Special Episode: Secrets
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here. This episode contains some NSFW, mature content.
Kent knows the place from when he was a little kid, himself.
He used to slip out of his parent’s house when he knew he wouldn’t be missed, cross the back garden, and scramble up over the mossy wooden fence. That would put him on a tiny hidden path, which he’d take to reach the sandy, twisting road that led to his secret place.
He’d go there to play when he wanted to be alone. When he reached his teenage years he’d go there to think. He’d thought about taking Julia there, but they usually hung out at her house, since his was much further away from school. Kent spent so much time at her place that eventually this hidden spot slipped his mind, and they never ended up going together. Kent kind of forgot it was even here.
So it’s a transportive experience when he steps out of the car onto the sandy, twisted pathway that leads off into the quiet wilderness.
A rush of jumbled memories come back to him, of being a child wandering up this path, leaving footprints in the sandy soil, laying on his back to watch the butterflies. He remembers how the wildflowers changed with the seasons, the vanilla leaf buds uncurling to shakily, determinedly stand up tall in the spring. He liked the pretty circles of fallen petals that formed around the bushes in autumn, but most of all he liked to watch everything come into flower in the summer. He used to pick soft purple seagrapes from the trees, lay down in the flowers, and eat the seagrapes in the pale green shade of the branches.
It puts a strange kind of warmth in his heart to watch Ellen immediately scramble out of the car and wander right up to the same old trees, pressing her curious fingertips to the bark, weaving her way through fluttering patches of sunlight and shadow.
Gabby comes around the side of the car more slowly, her beautiful eyes collecting the sunlight in their olive green color. Her long sweep of dark hair is half held back today, the rest flowing freely, fluttering in the breeze around her shoulders. The coconut scent of her sunscreen reaches Kent as she stops beside him and tucks a glossy strand behind her ear, her golden fingernails flashing in the sunlight.
“Is this where you wanted to take us?” she asks, looking around in confusion.
“No, this is just how we get there.” Kent catches her hand, presses a kiss onto it, then pops the trunk of his car. “We have to hike a little way to get to the picnic location. That alright?”
“Oh, sure,” Gabby says brightly, offering him her hands. “Give me something to carry.”
Kent hands her the soft white beach umbrella he turned up in the attic, her shoulder bag, and the picnic blanket. He keeps the cooler and the backpack for himself, nudges his glasses back up his nose, and beckons to her with a slight toss of his head.
“I’ll lead the way. Pretty sure I remember how to get there…”
Gabby arches an eyebrow as she falls into step beside him. “Pretty sure?”
“I haven’t been back there since I was like, fifteen,” Kent explains. “It’s a secret place I really loved as a kid. Special to me.”
“Oh,” Gabby says softly, with obvious surprise. She hesitates, then casually asks - “Does that mean we’ll be the first ones you’ve taken there? Ellen and I?”
“Mhm.” Kent flashes an adoring smile down at her. “You reminded me of it by accident, and as soon as I remembered I wanted to take you here.”
Gabby seems to really like that, for some reason. She smiles so brightly in return, and kisses him so sweetly when Ellen wanders ahead.
Kent steals a quick, warm glance at Gabby as they start walking again. He can tell that she’s combing through her mind for what she did or said that reminded him of this place.
“Where are we going, dad?” Ellen calls back to him.
“Just follow the natural path, baby. But don’t go too far ahead, and don’t run, please!”
Ellen slows down considerably, then looks at him over her shoulder, just long enough for him to catch the sheepish expression on her little face. Kent’s heart wells up with fierce love for her as she turns around to start exploring again.
Beside him, Gabby lets out a peaceful breath and tilts her face up to the sky. The storm that rocked Port Sitka and swept through Ketterbridge left behind an unseasonably warm day. So unusually warm that Kent suspects it’ll be raining pretty hard again later.
For now, it feels good to take advantage of what will probably be the last day of summer-hot sunshine for the year. It splashes down through the branches, dappling the pathway as they leave the car behind and walk deeper into the trees.
The soft rush of the sea gradually drifts out to meet them, bringing with it a trace of salt on the air.
“Ellen,” Kent calls warningly. “Slow down, there’s a dropoff, that’s why I didn’t want you to run!”
Ellen, who just found the dropoff, stops in surprise to stare out over it. “Whoa!”
Gabby’s eyes widen as she and Kent draw up behind Ellen. She stands there blinking very fast, her dark lashes fluttering.
Kent is taken right back to his childhood. He always broke out of the trees and stopped right here to take in the sight.
The coastline set back from his parent’s old house isn’t a place where anyone goes to swim, because there’s no beach. Except this one.
