This Sky (18 page)

Gemma

Claudia lifts an eyebrow when she sees us walking up to the bar. “Look at you three!”

    I glance down at the mid-calf black combat boots I borrowed from Julie and smile. I wrinkle my nose. “We wanted to get into the spirit of things.”

    “Admit it. You can’t stay away, can you?”

    “I—” I try to swallow.

    “She can’t,” confirms Julie, her smile all teeth, and her hand tickling my forearm. “She tried on at least four outfits and worked on her makeup for forty-five minutes. It was freaking adorable.”

    “Stop!” I swat her hand away as I settle myself on a barstool. “My makeup took forever because I’m not used to wearing burgundy lipstick and an inch of face powder. And, really, can’t a girl go out with her friends and have a drink on her night off?”

    Smith snorts. “I wanted to hit up Don Pedro’s because it’s Taco Tuesday, but this one,” he points to me with his thumb, “insisted we check out the happenings at Aunt Zola’s first. ‘No particular reason,’ she said.” He laughs glibly.

    “There was a reason,” I defend, all the while, my eyes scanning the bar for a glimpse of Landon. “Tonight is 90’s night. I was curious to see what it was like. And, really, aren’t you glad we came to check it out? There’s a live band,” I persist, pointing toward the stage, “glow sticks and ridiculously festive clothing and…”

    “My brother?” Claudia finishes, smiling knowingly at me.

   
Dear God in heaven.

    Smith says, “Yep. Girl’s got the love bug bad.”

    “She’s completely smitten,” Julie informs them both as she adjusts the strap of the red overalls she pulled out of the back of her closet. When I asked about where she got them, she gave me a pointed look and told me I really didn’t want to know. She’s probably right.

    I roll my eyes. “I am not.”

    “Are too!” She turns to Smith and Claudia and says, “She was singing in the shower this morning and I fully expect a flock of butterflies to flutter out of her chest at any minute.”

    “Thank you so much for sharing that tidbit, Jules,” I say, the sarcasm in my tone evident.

    “Gemma and Landon sittin’ in a tree,” Claudia lilts.

    “No, n
o!” I bury my face in the crook of my elbow, the heavy silver earrings I’m wearing coming to a rest on my arms. “Hello, people? Broken heart? Rebound?
Bridge loan
? Is this ringing any bells with you?” When the three of them stay silent, I lift my head and continue, “Landon and I have an agreement.”

    “Agreement, my ass,” my best friend says under her breath.

    “I’m playing this exactly how you suggested,” I remind her with a halfhearted smile. “No drama. No trust. No expectations. Landon makes—”
a crazy kind of sense.
“—me happy, but it’s just a distraction while I figure things out. Please don’t make things weird for us when we’ve both decided already that we’re just having fun.”

    “Define
fun
,” Claudia says, laying out four shot glasses.

    I tap my hands against the bar top and lick my lips. “Let’s see, it’s something that’s enjoyable or entertaining.”

    She rolls her eyes as she pours a combination of vodka and Blue Curacao into each glass. “You know what I mean. I want to understand what you’ve got worked out with Landon.”

    I blow out an exaggerated breath. “Not that it isn’t a little weird to be talking to his
sister,”
I put a lot of emphasis on the word. “But if you really must know, we are exploring the whole friends with benefits thing. It’s casual. That is all.”

    Julie shares a knowing look with Claudia. “Yesterday afternoon,
I caught her watching the tail-end of
The Notebook
and less than a week ago she was quoting
A Room with a View
.”

    “That’s not true,” I argue vehemently. “It was actually ten days ago.”

    Julie laughs sardonically. “Oh, my bad.”

    As much as I want to believe that everything I’m saying is true, deep down I know that I’m completely full of shit. Nothing about what’s happening to my heart feels casual. My attraction toward him is so much more than physical and that terrifies me.

    I have to remind myself daily that there are limits.
No strings. No regrets.
It’s frustrating, but I’m the one who came up with the rules in the first place. It was my call.
Then again, Landon didn’t argue with me, did he?

    “Earth to
Gemma!” Julie’s fingers snap in front of my face and I realize that I’ve been spaced out for a couple of minutes.

    “Sorry,” I mumble, embarrassed.

    “No worries. We know you were in La-La-Love Land.”

    With a sigh, I slump against the bar and squeeze my eyes shut. “Guys, this thing with Landon is not serious and I have not been bitten by the love bug. I am a scorned woman who is out there exploring sizzle and sex.”

    “Keep telling yourself that,” Smith fires off.

    “I am,” I maintain. “Isn’t that what all the cool kids are doing these days?”

    “So really no warm fuzzies?” Claudia digs.

    Honestly, I am so warm and fuzzy that I’m like a stuffed teddy bear wrapped in a Gore-Tex parka, but I’m not about to admit it and face more of the Landon Young Inquisition. So I shake my head and I say, “Nope.”

    “But you’re sleeping at his place?” Smith asks, picking up the shot glass clearly meant for him.

    “Well, yeah.
I’ve slept there for a couple of nights.”

    “For a week,” Julie corrects.

    “And he takes you with him when he goes surfing?” Claudia asks and it’s almost an accusation.

    “They go every morning,” Julie answers her.

    “Because he’s been teaching me,” I tell them, aiming for nonchalant.

    “Gemma,
” Claudia says, resting her chin on her hands and fixing her dark brown eyes on me. “My brother does not take girls he’s just
having fun with
surfing. Ever. To Landon Young, the ocean is sacred. The water is what he’s lived and breathed since he was a little kid. It’s like his version of church and if he’s taking you with him, that means something.” She pauses long enough to move her head back and forth slowly. “Just think about it.” 

