23. Bella

23

BELLA

I ’m still trembling when I get up to the shower. A fine tremor ripples through me from the inside out. My hands are shaking when I go to turn on the water, my skin still prickling as if I can feel his fingers ghosting over me even now. Even my breathing is shaky, as I step under the hot spray and try to calm myself down.

All this time, and I hadn’t known that was what was waiting for me. I’d been so afraid I would balk at the first touch, fall apart at a kiss, but Gabriel made it feel easy. Natural. Like there was nothing to fear when he was kissing me, touching me.

I know why. He took it slow, going at the pace I set, never pushing until he knew he could, and then only a little. I would have thought I’d panic at the feeling of him dragging my bra up and sucking my breast into his mouth, but all I could think about in the moment was how badly I wanted it—how badly I wanted his mouth everywhere .

I still do. And all I can think about as I strip down and step under the hot water is the next time—and what else we might do.

When I get out, I can still see the imprint of Gabriel’s mouth around my nipple, a red mark left from the suction and scrape of his teeth. I touch it lightly, a warm flush of desire rippling through me at the sight of it. It doesn’t frighten me. It makes me feel like I’m his, like he’s marked me in some way, and that doesn’t scare me the way I would have thought, either.

I get dressed, leaving my wet hair loose, and go to get Cecelia and Danny up. I have a feeling Gabriel will be gone by the time we get downstairs—he’s already running late because of what we just did—and I smother the disappointment as best as I can. If anything, I tell myself, a little space will be good. What Gabriel and I are doing is just as friends, because he’s someone I can trust, and he’s been clear that he can’t give me anything more. But I’m not naive enough to think that something this intense, this emotional, will come without feelings. I need to be able to process those feelings, or I’m going to lose control of the situation. And that control is what’s making it possible at all.

I round up the kids, get them dressed and herd them downstairs, only to stop in the foyer at the sight of both Gabriel—now dressed for work in suit trousers and a button-down—and a pile of packages next to the door. He straightens, a broad smile on his face, and I struggle to match up this cleaned-up, composed version of him with the man who had been shuddering above me less than an hour ago, hair messy and mouth open, coming apart under my touch. The contrast sends heat blooming through me, and from the way his eyes darken as he looks at me, I know he’s thinking something similar.

I swallow hard. “What’s that?”

Gabriel chuckles. “What do you think? Seems like your camera equipment arrived.”

My heart leaps, and I gasp, all other thoughts forgotten as I make a beeline for the boxes. “Oh my god, you’re right,” I breathe, and Gabriel laughs.

“Kids, go find Agnes and get her to dish up breakfast while Bella looks through this.” He smiles at me as I straighten, a mischievous look in his eyes. “I’m sure you want to put all this through its paces, right?”

“Yes, but—” I have a whole day ahead of me full of all of the things I usually do with Cecelia and Danny, and he knows it. I look at him quizzically.

“This weekend,” he says, “I’ll take you out for another driving lesson, and then you can show me some of what you like so much about photography. But in the meantime, why don’t you take the kids to Central Park today? Get your friend to meet you, so you can spend some time with her, and have fun taking pictures. I’ll tell Jason and Gio to be ready to go with you in a couple of hours.”

“Okay—” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Gabriel looked at me as if he was unsure of why it would even be a question. “It’ll be good for them, and you.”

“That sounds wonderful.” I look at the boxes and back up at him, suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude. This is all so much more than I’ve ever been able to explore before, when it comes to the things that interest and excite me. I’ve been making do with the same old camera for years—not because my father couldn’t have afforded a better one, he could have bought me an entire store of cameras if he wanted to, but because he didn’t think it was worth the money to indulge my hobby. “Thank you—so much.”

“It’s my pleasure.” His gaze meets mine, and that heat is still there, a reminder of what happened between us earlier—and one that sends a shiver up my spine. “I’m looking forward to what you show me this weekend.”

“Me too.” I bite my lip, and for a brief second, as he stands there looking at me, I think he’s going to kiss me. But instead, he reaches for his bag, and opens the front door.

“See you tonight,” he says, as offhandedly as if he didn’t shift something in my entire world this morning.

And then he’s gone, walking down the driveway, leaving me with thousands of dollars of camera equipment ready to be put together at my feet.