In either direction, the ocean waves break against steep, dangerous walls of uneven black rock, but not here. Here there’s a place where a huge chunk of the cliff crumbled away and left behind a little nook, a secret cove. The cliffs on either side curve around it to form protective walls, so the fierce wind and current are kept out. The shallow seawater is left to grow warm in the sunlight. And no one even knows the cove is here. It’s sheltered completely by nature, tucked away where no one would find it.
It looks just like Kent remembered. The brilliantly clear, turquoise water glitters over the sand like a jewel, sheets of blue breaking softly on the shoreline. A stand of salt-loving trees grows at the far end of the beach, on a grassy stretch at the tip of a crescent moon of white sand.
“Oh, it’s amazing!” Ellen decides eagerly. “How do we get down there, dad?”
“There’s a path down through the rocks, but be careful, it’s steep! Here, let me go first.”
He leads the way down, sets his stuff aside, and reaches up to help Ellen and Gabby follow him. They walk further down the beach, then stop to gaze out at the water again, the peach clouds and pale azure sky overhead.
“How beautiful!” Gabby says softly, holding a strand of windblown hair back from her face.
Kent spreads the picnic blanket onto the sand, opens up the beach umbrella to create a pool of shade around it. He starts unpacking a few frosty drinks from the cooler, but it’s obvious that food has already lost Ellen’s attention. She’s thrown herself down onto the blanket to eagerly pull her shoes off.
“There are tidepools!” she calls out excitedly, stumbling off towards them. “We should have brought Emmett!”
Kent frowns a little, narrowing his eyes at Ellen suspiciously.
“You saw him once this weekend already!” he shouts back, but Ellen is racing down the beach. He turns instead to Gabby, who’s unlacing her pretty espadrilles. “She likes that boy a lot.”
“Does she?” Gabby’s eyes sparkle with laughter as she drops to sit down beside him on the blanket, setting her shoes aside. “I couldn’t tell.”
Kent’s worried frown melts into an adoring smile. He’s still processing the story of the little journey that Gabby and Ellen went on together to make things right with Emmett. He was overwhelmed with love for both Ellen and Gabby when Gabby told him what happened. He hardly knew what to say. He thinks he sort of managed to laugh it off, but secretly he was burning up inside.
His grateful eyes stop to rest on Gabby. He’s looked at her face to admire every detail so many times that by now he knows each one by heart. Still, he never gets tired of looking.
There’s a faraway expression in her eyes at the moment. She’s gazing out at the ocean, not realizing she’s fallen silent. She blinks back into the moment as Ellen comes flying back over to the picnic blanket.
“Can I go in the water, dad?”
“Only if you feel like your sunscreen sank in. You don’t want your face to be all itchy later, do y-?” Kent stops mid sentence, since Ellen is already taking off the clothes she has on over her swimsuit. “Alright, then go ahead, just don’t go where we can’t see you-”
He gives up again, because she’s halfway down to the water by now. He turns instead to Gabby, stealing a nervous glance at her.
It’s clear from her surprised expression that she didn’t realize Ellen was wearing her swimsuit. Probably because Kent didn’t tell her to wear one, too.
That’s actually how it started, with the swimsuits.
There were two of them. Kent came across them by accident, at the bottom of a box from Gabby’s old apartment. The last moving box she hadn’t unpacked yet, since it was full of her least-used stuff from the back of her closet.
Kent figured he may as well unpack it for her, and that’s when he found the swimsuits. Both in Gabby’s size, but they couldn’t have been more different.
One of them was a very modest, plain black one-piece. It seemed designed to cover as much as possible. The bottom part was almost like a tennis skirt. Cute, but super simple, and it really didn’t look like anything Gabby would wear. Kent wasn’t particularly surprised to find the price tag still attached.
The other swimsuit was a silky, high-waisted bikini, inlaid with beautiful patterns of birds and leaves and flowers. The fabric - which was a deep shade of shimmering green - felt luxurious and expensive. The bikini top had slender, crisscrossing straps laced across the chest, and a little golden hook at the center holding them all together. It looked exactly like something Gabby would wear, but for some reason it also still had the price tag attached. More than that, it was nestled in protective tissue paper, very carefully and lovingly wrapped up.
Kent went looking for Gabby’s other swimsuits so he could put them all away together, and - couldn’t find any. It was only then that he thought about it, and came to the realization that he’d never seen her in one.
It didn’t make any sense. Hadn’t she suggested a few different times this summer that they all go to the beach? And they did go, but Gabby sat on her towel and read a book, or walked along the shore to put her feet in, or knocked a soccer ball around with Ellen. Kent had suggested they swim together a few times, and she always breezily turned him away, sending him off with Ellen instead. She didn’t take off her clothes, now that he thought about it. Did she even have a swimsuit on underneath them?
