“You think he beat them?” I hadn’t expected that. A match, at best, had been what I hoped he would come back with.
Confidence rolled off of Gabrielle in waves. She squared her shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. God, she was stunning. “Yes, I do think that. He doesn’t do things halfway. It’s all or nothing with him. He wouldn’t have jumped the gun with an offer he didn’t think that you would accept.”
The world became clearer with her words; everything brought into sharper focus. “That’s true. He does shit properly or not at all.”
“Exactly.” Gabrielle nodded, a slow smile spreading on her full lips. “It looks like you’re about to get the best of both worlds. Congratulations. Your dreams are coming true.”
“Yeah, it looks like they are. I couldn’t be any fucking happier right now.” I squeezed her hand, still in mine, and locked eyes with her. “I am exactly where I want to be.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gabrielle
“This is paradise,” Heather moaned as the therapist massaged her scalp.
With no small amount of effort, I had managed to convince her to take the day off from studying and have a girl’s day with me instead.
So far, we’d gone shopping. I found a lingerie set that I was dying to show off to James. Then we got massages. We were in the process of getting our hair done, and nails were up next, as soon as our hair was washed and wrapped.
I glanced at the pile of shopping bags at our feet. A naughty thought snuck into my mind. I snapped a picture of the logo of the lingerie store on the bag and sent it to James.
We hadn’t made plans for that night, and I wanted to tease him into dying to want to see me as much as I was dying to see him. Well, see him, amongst other things.
He replied right away.
James: ?
Gabrielle: I might have gotten you a gift ;-)
James: I have a feeling that I’m going to like this gift. It’s going to be *hard* waiting to see it.
Gabrielle: That’s the general idea.
“He has to be incredible at something if you’re texting with him right now instead of marveling at how the stress is just melting away,” Heather said, lifting her head from the basin. I stashed my phone quickly in my bag.
“He is,” I admitted. “At everything.”
“Swoon,” Heather said, following me across the expansive salon to the nail technicians waiting at the chairs where we’d be getting our hair done. “It sounds like you’re well past just having a little crush.”
“I think I am.” I knew it, actually. “I think that this relationship might just be the real thing.”
Heather whirled around in her chair so fast, I was afraid that she might have given herself whiplash.
“It’s probably best if you don’t do that when I have scissors near your ears,” the hair stylist reprimanded. She was a cool-looking girl with a slightly gothic style and bright pink hair. “I’m Anna. I’ll be responsible for your ears today.”
Heather shot her an apologetic grin and waved between us, but her eyes were pinned to mine. “I’m Heather. This is Gabrielle. What did you just say, Gabbi?”
“You heard me. I said that I think that this might just be the real deal.” Heather’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, and even Anna giggled in delight.
Anna caught my eye in the mirror, winked, and started brushing through my hair. “What? I’m not going to apologize. One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to hear all the juicy gossip going on in my clients’ lives. I’m a vault. I’ll never tell.”
“You hear that, Gabbi? Anna’s a vault. So spill.” Even the nail technician leaned in closer, not-so-subtly eavesdropping, but not quite as open about it as Anna.
Having this conversation with so many people listening in should have bothered me. It didn’t. Frankly, I would have shouted it from the rooftops for all of the world to hear. If my father didn’t live in this world. Or if I’d already broken the news to him.
“I’m in love with him, Heather. Like over the moon, reach for the stars, World Series kind of in love.”
Wow, soppy much? Since when was I such a goddamn romantic? I hated romantics. Yet as I sat with a stupid grin on my face and told the girls all about James, I couldn’t bring myself to care.