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I’m shirtless and only in a pair of black running shorts, sweat coats my body from the LA heat and having a photo is the last thing I want, because photos capture moments we may forget; to keep as reminders, and if I don’t get to keep Gabriella, I may have to try and forget her altogether, I don’t need a physical reminder, because the memories of her, will be painful enough to live with.

She pouts and gives me those eyes I can’t say no to.

“Fine,” I grumble.

I stand beside her, and she looks at me deadpan.

“Please try and look like you wanna be here.”

I chuckle and wrap my arms around her waist, and she snaps a photo.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t,” I agree, my gaze locked on hers, and in a moment of madness, I lean down and kiss her like it’s the most natural thing to do. The click of her camera sounds, and I realize she’s taken another photo. I have become entirely too comfortable with kissing her like she’s mine and it’s going to hurt like a mother fucking baseball bat to the shin when it hits me that she isn’t and never will be.

“Come on, old man, last one down the hill is cooking,” she calls as she makes a start running. I give her a ten-second start beforeI set off behind her. She turns her head and lets out an excited scream when she sees I’m coming up behind her.

“Looks like you’re making lunch, baby girl.”

I run past her, scooping her up and flipping her over my shoulder with ease as if she weighs nothing, continuing our descent back to our rental with a lightness in my chest.

I spank her ass and she yelps. “And that’s for calling me old.”

Being around her feels easy, but fighting my feelings for her feels like the hardest battle of my life, and one I am slowly losing every day.

I pull up outside a large white building in the convertible Mercedes I hired while in LA. Gabriella spent the drive with her hands in the air, her hair whipping around her, singing along to some pop track I’d never heard. With every passing day, her confidence around me grows, and I love seeing her being herself and no longer hiding. So I hope my little surprise for her today helps with that even more.

“I will be a couple of hours. A woman named Paula is expecting you.”

“If this is the part where you dropped me off at some weird sex dungeon, I’m gonna have to decline.”

I throw my head back and laugh. “No, Gabriella, I am not dropping you off at a sex dungeon, but I love that’s where your mind went.”

She eyes me curiously. “Hmmm, okay.” She presses a kiss to my cheek. “I can let myself out of the car,” she whispers, taking her purse from the backseat before she climbs out.

I watch as she enters the building, my heart doing some strange fluttery shit when she turns to give me a wave. I put the car in drive and head to the construction site where the new potential club is being built, cranking the stereo and relaxing into my seat. If we go for this LA building, it would mean one of us potentially moving here for a short time or at the very least traveling back and forth for some time, which just feels like yet another roadblock on my path to wondering if Gabriella could be mine. I look at the time and realize it will almost be Luca’s bedtime. I’ve never missed a FaceTime call, but he’ll be in bed by the time my meeting has finished. I dial my sister’s number and she answers on the second ring.

“Hey.”

‘Hey, sis, you good? How’s Luca?”

“He’s good. Just finishing up his dinner. You’re calling early. Everything okay?“ she asks, concern in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going to miss Luca’s bedtime. I’m just driving to my meeting.”

“That’s okay. You know you don’t have to call every night? We understand you have a life.”

I digest her words. Calling them every night has become part of my life, my routine since Luca was old enough to talk.

“Do you have anyone with you in LA? You didn’t say yesterday.”

I think about lying, but this is Alessia. I can tell her anything. “Gabriella is here with me. I just dropped her off at an appointment.”

“Oooh,” my sister coos down the phone, and I roll my eyes, getting ready for her comments. “So is it serious between you two?”

“There’s nothing going on. We are just friends. All our friends are out of town. She was alone, so I invited her along.”

“Hmmm, sure, because I too invite my friend, who I look at like a lovesick teen, along on trips.”