He hadn’t really noticed at the time. All he noticed was that she looked pretty in her beach outfits, especially the day she wore the high-waisted khaki shorts and the little black crop top and the fiery red bandana folded into a slender line, knotted around her hair.
Once he found the swimsuits he did start thinking about it, though. He remembered Gabby setting her book aside to watch him and Ellen splash around with the other families at the beach. He remembered that she was always kind of quiet on the drive home, which he took for the usual exhaustion that comes from a day spent in the sun and the sea. But she never went into the sea, so - that wasn’t it, was it?
He thought about it until his mind suddenly landed on the tiny, secluded beach he used to go to as a kid. Never once had he ever run into anyone else there. It was very private, that was half the reason why he went there whenever he needed to be alone. The other reason was the gentle, beautiful ocean that filled the cove. Perfect for a good swim.
He wasn’t sure about this plan, and still isn’t. He’s worried that maybe he’s overstepping, or reading too much into things. But then they all woke up to such a bright, warm morning, likely the last hot day they’ll have before it starts getting colder and colder outside. Ellen has been in a good mood since she visited Emmett’s farm, and she clearly had some energy to burn. And Gabby had taken a rare vacation day to extend her three-day weekend to four.
Kent added all of that up in his mind, and impulsively decided that they would go, after all.
Still, he hesitates anxiously for a long moment, listening to the rush of the waves.
“Are you going for a swim?” Gabby asks him, watching Ellen wade around in the water, picking up shells, looking at them with curious eyes. “You should’ve told me to bring a book! I guess I could get a few things done on my phone… there’s a little project Alix did a while ago that I think might be worth expanding upon.”
“Oh, yeah?” Kent asks distractedly. “Well, I’m sure there’s a gorgeous genius at City Hall who can help her do that.”
“Stop it,” Gabby laughs, rummaging through her purse to find her sunglasses. “Really, though, if Alix is interested it might be worth applying for a grant-”
“Okay, but not right now,” Kent interrupts, all in a rush. “Right now we should take a swim together.”
Gabby’s inquiring eyes meet his.
“Doesn’t it look tempting?” Kent asks, with a nod at the sunlit turquoise water.
Gabby’s eyes flit to it, then dart right back to his face. “Yeah, it does, but-”
“I brought swimsuits for us,” Kent forges on, shouldering his backpack. “We can go behind the trees over there and get changed.”
He gets up, then offers Gabby his hand. She accepts it automatically, lets him pull her to her feet, then suddenly seems to wake up.
“Wait, Kent,” she says anxiously, letting him gently pull her along towards the trees. “I - I don’t-”
“Are you afraid of the ocean, or sharks, or something?’
“What? No, not at all. I used to go to the beach with my family all the time when I was a little kid. I liked to float on the water and close my eyes. Take a second to feel peaceful.”
“Oh, okay,” Kent says, relieved to hear it. “Cool. Then let’s get changed.”
“No, but-” Gabby stops beside him behind the trees, nibbling her lip as he roots through his backpack. “Look - for me, swimming at the beach just feels like a lot of exposure in public. I - I don’t have the right swimsuit, anyways.”
“We’re someplace that isn’t public, and…” Kent holds up what he brought. “This sure looks like the right swimsuit to me.”
Gabby pauses, startled, staring down at the beautiful, intricate bikini. “Where did you find-?”
“Nice try, thinking you could keep this secret from me.” Kent gently cuffs her chin with his thumb. “Although really I should’ve realized something was up the first time we went to the beach together. That’s on me, even if I’m tempted to blame you for looking good enough to distract me.”
“What-?” Gabby lets out a startled laugh, then shakes her head, her smile falling. “This swimsuit is - it’s - not designed for girls with - my body type. I have one that is, somewhere. Unless I forgot it at my old place?”
“Yeah, you sound really enthused about that one,” Kent says skeptically. “Is that why you’ve worn it the other times we went to the beach?”
Gabby blows out a heavy breath. “I don’t really feel like myself in it.”
“Because it’s nice, but it’s not your style. At all.” Kent holds up the swimsuit with the elaborate pattern and pretty straps. “This one is. And it’s just us here. You know you’ve got nothing to hide from me. You should wear it.”
He hesitates, then blushingly adds - “I’ll admit, I’m saying that in part for selfish reasons. I really want to see you in it. I - took the price tag off, so now you can’t return it.”
“Wh-?” Gabby lets out another startled giggle, shaking her head. “I couldn’t return it anyways, Kent! I must’ve bought it - oh - seven years ago? Yeah, that’s right, because I got it while I was in Italy for that work trip. From that little boutique in Amalfi, I think…”
“Seven years-? Gabs!” Kent’s eyes widen in disbelief. He couldn’t tell that at all, given the timeless beauty of the thing. That’s Gabby’s taste for you. “Okay, come on. Just wear it and go for a swim. You’ve been wanting to for seven fucking years!”
