a whim years before, then closed it up in a garment bag to be forgotten. It was ruched satin and was the most luscious shade of rich chartreuse that contrasted with the ink on my shoulders and arms beautifully. The top was halter style, with a deep enough “
v
” between the breasts to show cleavage without being gratuitous, and the satin was gathered slightly at my hip where an ornate rhinestone pin was sewn. It flowed to the floor, flaring out from the hips, with a slit up one leg, exposing a flash of the seamed nylons I was wearing with my 1940s baby doll stilettos.

My head of platinum-blond curls had been painstakingly teased, backcombed, and manipulated into a style that resembled Bridget Bardot’s. The top half was smoothed into submission, and the bottom half had been heated into three wide sausage curls that shone like glossed corn silk. She’d left a thick tendril free to curl down the side of my face, claiming that Gabe wouldn’t be able to resist brushing it away from my eyes.

Nearly every single eye in the venue shifted to look at me, some people even going so far as to whisper and point, when I walked into the five-star restaurant on Lake Union. I would have enjoyed my Cinderella-at-the-Ball moment if I hadn’t wanted to throw up from nerves the whole time. I scanned the crowd for Gabe, searching black-and-white tux after black-and-white tux for his tawny skin and light eyes.

Finally, I found him. My pulse raced. He stood at the back of the dim room, surrounded by a sea of tuxedo and sequin-clad coworkers. One of his hands was tucked in his pocket, holding his jacket open casually, while a man holding a tumbler dangerously close to spilling told him a story. He wasn’t paying attention to the man, though. His eyes locked on mine and widened.

Bite the bullet. Just go get your Prince Charming…er, Gabe
. I pressed a hand to my middle as I started down the staircase into the thick crowd. Gabe excused himself from his conversation and walked toward me, but the crowd quickly swallowed him, and I lost my visual.

The sound of the jazz band playing at the head of the room spurred some of the couples around me to start dancing. I recognized some of the men who were at Gabe’s bachelor party and waved when they held up their drinks in greeting.

I jumped as an arm snaked around my waist. Gabe.

“You take my breath away,” he said quietly.

Holy mother of God
. My knees melted into jelly, and I wobbled.

I turned around and faced him. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”

Nobody in the world filled out a suit like Gabriel Parker, and I sensed that every woman in the room knew it, too.

“Thanks.” He took a deep breath and then released it slowly, letting his hand slide off my waist. “How did you know I was here?”

“You dropped the invitation at my house.” I paused, light-headed. “And your mom told me.”

“You called my mom?”

“I was looking for you.”

Gabe’s eyes widened. “You were?”

“I got your e-mail.” I bit my lip.

The corner of his full lips tugged upward, making my knees clunk together under my skirt. “I’m really glad.”

I nodded. “Is it okay that I came? Everyone is staring at me.”

Gabe took a step closer to me, closing the inches between us. “There isn’t a woman in this room who holds a candle to you tonight, Vi. You’re absolutely gorgeous. You should be dancing in a dress like that.”

“All right,” I said.

Gabe peeled his suit jacket off and threw it on the back of a random chair, revealing a starched white shirt that was taut across his chest and black suspenders. He loosened his tie just a bit, then put a hand on my elbow, his knuckles brushing the side of my ribcage as he led me onto the crowded dance floor to the sound of “The Way You Look Tonight.” He put one hand around my waist, securing me against his chest tightly, then raised my free arm by sliding his fingertips up the underside until he got to my hand, where he placed his palm against mine.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as we started to move.

My heart skittered, and I stopped dancing. “Listen…”

He tilted his head. The couples swirled around us while we stood unmoving in the middle of the floor. “Are you okay?”

My voice shook as I struggled to raise it above the sound of a saxophone solo. “I didn’t mean it.”

His smile faltered. “Didn’t mean what?”

I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to calm myself. “I’m not done. I don’t quit.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll never give up on you, either. Gabe, you’re worth fighting for.”

His eyes shone. “So you love me?”

