His voice was low and cautious as he gazed into her eyes. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear about the memories you have of her on the beach.”
A faint smile tugged at her lips. “Really?”
He nodded and smiled back. “I’d be honored.”
She took a minute to compose her thoughts. “Well, when I was a kid, she’d save all year long, so we could visit Santa Cruz, California. She’d rent a little condo right on the beach, and we’d literally spend the entire day outside. We’d fly kites for hours on end and ride our bikes on the boardwalk.” She paused and smiled. “She used to love making sand angels, like the ones you make in the snow when you lie on your back.” She let out a light laugh at the memory and wiped a tear from her eye.
“Emily, I…” Gavin whispered. She looked at him. “My intentions weren’t meant to upset you. Please…I apologize.”
“They’re…good tears, Gavin. I haven’t talked about her in a while. Really, you didn’t upset me.”
Her words left Gavin awestruck. He searched her eyes and found traces of happiness mixed with incalculable loss. It melted his heart. He longed to run his fingers through her hair and console her; he wanted to hold her in his arms and rid her of the pain. “They sound like wonderful memories,” he whispered.
“Yeah, they are,” she replied, staring straight ahead. “It was hard seeing her sick for so many months, but to tell you the truth, when she took her last breath, a wave of relief washed over me. She was finally at peace.” Wiping another tear away from her eye, Emily looked at him and then averted her gaze out to the ocean. “There was a point I’d actually hoped that I would wake up and find out she was gone and not in pain. It still makes me feel guilty that I’d felt that way, but I couldn’t bear watching her suffer anymore.”
With her last few words, Gavin’s emotions soared to a place he hadn’t dared to revisit in a while. Again, he found himself struggling for the right thing to say. His voice was but a whisper. “I know we may seem worlds apart to you, but we share something in common.” He hesitated, not knowing if he should bring it up. Emily looked at him confused. “My family almost lost my mother to breast cancer when I was twelve.”
Emily breathed out, not having a clue what to say. His statement shook her from her own self-pity.
Gavin then did something impetuous. He simply felt the need to touch her, so he leaned over and wiped the tears from her cheek. Emily didn’t move. “I remember what it felt like seeing her sick and in pain. The fear of not knowing what life would be like without her is something I’ll never forget, but I know one day I’ll have to face it. I also remember feeling exactly the way you said you had felt. I wanted it to end—for her to either just die so she could be at peace or get better. I wasn’t able to see her like that anymore. I used to actually crucify myself for feeling like that. Emily, just know that what you felt—what we felt—is very real and a very normal human reaction.”
Sniffling, she glanced up to him, noticing the sensual perfection of his face now touched with grief. Behind those blue eyes was the soul of a man that had gone through his own share of pain, and Emily couldn’t decipher what was worse—her losing her mother to cancer or him living in fear that his mother’s cancer could come back.
With concern in his eyes, Gavin leaned forward and studied her face. A weak smile crept over his lips. With his voice low, he said, “Now that I’ve managed to fuck up a pretty decent evening by making you cry, why don’t we play a game to lighten the mood?”
Emily let out a gut-belly laugh due to the wide range of emotions flying through her head. “You didn’t fuck up the evening.” She then rose to her feet, wiped the last few tears from her eyes, and stretched her arms over her head. “I needed that, believe me.”
He stood up with her and smiled. “Okay, good. So you’ll play a game with me then?”
She smirked, eyeing him suspiciously. “What type of game would Gavin Blake suggest we play? And no wisecracks either.”
“Mmm, that’s a tough request.”
He flashed an impish grin, and without saying another word, he slid the bottle-cap-filled terracotta pot to the middle of the balcony. He then playfully commanded her to sit Indian style on the floor ten feet away from it. With her expression showing her curiosity, she did as he instructed. He opened the doors to his bedroom and disappeared briefly. Emily sat for a few moments, wondering what he was doing. When he reappeared, he had a sweatshirt in his hand and a freezer bag holding additional bottle caps.
Walking over, he tossed the sweatshirt on top of her head and laughed, “You look cold; put that on.”
He sat Indian style on the floor next to her with their knees barely touching.
Smiling, she yanked the sweatshirt off her head and slipped it on. For a brief second, she tried to burn the smell of it into her memory. It reminded her of when they were in the elevator. She couldn’t quite pin what the smell was—a mixture of cologne, body wash, and aftershave came to mind.
“So what’s the name of this game we’re about to play?”
Gavin looked into her green eyes. Under the light of the moon, they looked angelic. “It’s kind of hard to pronounce,” he slowly replied, staring at her lips as he tried to shake the fascination he had of her from his body.
“Try me.”
He dropped his voice to a whisper and purposely hesitated between each word. “It’s…called…toss…the…bottle…cap…into…the…pot…right…there….” He pointed to the pot.