She draws back indignantly. “Says who?”
“Says the fact that you kept it all this time, even though you were on the road campaigning and working - you told me yourself that you only held onto stuff you intended to use! And I know you cleared out a bunch of your old clothes when you moved into our house. You didn’t get rid of this. I also saw the price tag, so I know you splurged on it. Especially if you bought it on the salary you had seven years ago.”
“Well, it’s - I - that doesn’t mean anything, I just-” Gabby stops, biting her lip, then looks up at him in disbelief. “Did you seriously take the tags off because you didn’t want me to return it?”
“It’s beautiful,” Kent insists, holding it out to her again. “It’s gonna be beautiful on you. I’m dying to see that.”
Gabby’s eyes widen. “Wait a second, is this why you brought us here?”
Kent shrugs his shoulders, giving her a hopeful smile.
“I want to see you in it,” he murmurs again, pinching her cheek.
Gabby hesitates for a long moment, blushing hard. Without warning, she swiftly snatches the bikini out of his hands, then starts undoing the buttons of her top.
Kent allows himself a second to beam at her in delighted, eager surprise, then turns away to glance around the trees. Ellen is still alright - up to her knees in the water, bending over to peer into a tide pool - so he turns to get changed into his boardshorts. He does it slowly, giving Gabby time.
“Can you help me with this?” she asks softly, after a moment.
Kent turns around, and his heart stops in his throat.
Gabby is looking down at the front of the swimsuit. The gold clasp on her chest where the slender straps all meet is a little crooked. She’s trying to straighten it out, her eyebrows knitted in concentration.
The sight of her makes Kent’s heartbeat thrum through him like slow strikes on a massive bell, his thoughts fluttering right out of his head. Given all the confusing pieces he wasn’t sure exactly what it would look like. Turns out the fabric has a soft gradient, going from leaf green to pale aquamarine beneath the patterns, with touches of mango orange, all set off beautifully against the warm hue of her eyes. It fits her differently than it would other girls, but she looks like herself, like his girl.
She’s stunning in it. She looks even better than what he was imagining, and Kent has always had a colorful imagination.
He stares at her in sheer admiration for a few seconds, then remembers with a jolt that she asked for help. He quickly comes forward to try and straighten out the little golden thing for her. She looks up at him as he fumbles with it, windblown strands of her hair blowing softly around her face in the breeze, the shady green sunlight reflecting on her olive eyes. One wispy strand is caught on her lips, which look velvet soft.
Kent leans down to kiss them, blissfully forgetting what he was supposed to be doing until Gabby giggles and pushes him back and gestures to the little clasp.
“Right, right,” Kent says, deeply flustered as he manages to turn the little golden piece into place. “Sorry. There we go. Whew. You look - yeah. So glad I took the tag off.”
Gabby lets out a shy laugh. “Again, I couldn’t have returned it if I wanted to.”
“Good!” Kent answers, so immediately and forcefully that he startles another laugh out of her. “Let’s go, baby, it’s time to swim!”
He catches her hand and sets off briskly for the water, pausing only to stuff their clothes and his glasses into his backpack, which he drops on the picnic blanket as they pass it. Gabby hurries after him, her long hair fluttering over her shoulders. Kent stumbles a little, watching her instead of his footing. She’s slightly blurry without his glasses, which only serves to make her look even more like something out of a sexy daydream.
“Hey, Gabs,” he says, without slowing down, “This isn’t one of them fancy swimsuits you’re not actually supposed to get wet, is it?”
“No,” she answers breathlessly.
“Oh, good,” Kent says, then sweeps her up into his arms and tosses her out into the water.
She lets out a startled little scream, but he threw her high enough that she has time to straighten out before she hits the water. She vanishes into the turquoise blue with a splash, landing in the only deep part of the cove. Kent runs a few steps into the water, then dives in after her.
The water is a cold shock, despite the sunshine, and he surfaces gasping from it. But instantly there’s a warm body pressed against his, and Gabby is laughing in his ear.
“You idiot!” she sputters, gasping for breath, waves of shocked giggles falling from her lips. She adjusts her swimsuit, then looks up at him, shivering from the cold, pressing herself further into his arms. “I never told you to throw me!”
“You never told me not to throw you.”
“I’ll kill you!”
“In front of my child?” he asks gravely, to a groaning laugh from Gabby.
“Oh, just-”
“Dad!” Ellen comes racing towards them, running through the shallows. “Gabby!”
“Hey, baby!” Kent shifts Gabby into one arm, then lifts a hand to wave at Ellen. “You joining us for a swim?”
