Tonight, We Are Young

Over the next week, I had tried everything I could to avoid Gabe at all costs. I knew that what happened at the bonfire was wrong, no matter how much I liked it. It was a lot harder than I thought, seeing as he still hadn’t left for Denver yet. He was everywhere I turned, and not wanting to be rude, I would acknowledge him, but wouldn’t go much further than that.

On a few occasions, I found myself in awkward situations that I just couldn’t get out of. After she saw us holding hands at the bonfire, Bea began to plan double dates, to see, in her words, if Gabe and I were “really and truly compatible.” These double dates would end up just as any other time the four of us went anywhere. The only difference being, that the nights would start out with the four of us sitting at a restaurant eating. After we were done eating, it was back to business as usual. Erik and Bea would go off on their own, leaving Gabe and I alone. As hard as I tried, I found myself giving in. I gave in to his shameless flirting and his mind-blowing kisses.

One night after going out with Bea and Erik, it was like déjà vu. I ran up to my room and slammed my door. Rather than lean against my door, sighing, I ran and flopped onto my bed. I was so angry with myself that I let out a muffled scream into my pillow. I rolled over and stared at the ceiling. After being alone for a few moments, I heard a faint knock on my door. I didn’t know who it was, so I didn’t want to just yell at them to go away. I got up off of my bed and walked over to the door. Opening it, I saw the concerned face of Cecelia.

“You know, normally, I don’t get involved in the problems with the young ones anymore. But, I’m worried about you. This is the second time in two weeks, I’ve noticed you run up those stairs and the next noise that followed was the slamming of your door.”

I looked down as I opened my door a little more. I knew that she was going to let this go without even a small explanation. She walked in my room and sat on my bed.

“Please tell me, this doesn’t have to do with Gabe. I noticed you two were getting close and I know he’s leaving in a week and…”

“It has nothing to do with Gabe….” I cut her off with a lie. I didn’t want to have this conversation with his mother. It just seemed…awkward. Could I have this conversation with Bea? Sure, though it still might be a little awkward, but it would be less than talking with Cecelia. She gave me a small smile and patted the space beside her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I don’t know. I’m not really sure what’s going on in my head right now. I think it’s just me missing home. Seeing Bea and Gabe with all of their friends, it just makes me miss home a little bit.”

She sighed and put her arm around my shoulders.

“Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry you miss home. Maybe going back home for a few days would be best?”

I shrugged my shoulders and pondered for a minute. Then I quickly shook my head.

“No, I don’t think going home would be such a good idea. If I feel this way being so far away, I’d never come back. I need to do this. I need to be here.”

She smiled, patted my shoulder and stood up from my bed.

“Whatever you feel is best, dear.”

With that, she left me in the silence of my room once again. I walked around my room and picked up a picture of me and my mom on my dresser. I closed my eyes and tried to think of what my mom would tell me in this situation. I knew that I could just call her, but I was afraid that someone walking by my door would hear me explain the situation to her. Glancing at my desk, an idea popped in my head.

I opened my laptop and logged into my email. I had hoped that my mom was close to her email. I had two sentences typed when I stopped. Sighing, I closed my laptop. If I tell her what’s going on, she’ll want me to come home. I put my head in my hands and let out a frustrated sigh. Hearing a light knock on my door, I lifted my head. Getting up from my desk chair, I turned to face the doorway. When I saw who had peaked their head in the door, I all but panicked.

“Gabe? Wh-what are you doing here?”

He lightly chuckled as he stepped into my room.

“What? I can’t come and check on you. You ran off as soon as we walked in the door. I figured you needed to call your mom or something, so I waited a little bit before knocking.”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t have to call my mom. Yours came in to check on me about 10 minutes ago. I’m fine, Gabe.”

He gave me a suspicious look before taking a few steps closer to me.

“You don’t expect me to really believe that do you?”

I shrugged my shoulders and sat down on my bed, feeling a little anxious with him getting so close to me.

“You can believe what you will, but I’m telling you, I’m fine.”

Gabe shook his head, chuckling lightly to himself as he sat down beside me.

“I know you’ve only been here for over a week, but I can tell when you’re fine and when you’re not fine.”

“Really? Well, care to tell me why you think I’m not fine?” I scoffed. I didn’t mean to be so harsh, but I didn’t know how else to put it.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I think that it has to you rejecting me every time I try to get close to you.”

I closed my eyes and leaned back, my back hitting my mattress.

“I don’t reject you, Gabe. That’s the problem. I want to.” I said in just above a whisper.

“Oh,” I heard him sigh. “Well, that makes me feel a little better, I guess. I thought it was something I did.”

I shot up. “It is! It’s everything you do! I don’t want to be mean and ignore you, but when I’m around you, it’s like, well I don’t really know exactly, but I like it.”

I could almost, if it was possible, hear the smirk form on his face.

“So, you like me?”

I rolled my eyes and stood up from my bed. I walked over to the window, before turning around to face him.