    Right on cue, Landon walks through the swinging door between the staff area and the restaurant floor. He’s wearing the same dark green shirt I saw him in this morning. He stops to take a breath like he’s steeling himself and I get this visceral image of him above me last night, his hands gripping the backs of my knees, his weight pushing down on me. I remember the sound of our bodies connecting, our collective gasps, the thud of my heart against the back of my throat. And I think of his face, caught in a splinter of diluted moonlight, almost forbidding in its intensity.  

    Julie pats me on the back and picks up her shot glass, lifting it all the way to her lips. “Like we said.
Smitten.”

Landon
 

She’s coming out of the kitchen as I’m going in.

    Right before we collide, I catch her by her arms and swing her to the side of the hall. “Hey.”

    “Hey,” she breathes in surprise and we both laugh. Her cheeks are flushed with drinking and dancing. The tiny brown hairs around her face are sticking to the skin of her neck.

    Normally, I hate the moronic theme nights that Tish and Jamie come up with to keep the restaurant full, but I’m beginning to have a change of heart. Gemma’s got on tight jeans and a white shirt that barely covers her midriff. I’ve been so
distracted by that little strip of belly winking at me that I’ve already screwed up two cocktails.

    She looks back over her shoulder. “I was just checking the schedule for the rest of the week.”

    “You’re on a shift tomorrow night and Friday during the day,” I tell her.

   “You checked my schedule?” she asks, eyes widening.

    I nod, letting my fingertips brush her navel. “I checked.”

    “Huh,” is all she says but her look is searing.

    We’re alone and I can’t help myself. I allow my fingers to roam up her side until I’m grazing the soft cotton of her bra. I wonder if it’s the one with the little blue bow in the middle.

    “Does that bother you?” I ask her. I keep my tone light but I really do want to know. “That I’m stalking you? That I’ve been watching you dance all night?”

    “No,” she grinds out, her chest rising. She bends toward my hands and makes a soft sound of encouragement from the back of her throat.

    I tear my gaze from her breasts and lean in close so that my lips are brushing her ear. She smells amazing. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m jealous of every single guy out there who looks at you?”

    “No,” she says. “I like it.”

    “You do?”

    She nods. “And you should know that I checked your schedule too.”

    Eyebrows up. “Yeah?”

    “Yeah.” She wraps her left hand around my right wrist and pushes her hips up to meet my groin.

    I’ve never been so grateful for a deserted hallway in my life. “Stalker…” But I’m joking and she knows it.

    Her smile lifts as she edges closer, running her hand up the side of my face. She stands up on her tiptoes and presses her mouth to my chin, to that small indentation beneath my lower lip.

    I squeeze her waist with one hand. “Gemma.”

    “Landon,” she mimics my pleading tone. Her breath is hot and moist on my skin. Her palms drop to the outside of my thighs. “I can’t stop looking at you either. And when I was out there,” she says, making a discordant motion with her head, I guess to indicate the dance floor. “I was imagining you were dancing with me. It’s all I could think about.”

    “You’re buzzed,
” I tell her.

    “And you’re hot.” Her shoulders roll. “So hot. I’ve never…” Now her voice fades out and she bites her lip, embarrassed. I don’t want her to be embarrassed with me. Ever. “I swear I’m not that drunk.”

    There’s a short silence and before I know what I’m doing, I’m asking her to dance with me.

    Her eyes flicker with uncertainty. “Aren’t you working right now?”

    “I’m on a break.”

    She hesitates. “Doesn’t dancing seem like a date thing?”

    I don’t want her to throw that in my face. Not when I’m feeling like
this
.

    I simply say, “You’re the one that brought it up.”

    “I know but what about all the people we work with? If we go out there and dance they’ll—”

     “They’ll think we’re together?”

     She shrugs, looks down.

     I bend to kiss her shoulder. She shivers, curling further into me, letting me feel all the lines of her slender body. After a few seconds, I repeat the request, this time more adamantly. “Dance with me, please?”

    She doesn’t answer, but very deliberately, she takes hold of my arm and leads me out the staff door and through the crowd.

    “Oh my God, it’s Meat Loaf,” she laughs
as the music changes.

    I’ve heard the band do this cover before. It’s not half-bad and I tell her so.

    “Good,” she murmurs, tugging me along in her wake.  

    And then we’re in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by a sea of moving bodies, the bright lights beating down on us, slicing our skin into an abstract patchwork of spinning colors. I’m pulling her to me and she’s throwing her arms around my neck. She’s tucking her head under my chin and everything else is receding. Everything except
this
. This feeling.   

    We find a beat, and keeping my legs wide, I slip my hands down to her lower back, anchor my thumbs at her waist and press myself deeper into the shape of her. Fuck. My head is fogged.

    Gemma moves her head in a circle and sings. I angle back so that I can watch her loose within my arms. I love seeing her like this—filled with the whir of music, her skin clammy and flushed, her hair sliding over her shoulders in snaky brown rivulets and her lips moving along with the lyrics.

     With her eyelids half down and
her lashes a dark veil over her cheeks, she tells me that she’ll never forget the way I feel right now. She tells me she would do anything for love. She sings that maybe it’s crazy, but no else can save her but me. She cries that she’s lonely and begs me to give her every fantasy she’s got and hose her down with holy water if she gets too hot. Again, she sings that she would do anything for love.

    
At first, it’s funny. Then, it’s fucking perfect. And for just a few minutes, I’m able to forget her hang-ups over her douchebag ex and all the things I haven’t told her.