“I don’t want to get my hair wet!” she calls back, out of breath. “So I’m just gonna-”
She trips on something in the water and disappears beneath the surface. Kent’s eyes widen in alarm, and Gabby gasps, but Ellen emerges a second later, spluttering and wiping seawater out of her eyes.
“Oh!” she wails, with such adult anguish in her voice that Gabby immediately has to cover her mouth to hold back a laugh. “I got caught in some seaweed!”
“Well, that’ll be a lesson about running in the ocean, won’t it?” Kent calls back, scanning her with worried eyes. “You alright?”
“Yeah, but my hair!”
Kent takes a breath of relief, then shrugs his shoulders. “It’s already wet now, may as well swim! Today’s about having fun, don’t worry about stuff like that!”
Ellen considers, then dives forward again and starts to swim out towards them. She stops when she catches a clear look at Gabby, who’s just gotten the last of her long hair out of her face.
“Oh!” Ellen gasps again, this time with obvious, glowing admiration. “You look like a mermaid, Gabby!”
“You do,” Kent tells her, meaning it completely. “I’m not even kidding.”
He could almost believe it, if he couldn’t feel the warmth of her legs wrapped around him. She crinkles up her nose at him, then lets out a soft laugh, turning to smile at Ellen.
“Thank you, El, that’s sweet.”
“Where is that from?” Ellen asks, paddling closer to stare at the graceful crisscrossing straps of the bikini top.
“From Italy.”
Ellen’s eyes open very wide. She looks so terribly impressed by this piece of information that Kent has to fight back a fond laugh. In his own way, though, for his own reasons, he’s just as awestruck as he watches Gabby float in the crystalline water.
He’s only more shy, and therefore more quiet about it.
~~~~
The day passes by in a swirl of noise and color. The gem-like blue of the ocean, then the indigo, mirrored pool it turned into as the sun began to sink lower. The golden yellow of the sunshine on the sand, the little white smudge of sunscreen on Gabby’s cheek.
They swam for a long time, came out to eat their picnic, rested in the sunlight, swam again. Gabby went for a swim on her own at one point. Kent was helping Ellen with her sandcastle, but he kept stopping to watch Gabby out on the water, floating peacefully on her back.
Eventually the sunlight began to fade, and the rainy weather Kent had sensed coming began to show its first signs of arrival. The ocean got choppy and turned a steely shade of grey, and the sky did almost the same thing. The wind got so strong that they were all shivering by the time they made it back to the car, covered in goosebumps. Spots of rain were scattering across the windshield by the time Kent turned onto the main road. All of a sudden it felt like autumn again.
Between the sand, the sea salt, and the cold, the hot shower back at home felt incredible for a number of reasons. Chief among them being that Gabby joined him in there. She came towards him through the steam, her skin glowing with the sunshine it held onto, her dark lashes wet, her eyes full of laughter at how eagerly Kent pulled her up to him. She looked beautiful.
And she looks beautiful now, beneath him on the bed. That’s the first thought to reach Kent when the phosphorescent haze of ecstasy lets him have one again.
Her head is tilted back, her cheeks dark with a searing blush, her lips slightly open. She had tried to hide her face in her hair at the last second, but it’s still wet, clinging to her in loose tangles, so she couldn’t. Kent saw it all happen on her face as he heard it in the soft, stuttering cries that spilled from her lips, and his heart is on fire.
She’s panting hard, just like Kent. Her thighs are trembling, pressed back and wrapped around him. Her warm complexion is warmer for all the sunshine, especially against the cool, rainy light. She looks like a drop of warm heaven in all that cold.
Her eyes slowly flutter open. They’re shimmering with pure heat, hazy with a liquid glow. Their usual steady fire is turned all the way up, blazing wildly, practically smoking.
Those eyes turn a little shy when they find Kent staring down into them, dazed with helpless love.
She lays perfectly motionless for a long moment, aside from her breath swelling her chest and letting it fall. She wordlessly offers her parted lips to him. Kent leans down and kisses her like he’s trying to breathe her right into himself, savoring the taste of her, pressing her panting body to his. Her arms curve softly around his back, hands leaving burning little fingerprints around his spine.
Once that offer to kiss her has been good and taken care of, Kent slowly draws back to look down at her again.
He loves to see her in her City Hall clothes, so intricately and beautifully put together, all in charge, not one piece of jewelry or shining lock of hair out of place. But right now…
Right now, with her cheeks full of fire, her long hair clinging to her flushed skin in dark, wet twists, her makeup blurred around her feverish eyes, which are still hazy from the slow, breathless tangle of sweet give and take they’re both still floating down from, her whole trembling body bare of anything besides the glinting golden polish on her fingernails… she looks beautiful in a wild, raw way that makes Kent feel insane with love.