—

Two hours later, I’m bundled into the car with Cecelia and Danny, on our way to Central Park to meet Clara. My new camera is in a case next to me, and all of the lighting and extra accessories that I bought are neatly arranged upstairs in my room. Some of it I have no idea when I’ll even use, but Gabriel was insistent that afternoon that I buy whatever I wanted, and it was too hard to say no.

Incidentally, that’s no longer the only thing about him that’s too difficult to say no to. That I don’t want to say no to any longer.

I wonder, as we drive, how much I want to tell Clara. A part of me thinks I should just keep it all quiet, rather than let her dig too deep with the questions she’ll undoubtedly have.

The other part of me desperately wants to tell someone—my best friend, specifically—about everything that’s happened to me since last night. How much things have changed since we had lunch, in such a short span of time.

Jason drops us off near the park, and I focus on getting Cecelia and Danny safely out of the car and onto the sidewalk. It’s the second time I’ve been in the city with them, and I wonder how many times it will take before I don’t feel a faint sense of panic at the idea that I’m responsible for their well-being. Is this what parents feel like all of the time? I can’t help but wonder.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I look at it to see that Clara dropped a pin for me with her location in the park. I put my new camera around my neck, a feeling of pleasure washing over me at seeing it there. I text Gabriel as we walk into the park to let him know that we’re here safely, with Gio trailing us.

His response pings on the screen only seconds later.

Gabriel: Good. Have fun. I’ll see you tonight.

It doesn’t escape me that that’s the second time he’s said that. Nor does it escape me that the text feels, like so many of our interactions lately, far too intimate for what we actually are to each other. More than friends, even, which is all that we’re supposed to be.

I shove the phone back into my pocket, focusing on getting Cecelia and Danny to where we’re meeting Clara. Danny runs ahead, and I call after him to be careful, trailing Cecelia as she skips along the path, her new doll tucked under her arm. She wanted to have a picnic with her, so in the leather bag slung over my shoulder, there’s an arrangement of things for exactly that. Danny insisted on bringing along a selection of his action figures to join in the fun.

Just thinking about it makes something in my chest feel warm and soft. Cecelia and Danny aren’t mine, but I feel like I’m coming to love them as if they were. Already, after only a month, I feel like I can’t imagine leaving. I can’t imagine leaving them , and when I think about it, that warm feeling turns into a tight, painful knot in my chest.

But I won’t have to, I remind myself. Not for a long time, as long as I don’t let things with Gabriel get out of hand, and screw this up.

Ahead of me, I see Clara waving to us, standing up from the bench that she’s sitting on. Cecelia and Danny run towards her, already having decided after that one day that she’s a friend.

Clara is cautious, I can see, since she’s basically still a stranger, but both of them nearly bowl her over. Danny grabs her around the legs, and Cecelia hugs her from the side, arms wrapping around her waist. Clara laughs, leaning down to give Cecelia a one-armed hug, and tousles Danny’s hair.

“You two should be careful of hugging strangers,” she says with a laugh, and Cecelia wrinkles her nose.

“You’re not a stranger,” she informs Clara primly. “You’re Bella’s friend. So you’re our friend.”

I pick up the camera, unable to resist getting a picture. It shoots like a dream, the lighting already amazing before I’ve even adjusted any of the settings, and I feel a flutter of excitement at the prospect of getting to toy with it for the rest of the afternoon.

“That looks new.” Clara’s gaze immediately lands on the camera. “That nanny gig is really paying off, hm?”

I flush. “Gabriel got it for me. As a way of apologizing, I guess, for my pay going to my father for a while.”

Clara raises an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Does it need to be something else?” I lift it and snap a picture of her. “I’m going to be even more of a menace with this one,” I inform her, as she narrows her eyes at me.

“Fine. Then I’m going to be a menace with the questions.” She falls into step with me as we follow behind Cecelia and Danny. “For instance, you seem to be in a particularly good mood today.”

“I have a new camera.” I held it up, as if she needed reminding. Clara wrinkled her nose at that.

“It’s not that. It’s something else.”

I only just manage to not raise a hand to touch my neck, suddenly worried that I have a hickey, or something else visible. But I clearly remember that Gabriel didn’t kiss my neck this morning. In fact, the only place besides my mouth that I remember him kissing hard enough to leave a mark was my breast.

