Page 5 of This Kind of Forever

Before. Before I left. Before I tried to pretend I was someone else entirely.

“That works for me,” I reply. Fifteen hours really isn’t anything grand, but it’s better than the aimless nothing I’ve got going on otherwise. Baby steps.

“Oh, you are agem,” she gushes, placing a hand on my arm and giving it a quick squeeze. “Come by the gallery on Monday and we’ll get everything sorted.”

With a quick goodbye, Carole departs in a whirlwind of neon. As I watch her walk away, I envy her confidence. For as long as I’ve known her, she has been content to follow her own path, and screw anyone who has anything to say about it. She is unyielding in her right to exist.

I want to be like her—to shed this inherent need to apologize for simply living in my own skin.

My thoughts are scattered as I round the corner into another aisle. When I look up, I startle, meeting a familiar pair of brown eyes. My stomach does an award-winning somersault.

Gabe.

THREE

GABE

Hallie Foster has been avoidingme.

Ten days ago, I saw her for the first time in ten years. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out what I’d say when I inevitably ran into her again. When she wouldn’t be able to hide from me.

Try as I may, I haven’t been able to completely cut her out of my life. She is my twin sister’s best friend, after all. I’d have to move across the planet—possibly even to another one entirely—to escape any mention of her. At first, that’s what I’d wanted, to avoid her. To stew in my embarrassment. But soon that just became the dull pang of missing her, and I clung to any scraps I could.

A little of Hallie was better than none of her at all.

But standing here now, she is both everything and nothing like the girl I remember. Her blonde hair falls in rivers of gold over her shoulders, far longer than it was a decade ago. The ends are now a pretty lavender shade, dyed sometime since I saw her at Delilah’s exhibition. Her eyes are still that captivating baby blue.

And her body… Hallie has been away from Kip Island for ten years, and in that time she transformed into the physical manifestation of every single one of my dreams. She’s always been beautiful, but there’s something about the flare of her hips that makes me want to grab hold of them and never let go.

“It’s been a long time, Foster.”

Her eyelashes flutter as she closes her eyes for half a second, as if bracing against my voice. When they open again, her gaze meets mine. “Gabriel.”

“What are you doing here?”

What do you think she’s doing, idiot? You’re at the fucking grocery store.

She sets a hand on her cart and flashes me a shy smile. “Your sister sent me to do her dirty work. By the time I’m done, we’ll be able to feed the whole island for a week.”

I chuckle. “Sounds like Clara. Anything to avoid shopping.” If there’s one thing my sister despises, it’s picking up groceries.

“I don’t mind,” Hallie is quick to say. “She has been letting me crash at her place, so I’ll happily be her errand girl.”

A beat of silence passes between us. It’s insidious, a trap to make us think we’re strangers. But we are far from strangers, so I scramble to fill the quiet.

Pointing to her hair, I say, “I like that colour. It’s nice.”

It’snice? The only thing worse than silence is small talk. That’s a death sentence.

“Oh. Thank you.”

Hallie touches the ends of her hair, and for some strange reason, it reminds me of Trina. Because the two women truly couldn’t be any more different, and I’m beginning to wonder why I ever thought Trina might be a good idea. Not that there’s anything wrong with her, but she’s…not Hallie.

I rock back on my heels. “I bet Pops is happy to have you home.”

At the mention of her grandfather, some of the tension coiled in her body melts away. “He is. Clara and I went to see him a couple days ago. He wiped the floor with both of us when we played cards, as per usual.”

“Things have been busy lately, so I haven’t had the chance to see him in a while, but he’s certainly kept my card skills sharp.”