Her pupils are dilated, her eyes two thin rings of green around the brilliant, blazing centers. Kent lifts one hand from the bed and catches her chin in his hand. Her eyes flutter closed, and he places a tender, lingering kiss on each of her eyelids. She holds perfectly still, then lets out a startled, moaning little giggle of laughter as he playfully rocks his hips one more time, then eases their bodies apart and rolls off of her.
Kent glows as he lays back next to her and gathers her up against his side. He loves to make her laugh in any way possible, but making her laugh with pleasure is something special.
She lays curled against him, with one hand on his chest. Kent closes his eyes, unable to resist the sudden impulse to gratefully tighten his arms around her.
On his worst nights, when his innermost loneliness came out in full force, he would lay right here and long for someone to hold like this to the point of tears. That was eventually why he got the fabric soundproofing thing to stuff under the door - he was starting to suspect that Ellen knew when he’d been crying, because the morning after she was always very loving and anxious, working twice as hard to behave well.
These days the soundproofing is helpful for other reasons. Much better reasons. That moaning little laugh from Gabby is still ringing in his ears.
He squeezes her closer to him, suddenly a little dizzy. He almost forgot how good it feels to hold a woman close in his arms this way. How deeply peaceful it is. He finally remembers, so powerfully that sometimes it knocks him speechless. Like right now.
He lays still for a long moment, inhaling the scent of her damp hair, stroking his thumb over her shoulder. Tracing his fingertips over the little furrow between her shoulder blades, then lifting his hand to work his fingers into her hair. He feels so deeply close to her, and that feeling is so cozy, so good, so reassuring…
This is the warmest autumn I’ve ever had, he thinks to himself, his heart swimming in warm love.
“Gabs,” he murmurs softly, in a voice full of pure adoration, then stops in surprise as she suddenly sits up.
She climbs out of bed, catches one of the beach towels from a chair, and lightly, swiftly uses it to clean herself up a little bit. Kent sits up too, watching her, thinking about catching her and pulling her right back into the bed for more. He’s pretty sure they’ve got time. Ellen is deeply asleep, tired out with saltwater and sunshine. That nap is gonna last a while.
But Gabby doesn’t get back into the bed. She hands Kent the towel, stands there silently for a moment, then crosses to the window and pushes it open. She leans close to it and takes long, deep breaths of the cool air drifting in.
Kent watches her curiously. First with rising worry and confusion, then with relief. He can see her face reflected in the mirror, and she doesn’t look upset. She’s smiling, although she looks a little dizzy, or overwhelmed, or - something.
Maybe she just needed to cool her face off? Either way, he should probably leave her alone for a minute.
Fine by him. He’s happy just to look. He rests his elbows on his knees, savoring the melty warmth in his chest even as it makes him feel a little stupid. She always makes dumb thoughts fly through his head. Like right now he’s kind of wishing he knew how to paint, because he’s picturing what she must look like in the window from the outside, only just visible through the crack in the misted glass. A little sliver of warmth and beautiful olive eyes half-hidden by the misty rain, by the branches of the tree growing beside the house.
In his imagination he wraps her long hair around the palm of one hand, runs his other hand caressingly up the curve of her warm thigh. In reality he just sits there and looks, unaccountably shy all of a sudden.
Silence hovers over the room, broken up only by the tapping rush of autumn rain. The branches beyond the window are trembling beneath the heavy droplets, and a thick mist is covering the soaked garden. The air is heavy and wet, dark and grey. Perfumed with the earthy scent of the garden, traces of saltwater and sex. The breeze carries little sweeps of mist into the bedroom on slow gusts.
Framed in the window against it all, Gabby looks so tempting that Kent gets up out of the bed. He realizes what he’s doing once he’s already taken a step towards her, and he has to change course quickly.
He goes over to the dresser, opens the drawer that Ellen can’t reach, and takes down a joint and lighter. He turns and leans back against the dresser while he lights up. When he looks up again he finds Gabby watching him over her shoulder.
One of her dark eyebrows arches up. “Won’t Ellen smell that and ask what it is?”
Kent breathes out a stream of smoke, nodding to the humming little machine in the corner of the room.
“Air purifier’s on.” He nods at the window. “Air current in the room goes that way.” He nods at the door. “Bottom of the door is blocked.” He points to himself. “Experienced parent.”
“She’s going to figure it out eventually,” Gabby laughs, working a tangle out of her damp hair with her fingers.
“True, but for now I don’t want her to see us doing it. She’s gonna get the message that drugs are cool, and I don’t want her to get that message until she’s old enough to use that information responsibly. I’m not sure what age that is, but it’s definitely post-puberty, so. We’re not there yet. I’d like her focusing on her spelling lists, for now.”
