He tilted his head to meet my gaze and asked, “You went to San Francisco?” When I nodded, he sat up and exclaimed, “I told you never to do that, Riley, because it’s not safe for you there! Simeck promised to find you and beat the hell out of you if you ever left. Don’t you remember the armed thugs he kept at his beck and call? They tracked me down months after you went away and tried to bring me to him, probably because his security cameras caught me sneaking you out of his house. I barely escaped, and then I went into hiding. Later on, I tried to go back to San Francisco and just lay low, but the city never felt safe after that.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabriel.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“All of that happened because of me. I should have been strong enough to get out on my own, without involving you.”
He said, “You can’t blame yourself for the choices you made when you were struggling with addiction.”
“That’s good advice. You should take it too, and stop feeling guilty about not getting me out of there before I was willing to leave.”
A smile tugged the corner of his lips. “I’ll work on it.” It disappeared quickly though, and he said, “Wait a minute. Will’s about to go to San Francisco for three weeks. Are you planning to go too, since you’re working on the same film?”
“Actually, I’ll be there for six weeks. His part wraps earlier than the others, and I’m under contract until the end of the production.”
“You can’t go, Riley.”
“I have to, because I need this job,” I said. “Besides, it’s been four years. There’s no way Simeck’s still searching for me after all this time.”
“No, I’m sure he’s not actively looking for you, but you may still run into him or one of his cronies. The fact that you found me here on Catalina is proof it could happen.”
“It could, but San Francisco is a big place so there’s a pretty slim chance of that. Plus, even if our paths crossed through some weird coincidence, I bet I could walk right past him and he wouldn’t recognize me. You said it yourself, I’ve changed a lot.”
“That’s true, but this still makes me nervous,” he said. Then he surprised me by asking, “Can I come along to San Francisco? It might seem silly, but if I’m there with you and know you’re okay, I won’t have to worry so much.”
“Of course you can, but is that the only reason you want to come with me? Because I’m sure I’m going to be fine.”
“It’s definitely not the only reason,” he told me. “We just found each other, and you always meant the world to me, Riley. I don’t want to say goodbye to you two days from now.”
“I’m glad you want to come along. Just so you know though, I had no intention of saying goodbye to you in two days, or ever again.”
That made him smile, and he said, “I like this plan of never saying goodbye.”
Chapter 2
After talking late into the night, we ended up falling asleep together. At some point, each of us half-woke and discarded some of our clothes to make ourselves more comfortable, and then we climbed under the covers and went right back to sleep.
Finding Gabriel curled up in my arms the next morning was the best thing I could ever imagine. I closed my eyes and let myself enjoy his warmth and the feeling of his hair against my cheek. After a while, he stirred and raised an eyelid. A big grin spread over his face as he murmured, “Good morning.”
“Hi.” My grin was as wide as his. “That was the best night’s sleep ever.”
“It was.” He slipped out of bed and said, “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” I watched as he hurried to the bathroom dressed in just his black sweater, which covered him to mid-thigh.
He returned a few minutes later wearing a grayish blue robe, and I took a turn in the bathroom. I didn’t have my toiletry bag with me, so the best I could do was finger-comb my hair, rub some toothpaste on my teeth, and rinse my mouth with water. Then I looked down at myself and sighed. My slightly baggy blue briefs were about as sexy as cutting two holes in a grocery sack and sticking my legs through them, but it couldn’t be helped.
When I returned to the bedroom, I found he’d made the bed and was sitting on top of the comforter with his phone. I put on my jeans and joined him, and then I ran a fingertip over the thin lace inset on the cuff of his robe and said, “This is pretty.”
“Thank you. I made it.”
“Did you really?”