“I can’t like you.”

He stood up and walked closer to me. I tried to back away from him, but I found myself trapped between him and the window. He smiled down at me.

“That’s not an answer.”

I closed my eyes and turned my head away from him, not wanting to give in to his blue eyes at this moment. I had to hold my ground.

“You’re leaving in 2 weeks! It doesn’t matter if I like you or not! Nothing’s going to happen between us.”

I felt his thumb graze my cheek.

“Is that what you really want? For nothing to happen between us?”

I shot my eyes open and glared at him.

“Why are you the only one asking questions? What about you, huh?” I pushed my way past him.”You’re leaving in two weeks. Doesn’t that affect you at all?”

I turned to face him, only to see him shrug his shoulders.

“Obviously, I wasn’t planning on feeling anything for you, but like you said, I can’t help it.”

I stood in my place and ran my hand through my hair. Sighing, I spoke up again.

“So, what do we do now?”

He walked towards me once again. This time, I didn’t move back or flinch when his hand reached out for mine.

“Well, Bea already thinks we’re well, you know, together. So, I propose we enjoy these next two weeks and when I leave, that’ll be that.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “That’ll be that? What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

He backed away from me and sat on my bed shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, we both know that this shouldn’t happen, but neither one of us have the will power to stop it. So, as long as we’re going to be around each other, we might as well make the best of it.”

“You know, you’re really sounding like a dick right now.” I scoffed.

He puts his hands up in defense.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like that. But, I don’t know how else to put it.”

I sat down beside him and sighed. I pondered on the idea. I thought about the repercussions that would follow after Gabe left for training camp.

“So what happens when you leave? We just pretend nothing happened?”

He feverishly shook his head. “No!...No. We just…move on. I mean, we never know, all this could be is just a summer fling.”

I thought about those last two words, summer fling. I had never thought about myself as a “summer fling” kind of girl, but Gabe had my brain going all kinds of crazy since I arrived in Sweden. I turned to face him, and noticed him smirking at me.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

His smirk grew a little bigger. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

I quickly rolled my eyes, then the next thing I knew, I leaned in and pressed my lips against his. It didn’t take long for him to catch on. He pulled me closer to him as he wrapped one of his arms around my waist. I felt a some burst of control rush through me and I push him onto his back as I straddled him in the middle of my bed. Just as our lips were about to touch, a knock came to my door. I sighed and placed my forehead against his chest. I felt his chest shake slightly as he let out a soft chuckle.

“Go answer your door,” He lightly pushed me off of him. As I climbed off the bed, he grabbed one of my hands. “We still have two weeks.”

I gave him a small smile as I walked over to the door. Opening it, I saw Bea standing there with a look worry on her face.

“Have you seen Gabe? Mom wants to talk to him.”

Seconds later, I felt an arm wrap around my waist. My gaze stayed on Bea and I watched the colour drain from her face. She looked between me and Gabe.

“Gabe, you need to go downstairs. Mom has something to say to you , and she’s getting tired, so you better hurry.”

Bea practically ran from my door as soon as she finished. I pulled back into my room and closed my door. I turned to face Gabe.

“You really shouldn’t do that in front of your sister.”

He raised on eyebrow at me. I didn’t wait for him to ask me.

“You know what? We’ll have this conversation later. Go talk to your mom.”

He still looked confused as he nodded. He placed a light peck on my lips as her left my room. I sighed as my door shut behind him. I quickly changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed. I looked at the time, and couldn’t believe what Cecelia was still doing up just before midnight. I didn’t ponder on it too long, as I rolled over, closed my eyes and let myself fall into a deep slumber.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the next morning..

*Knock, knock*

I slowly opened one of my eyes, glancing at the clock on my bedside table. I seemed too early to get up, so I snuggled back into my bed. I figured that it was rather Bea or Cecelia, and they would go away after thinking I was still sleeping. My eyes were just about to close again, when I felt something reach around my waist. I felt myself smile just a little bit. The arm that wrapped around me reached over to give my hand a gentle squeeze as a voice whispered in my ear.

“Time for breakfast, beautiful.”

My eyes opened wide, and I quickly turned my head to look at Gabe. I wasn’t expecting him to call me beautiful, but I quickly shrugged it off, remembering that this was only a summer fling. I forced out a smile.

“Did you sneak in here?”

He shook his head, with a slight smirk.

“Nope. I told them I’d come and wake you up for breakfast.” He sat up, jumped off of my bed and held his hand out for me. “Now, get out of bed, and after breakfast, you and I are going out, all day, just the two of us.”

I smiled and hopped out of bed.

“I’ll be right down, I’m just going to quickly change.”

He nodded and walked over to the door. Before he left, he quickly turned around.

“Oh, by the way, if Bea or my parents ask, we’re going to the beach to meet up with some friends we met at the bonfire.”

I rolled my eyes and nodded.

“Okay, gotcha.”