Gabby’s eyes sparkle with silent laughter. “Don’t any of the hundreds of dad blogs you follow have tips about the right time to tell your children that drugs are cool?”
“Yeah yeah, you hatin’,” Kent complains, frowning deeply, drawing a little giggle from Gabby. “And exaggerating, too, you know damn well I don’t follow that many dad blogs-”
“Maybe there’s some kind of skit you can perform for her, like they used to do for us at school assemblies in an effort to send the opposite message.”
“Great,” Kent agrees promptly. “I won’t even have to change anything. I remember coming away from those skits thinking drugs must be fun and interesting, if those nerd-ass lames didn’t want us to try them.”
“Oh, fantastic,” Gabby groan-laughs, turning back to the window. “I’m glad to hear the drug-prevention outreach in our education department is working so effectively.”
“You want me to put this out, Ms. Soto?” Kent asks teasingly, holding up the joint.
“No, go ahead. I was just asking because normally we go outside to smoke so Ellen doesn’t notice. You didn’t want to just do that this time?”
“No,” Kent answers, letting his eyes travel slowly up Gabby’s body, bathed in the soft glow from the window. “No chance I’m letting you into your clothes or out of this room, not yet.”
Gabby stops, then steals a very swift glance at him over her shoulder, a flaming blush leaping up her cheeks. She turns away again just as quickly.
Kent, trying to hold down an irrepressible smile, finds himself quietly crossing the bedroom to Gabby. She doesn’t seem to notice, having turned her face out to the chilly breeze again.
“Do I get a hit of that, or is-?” she begins, but Kent is already right behind her.
He puts an arm around her waist and softly draws her back against him, stroking her sternum with his thumb. Her body has cooled off, standing in front of the window, but his is still burningly hot. She lets out a shuddering little sigh, melting back against him. Before she can turn her head to look at him, he reaches around her, uses his pinky finger to catch her chin and keep her still, then holds the joint to her mouth.
Gabby holds very still for a second, then silently takes her hit. She straightens up to slowly breathe it out. Kent leans down as she exhales, presses a lingering kiss onto her neck.
A trembling shiver runs up Gabby’s body. She bites her lip, then lets out a sudden, agonized sound.
“Oh, god,” she moans, lifting both hands to cover her eyes as Kent blinks down at her in confusion. “You’re so smooth, it gets me all - even in high school it was too much for me to handle, when it wasn’t even aimed at me!”
“Aimed at you?” Kent laughs, a pleased blush making his cheeks burn. “You make it sound like I was firing a laser beam or something.”
“Yeah, the - the fuck your composure beam,” Gabby giggles helplessly, lifting her head from her hands. “Turns out I’m exceptionally vulnerable to it.”
Kent finds himself smiling glowingly down at her, listening to her voice, watching her eyes turn into two upward arches of dark lashes as they close with shy laughter.
He really thought, after the first time, it would be safer not to fall desperately in love ever again. It hurt too badly when it all fell apart. One foot in reality next time, if there is a next time. That’s what he told himself.
He’s never gone more wildly off-plan in his life, and that’s saying something.
He’s not sure how he could’ve done anything else, though. He feels like he was wandering along for ages looking for a little blossom to keep him company, then suddenly stumbled into endless fields heavy with flowers. There’s always more to discover, further to go. The taste of her lips after the ocean, the feeling of rubbing the salt off of her body in the shower, the sight of her in the swimsuit - that was all new, today. Each one by itself felt worth going any distance to experience, to get the chance to pay loving attention to.
Each new thing makes him love her more, a dangerous trajectory he doesn’t seem to have any control over at all.
The joint has gone out. Kent sets it on the windowsill, then lets Gabby go. He turns her around to face him, pulls her right up against him. Smooths a hand over her cheek, tilting her head back so she looks up at him.
“Do you know how happy you make me?” he murmurs, unable to keep it to himself. “I think about it all the time.”
Gabby smiles, the olive color of her eyes shining with warmth from within.
“Don’t you ever think about how happy you make me?” she asks softly, spreading her hands on his chest.
“I - worry about it,” he admits. “All the time, pretty much.”
Gabby blinks hard in surprise, opens her mouth to say something, then changes her mind and closes it again. She lets out a private little laugh, resting her cheek against his chest, entwining him in her arms.
“Qué ridículo,” she giggles softly, snuggling her face into him.
He’s tempted to ask her what she was going to say first, but he knows she won’t tell him. That’s okay with him. He likes that she has her secrets. He likes to slowly uncover them, because often they’re full of sweet surprises. Like the swimsuit hidden in the moving box, or like how she had a crush on him back in high school.
Although… there is one secret that feels somehow different from those.