My face heats at the memory, and Clara lets out a laugh. “Gotcha!” she crows. “You’re blushing like a tomato. Tell me what’s going on.”

I swallow hard, looking ahead to gauge how much space there is between us and the kids. “I’ll tell you after the picnic,” I finally concede. “While they’re playing and won’t overhear.”

Clara whistles. “Ooh, juicy. Okay.”

We make a loop around a section of the park, and I keep one eye on Cecelia and Danny—with some help from Clara—taking pictures of anything and everything I see. I’m partially just working on tweaking the lighting and getting all of the settings the way I want them, but I’m also just enjoying taking photos for the sake of it. Some of them will be absolute garbage, but as I click away, I also know that some of them will be really good. There will be ones in the mix, that sneak in, that are what I was trying to capture all along. That’s always how it works.

When we find a nice open grassy spot, I shake out the blanket that I brought, setting out the cheese, fruit, olives, and loaf of homemade sourdough that Agnes packed. “I helped bake that,” Cecelia says proudly, pointing at the loaf, and Clara raises an eyebrow.

“That’s honestly impressive. I tried to bake bread once, and it failed massively.”

“You could come over, and Agnes could teach you. She can teach anyone how to bake.”

Clara grins. “Well, Bella will have to talk to your dad about it. But maybe.” She raises an eyebrow at me, and I try not to blush. The sentence sounds so much more intimate than just a nanny and her employer, like Gabriel and I are really together—but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

“I’ll mention it,” I promise, getting out the rest of lunch, as Danny gets out his action figures and Cecelia sits her doll down primly next to us.

We have lunch—the four of us, Lola, Batman, and Wolverine—and it’s more fun than I could have ever imagined having a picnic with children could be. Danny begs me to slice one of the olives into six pieces so he can spear them on Wolverine’s claws, walking the action figure back and forth and ‘feeding’ pieces of olive to the other toys. Clara and I are both laughing by the time he’s done, and she leans back on the blanket as Cecelia gets up to go pick flowers, and Danny runs after her.

I watch them as I pack up the lunch, making sure they don’t run too far. “Well?” Clara asks expectantly, and I bite my lip.

“I told you about my psychiatrist’s suggestion. About the swimming.”

Clara nods.

“I decided to do it last night.”

“That was fast.” Clara laughs. “I get it, though. Like ripping off a bandaid.”

“I just couldn’t sleep. I was nervous about taking the pills again, and had a lot going through my head, and I just thought—maybe it was time. Maybe I should try. So I did, but I didn’t count on Gabriel being up and about and seeing me outside.”

Clara sits up a little straighter, her eyes widening. “He saw you?”

I nod. “I don’t blame him coming out there,” I add quickly. “He wasn’t trying to be a creep or anything. He just saw someone walking outside and decided to investigate. And then he saw it was me out by the pool, and?—”

“He probably couldn’t take his eyes off of you,” Clara says frankly. “What?” she adds, seeing my startled look. “I’ve seen what you look like, the way you used to dress. You’re fucking gorgeous, Bel. Any man seeing you in a bikini would have a hard time picking his jaw up off of the ground.”

“Well—” I chew at my lip. “I invited him to come swim with me.”

“Oh my god.” Clara sits up all the way, clearly fully invested now. “Did he kiss you? Skip straight to the good part.”

“Not—exactly. He wanted to. But I flinched, and he—” I lick my lips nervously. “He’s a good guy, Clara. He didn’t want to push it. So he asked me if he could try something else.”

“And—”

I wince. “You’re going to make me tell you everything, aren’t you?”

Clara shrugged. “No. You obviously don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But obviously, something happened. Wouldn’t it feel good to talk about it?”

I let out a slow breath. She’s not wrong. I went for months hiding what happened to me from her, afraid to tell her the truth, and once I got it all out, I felt so much better. “He asked me to lie down. And then—he described everything he would do to me. While I—” I feel my cheeks flush hot. “While I did it to myself.”

Clara’s eyes are so round that I think they might pop out. She lets out a low whistle. “Oh my god, Bel. That’s really hot.”

I swallow hard, nodding. “It was.”

“And that’s it?”