I laughed tearfully and shrugged. “I never stopped.”

He pressed his face to my hair, drawing in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Vi. For everything.”

“So am I.” My hands snaked up his back, gripping the back of his neck. I never wanted to be out of these arms again. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. I don’t think I could live without you, even if I tried.”

The band shifted to a slow song, and Gabe started to sway to the music. “Are you still going to Portland?”

I pressed my lips to his neck, every nerve ending in my body aching to make contact with his body. It was like the pull of a magnet, and I couldn’t fight it anymore. “Not unless you’re going with me.”

He leaned away from me enough to gaze down into my eyes. “My place is with you. I don’t care where that is. If you’re there, it’s my home, Vi.”

“I love you…
so
much.” My voice was wavering now.

He pressed his mouth to mine, and everything else in the room disappeared. The band, the people, the food, the tables, the chairs. It was all gone, and we were completely alone. His lips caressed mine, nudging them open, and then he teased me with his tongue. Flashes of color popped behind my closed eyelids when his hand slid into my hair, cradling my neck as he leaned me backward and deepened our kiss. I clung to his shoulders, digging my fingers into the cotton of his shirt, and clinging to the moment as if it could fleet away at any second.

Our mouths finally separated, swollen and buzzing with anticipation, and he pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you, too, Vi. Happy birthday.”

The music slowly started to return, as did the people and noise around us. I laughed, my heart hammering against my ribs. Both of us were bleary-eyed and ridiculously turned on in front of a crowd of about a hundred onlookers.

“What now?” I asked, as Gabe stroked a thumb along my lower lip.

“Come here.” He pulled me past the end of the stage and out an exit. We wound up in a hallway leading to the kitchen, where the muffled orders of a chef could be heard amongst the bang of pots and pans. There were stacks of chairs and some spare tables propped against the wall, and the sound of the jazz band nearly disappeared when the door shut behind us.

He backed me into the stack of tables, their cold metal legs pressing into my legs, sending a flurry of anticipation throughout my body. His mouth opened over mine, our faces crushing together amongst the sound of our breathing.

I’d nearly forgotten that there was nothing in the world better than kissing this man.

Nothing
.

I threw my arms around his neck, digging my nails into his short hair. I was going to savor every single touch, every single jagged breath that escaped his mouth between our feverish kisses. His hands moved down to my middle, lifting me off the ground, making my heels fall to the floor. As he pressed us into the tables, and the plastic and metal groaned beneath our weight, I tilted my head back and let him kiss down my neck, my body trembling under his touch.

Pulling away, he looked at me. His breath was now coming in short pants, his heart racing against mine. “I want to go home.”

I nodded and kissed his neck, drawing an invisible dotted line with my mouth from his collarbone up to his earlobe.

“I want to go home
now
,” he growled, lowering me until my feet touched the floor. Gabe bent to pick up my shoes, his head brushing against my hip. My stomach hurtled. When he stood upright, I slid my hands up the front of his shirt, my fingers tracing every curve of every single muscle.

We made our way through the banquet hall, grabbing my purse and his jacket, ignoring a few of his coworkers who reminded Gabe that the CEO was about to make a speech. Walking a straight line toward the exit, he promptly whistled for a cab, never once letting go of my hand, his fingers tracing circle after circle on the overheated skin of my wrist.

“What about your car?” I noticed my lipstick had left a small smudge on his collar, and I reached to wipe it.

“I had a drink. Better safe than sorry.” He pulled me against him as we stood underneath the restaurant awning. Gabe buried his face in my neck while we waited, and some people who were lingering near the entrance turned and stared.

I giggled. “Good Lord, where is that cab?”

He cupped my face and beamed at me. “I’m never going to let you go again, Vi.”

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.” I closed my eyes, savoring the moment.

When his mouth brushed against mine, my spine melted into butter. A cab rolled up in front of us, tooted its horn, and when we were in the backseat, we picked up where we’d left off in the hallway. We kissed and kissed and kissed, occasionally stopping to ask the cab driver how much further we had to go, but immediately getting right back to it. The way his lips felt on my mouth, my face, my neck, made my head spin like a top as the cab wove through the thick Seattle traffic. It was like a whirling ride at the fair, and I was completely drunk with anticipation.