A little burst of worry swims up in Kent. He’s so anxious not to lose Gabby, not to replicate any stupid missteps from his past. The fear of accidentally starting a fight is always at the back of his mind. He’d rather do anything than that, but this has been starting to trouble him…
“Gabs, do you trust me?” he hears himself ask.
Again, a little laugh, like he said something ridiculous. That reaction warms Kent’s heart, but he draws back and catches her by her chin again, makes her look up at him.
“Then… why won’t you tell me what’s going on with you and Jamie and Aiden?”
Gabby pauses, caught off-guard. Her long, dark lashes flutter just a little bit before she regains control of her expression.
“Baby, all you have to do is say leave it alone and I’ll leave it alone,” Kent goes on earnestly, lacing his fingers together at the small of her back, holding her hips to his. “But whatever it is, you can tell me. You know I won’t say anything to anyone.”
Gabby hesitates, clearly struggling to choose her words. “I - I-”
“Did Aiden and Jamie drag you into some kind of mess?” Kent asks, trying not to look as concerned as he feels. “Because I’ll tell them what’s what, if that’s it! I don’t mind doing it. I don’t care what foolishness they get up to in their spare time, but if they’re getting you involved, that’s when I gotta talk to ‘em.”
“No, no,” Gabby says urgently, spreading her hands on his chest again. “Don’t, Kent - there’s no need for that!”
Kent shakes his head in confusion, staring down at her with searching eyes. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yes!” she reassures him immediately. “Yes, everyone is fine.”
“Alright… then what…? What’s going on? And why do I feel like whatever it is, it’s been going on for a while? I can’t help it, Gabs, I’m gonna worry about you until I know.”
“Not - it’s-” Gabby struggles over her flustered words for a second, then meets Kent’s eyes again. “I just can’t talk about this yet, Kent. I’m sorry.”
He heard the special emphasis she put on yet, and he sees that she’s silently promising him with her eyes.
Still, he’s - maybe just a little bit crestfallen. He really thought she would tell him, and he’s taken aback that she won’t. She just said she trusts him, so…? And now he’s worried, too, much more worried than he was before. He’s concerned about what’s going on, and deeply troubled to discover that Gabby doesn’t feel like she can talk to him about it.
“Oh,” he says, struggling not to sound as hurt and bewildered as he is. “Okay, that’s - that’s alright. So long as everyone is okay.”
Gabby flinches like he’s physically hurting her with the expression on his face, so he quickly drops his gaze to the floor.
He hesitates, fighting with himself.
Let it go. Don’t make it a thing. You just said you would leave it alone if she told you to, and she doesn’t have to tell you everything, not by any stretch of the imagination. Don’t start a fight by bothering her about it. It doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t trust you, or that there are problems brewing. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. So don’t -
“Did I - did I do something wrong?” he blurts out desperately, his voice coming out a little hoarse.
Gabby’s eyes widen in dismay as soon as they see the expression in his. Her hands fly up to cover her lips, then to quickly cradle his bearded jaw.
“No, no! Oh, Kent, please don’t look at me like that!”
“I’m sorry,” he stammers, quickly looking anywhere else.
“No, don’t be sorry, I - I just can’t-”
Gabby breaks off, biting her lip, then takes Kent’s wrist. She sits down on the wide, cushioned windowsill, drawing him down with her. She falls into silent thought for a long moment, gazing out at the rain, then looks right into Kent’s eyes.
“You can’t say a word about this to anyone, okay?” she asks, deadly serious. “No one who doesn’t already know, that is. We’re going to have to tell Jamie and Aiden that I told you, and - just hope that they’re not upset. I think they’ll understand. They were going to tell you themselves when the time was right, and they did say it was fine for me to give you some hints, so maybe this is just the natural extension of that… maybe the right time is right now. Either way, Aiden knows damn well he’d cave too in my position, with Jamie looking at him like that!”
Kent stares at Gabby in blank bewilderment, and she lets out a pained sigh, pushing a hand through her damp, curling hair.
“I’m normally so good at keeping secrets!” She looks up at Kent again and gives her shoulders a helpless shrug, her olive eyes glowingly warm. “But not from you.”
Kent blinks at her, then winces as a deep stab of guilt hits him. He sorely wishes he’d held in his reaction better. He swallows hard, slightly ashamed of himself.
“Shit, I - I’m sorry, Gabs. I didn’t mean to pressure you. You really don’t have to tell me anything you - it’s my job to make you comfortable enough to tell me, so I’ll just keep working on that-”
“Listen,” Gabby says forcefully, tightening her grasp on his fingers. “I need you to not think that I’ve just lost my mind, because I can prove everything I’m about to tell you. Jamie and Aiden will back me up on it, too.”
Kent stops still, staring at Gabby in pure confusion. “Okay…?”
She takes a deep breath.
“Okay. Try your best not to freak out.”
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