I laugh, tossing a plastic cup at her. “ That’s it? That was the most insane thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t even think it was possible. But no. We talked about it this morning, and?—”

I explain to her what I’d proposed to Gabriel, and Clara’s eyes widen, if that’s even possible.

“Exposure therapy by an incredibly hot man.” She laughs. “That’s one way to do it.” She hesitates. “And he said yes?”

“He kissed me this morning.” My voice goes soft, and I touch my mouth, all of me heating up at the memory. “And I—touched him. Until he—finished. That’s as far as we got.”

Clara takes a deep breath. “Wow.”

I frown at her, pressing my lips together. “There’s something you want to say, and you’re not saying it.”

“I’m just thinking of the best way how.” She tugs her hair free of its ponytail, letting it fall down her back as she runs her fingers through it.

A nervous feeling worms its way through my stomach. “Just say it.”

Her mouth twists as she looks in my direction. “Okay. I know your experiences with men have been awful up to this point. So maybe it’s on Gabriel, that he should know better. But Bel—you’re insane to think that you can do all of this with him, all the way up to losing your virginity, that you’re going to make him all of your firsts, and go through this incredibly emotional process…and then the two of you are just going to walk away from each other?” Clara shakes her head. “I love you, Bel, and I think the world of you, but there’s no way that’s how it plays out. You can’t possibly think that.”

“I do,” I insist, unperturbed by her suspicion. “It’s foolproof.”

Clara lets out a sharp laugh. “How on earth, Bella?”

“Gabriel is a good man. He’s helped me in a bunch of ways that he didn’t have to. He’s involved himself in my problems when he didn’t need to—even when it would have been easier for him to just send me home. And he’s a good man who also doesn’t want to fall in love. So as long as we set our expectations—and we have—he won’t hurt me,” I insist. “We’ll do this together, as friends, and go back to normal when it’s done. When I feel okay enough to try dating someone else.”

Clara shakes her head. “Bel. You’re going to give this next guy an incredibly high bar to clear. And how do you think Gabriel will feel, if you’re still working there, seeing you with some other man? After the two of you have shared this incredibly intimate experience? How do you think this new guy will feel, knowing you’re still living with Gabriel, after that?”

I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t really thought about the logistics past Gabriel at all. “Gabriel is the one who told me it can’t be a relationship,” I insist. “So he’s obviously fine with it—with me dating someone else afterward.”

Clara looks at me like I’ve grown a second head, and shakes hers. “I’ll always support you in whatever you do, Bel,” she says gently. “But this isn’t going to end the way you think it will.”

I bite my lip, looking over to where Cecelia and Danny are still playing. “I guess we’ll see.” I lift my camera, leaning forward to take a quick series of pictures of them. I know Gabriel will love having more photos of them. I half-think that’s why he bought me the camera.

I also know that him being on my mind so much is a symptom of exactly what Clara is talking about. What I was warning myself against, just this morning, after I left the gym. She’s right that what we’re doing is intimate and emotional, even more so than normal firsts.

But I trust Gabriel. And I believe that he won’t let me get hurt.

I turn, wanting to take a picture of the landscape of the park on the other side. And as I do, I see someone sitting on a park bench—a man in a suit, with a fedora-style hat tipped low over his forehead.

Something uncomfortable twists in my stomach. It seems like he’s looking straight at us. And that shouldn’t really be a cause for concern—it’s normal to look at other people in a park—but I can’t help thinking that he was there when we first sat down for the picnic. That he’s been sitting there the whole time.

I take a few photos, and when I lower the camera, the man is gone. Something clenches in my chest, a cold, panicky feeling sliding down my spine.

I look around to see where he might have walked off to, but there’s no one. It’s like he was never there, although I saw him clearly.

“Bel? Are you okay?” Clara’s voice jolts me back into reality, and I nod, setting the camera down.

I’m just being paranoid, I tell myself. It was just a man sitting on a bench. Nothing out of the ordinary for Central Park.

But that feeling sticks with me, a cold sense of dread that lingers in my stomach and reminds me, for the rest of the afternoon, that something feels wrong. An instinct that crawls over me periodically, making me look over my shoulder and jump at small sounds—reactions that I thought I was working through.

And even once we’re back home, it doesn’t go away.