As the cab sped along West Galer street, the cabbie turned around and scowled at us. “You better not mess up my cab!”

Laughing breathlessly, we pulled apart, and I curled myself around Gabe’s side with my legs draped over his lap. “Sorry, sir,” I mumbled.

Gabe ran a hand through my hair, bringing it to his nose and drawing in a deep breath. “I’ve dreamt about this since I was sixteen years old,” he whispered.

“I have, too.” I traced every edge on his face, memorizing every detail. It was like a dream to be lying with him, our limbs entwined. “It’s like a dream, and at any second, I’m going to wake up, and it will all be gone.”

He brought my hand to his mouth, kissing my knuckles one by one. “It’s not a dream.”

My skin heated under his lips. “Gabe…”

“Vi, this is forever.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “If you’ll have me.”

I answered him by sliding onto his lap and grasping his face in my hands. When my lips opened against his, he growled, and his fingers gripped my hips. I heard the cabbie grunt his disapproval from the front seat, and Gabe released one of my hips to dig in his pocket.

“I’ll give you fifty bucks extra if you speed it up,” he called to the driver, grinning at me. “I need to take the woman I love home.”

Epilogue

Gabe

Violet kept her job working at The Funky Fox after Lizzy made her the salon floor manager, and she moved her things into my apartment on Queen Anne Hill two weeks after her birthday. During our first year together, we spent our nights watching movies while lying in bed eating kimchi and bulgogi, making love until we were dizzy, and talking until the sun filled my bedroom in the morning.

It was everything I’d ever envisioned our life together to be. Maybe even more.

One year later, on Vi’s twenty-seventh birthday, I asked for her hand in marriage. We were at a Mariners game, and I proposed to her on the JumboTron during the seventh inning stretch. She cried, and we were joined shortly thereafter by both of our families, who’d been sitting several rows behind us. It was tacky, and exactly what Violet had always wanted.

We were married in a tent in our parents’ backyard on Halloween night. Five months after my proposal. Seventeen months after moving in together. Ten years and five months after breaking up in the hallway of Wallingford High. Twenty-one years and two months after laying eyes on each other on the playground of our grade school.

I quit working at the ad firm and opened my own graphic design company a few years after we were married. It didn’t pay as much, but my priorities changed once Vi came back into my life. Love, family, home…those are the things that really mattered. I make enough to provide for my own, and not much extra. I’m okay with that, because I get to lie next to Violet every night. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice when her pulse beats against my chest in the dark.

We started our family three years after our wedding. We had our son, Teague, on Violet’s twenty-ninth birthday, followed by our daughter, Penelope, a year and a half later. Our children are the most beautiful and amazing of all our accomplishments, and both Vi and I have their names, and each other’s, permanently decorating the skin above our hearts.

We ran into Alicia when we were leaving a restaurant with the kids a few years ago, where she’d been arguing with a man twice her age in the parking lot. She didn’t say a word to us as we’d passed. She just looked down at our sleeping kids and grimaced. The last I heard was that she’d married an older man in southern Oregon, who was as wealthy as he was unkind. Guess that upgrade hadn’t panned out so well after all.

Cameron Hakes was convicted of sexual assault in California, and is serving a nine-year sentence now. Violet and I spent plenty of time in therapy dealing with our feelings about Cam. The pain never goes away completely. It was like a broken bone that had healed but ached whenever it rained.

I still marvel at the sight of my wife, holding one of our children on her hip, her wild hair a mess, and mismatched socks on her feet. She is the most exquisite creature I’ve ever seen. There are nights when I sit up in our bed watching her sleep, her bare back exposed as she lies on her stomach in a deep slumber. Her hair across her shoulders and pillow, her lips pursed as she dreams, the colorful tattoos across her arms and back telling the story of her life.

She is my best friend.