I changed into a new outfit and went downstairs for breakfast. I couldn’t help but notice the weird looks that Bea kept sending my way at the table. Thankfully, we didn’t have a huge breakfast, so I finished rather quickly. Gabe and I stood up to go and take our dishes into the kitchen.

“You two going somewhere?” I looked over to see Bea giving me an odd-looking smirk. I looked over at Gabe before responding.

“We’re going to the beach to meet up with some friends.”

Bea’s eyes lit up. “Oooh! The beach! Can I come?”

Gabe stood in front of me and began to feverishly shake his head.

“No, you don’t want to come with us. Because….” He looked over his shoulder at me for a split second. “because Jake is going to be there. You remember the last time you were around Jake?”

Bea’s head fell slightly. She nodded her head.

“Yea, I do. I still don’t understand why you’re friends with him. You two go have fun.”

Gabe smiled at me. I followed him out to the car. When we hopped in, I turned to Gabe.

“So where are we really going?”

“The beach.” He said with a goofy grin.

My jaw dropped. “Gabe! I didn’t put my bathing suit on!”

He sent me a small smirk. “It’s okay, I got it under control.”

I tried to think about what that could possibly mean. When an idea popped into my head, my eyes widened.

“You went through my drawers didn’t you?”

He shook his head and reached behind him. He pulled out a small duffle bag. He placed it on my lap. I looked down at it, completely confused.

“Open it.”

I did as I was told. Searching through the bag, I saw that there was a bikini, as well as a couple towels and some sunscreen in the bag. I pulled out the bikini and examined it. I was surprised to see that it was sexy, but not overly scandalous. I also saw a price tag on it. I snapped my head over to Gabe.

“You bought me a new bikini?!”

He kept his eyes on the road, but I saw a smile spread on his face. As much as I wanted to yell at him, I couldn’t. I simply put everything back in the bag and smiled. I decided, rather than to dwell on small things, I would try to enjoy these last two weeks with Gabe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a nice day at the beach, tanning, swimming and just enjoying each other’s company, Gabe and I decided to watch the sunset. Gabe drove to a secluded area on a hill, stopping right beside a tree. After parking the car, I pulled the blanket we used at the beach and laid it out on the grass. Gabe went into the trunk and pulled out another duffle bag. He walked over to where I laid the blanket and plopped the bag down.

“Another duffle bag?” I asked. “What did you do, go around town today picking up supplies that we would need for the day?”

He smirked as he knelt down to open the bag, pulling out two zip-up hoodies.

“Maybe.”

“Why, Gabriel Landeskog, are we turning into a hopeless romantic?” I smirked, my eyes catching on something in the bag.

He looked up at me with an innocent smile.

“I really don’t like repeating myself, but….maybe.”

I giggled as I slipped on the hoodie he handed to me. I sat down on the blanket. When Gabe sat down beside me, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into him. I turned my head to smile up at him.

“I think you better change that answer to a yes, my friend.”

He leaned his head in closer to mine with a smile, pressing his lips to mine. Pulling away, I smiled at him as we laid down on the blanket, my head on Gabe’s chest, looking up at the stars. Gabe ran his hand softly up and down my arm, as I listened to his heartbeat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gabe and I continued sneaking around, and we were really lucky to not get caught by Bea. She was constantly asking us where we were going. I started to get the feeling that she knew, but she wanted to hear it confirmed from rather myself or Gabe. Luckily for me, neither one of us would budge. Bea would corner me in my room and start to randomly fire up good things about Gabe, thinking I’d snap and Gabe told me she would corner him and talk about what a great girl she thought I was. It was funny, that someone who was so against us being together was trying to get us to admit that we were.

Coming home after yet another secret dinner date with Gabe, I walked up to my room with the goofiest smile on my face. I closed my door and hummed lightly to myself as I started to get changed into my pajamas. I heard a light knock on my door. Smiling to myself, thinking, no, hoping it was Gabe, I quickly opened my door. My face fell slightly when I saw that it wasn’t Gabe, but rather Bea, at my door.

“Hey Bea, how’s it going?”

She gave me a small smile.

“Nothing, just wanted to see if you wanted to come downstairs to watch a movie. We haven’t hung out, just the two of us in a while.”

I pondered on the idea for a second, but realized that if I had declined, she might get angry and start assuming things and corner me again. I didn’t want that. So I nodded.

“Sure! Just give me a couple minutes to finish getting my pajamas on, and I’ll be right down.” Looking down at myself, seeing that I only had changed my top, but still had the jeans that I wore out with Gabe. Bea nodded and turned to walk back down the hall.

“I hope you don’t mind, but we’re watching Gabe’s favourite movie. I don’t really like it, but he’s only got a week left, so we let him pick.”

I quickly nodded. “No, it’s fine.”

I closed my door and shut my eyes as I replayed Bea’s words over and over in my head. I was hoping the more I said it in my head, the more it would change.

..he’s only got a week left…