Love in London by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Twenty-Five

Gabby

When I hear my dad start to laugh, it’s like a jolt to my system. I actually flinch slightly, it’s such a shock.

I can only blink at him as he laughs uproariously, even slapping his thigh.

“You really got me for a second,” he says. “So, what? Is the flight delayed or something?”

“No, Dad,” I say, feeling sick to my stomach. Does he really think we would joke about something like this? “We’re serious. I’m in love with Oz, and he’s in love with me. We’re together.”

Dad’s laughing slows down a little, trailing off. “No, you aren’t,” he says. “It’s a good effort, but I’m not falling for it. You’re trying to play a trick on an old man. Not fair, by the way. It’s the middle of the night here, and I’m not as on as I should be.”

“Dad, I’m serious,” I insist, knowing that the only way he’ll see is if I keep pressing forward. No – the only way he’ll see is if I show him. I pause, gathering my courage to do this. I look at Oz.

Then I lean forward and kiss him, full on the lips, and make it long and lingering. The kind of kiss that you couldn’t fake, not even for a prank. The kind of kiss that leaves no doubts as to whether it’s real or not.

The kind of kiss, apparently, that makes my father go bright red in the face.

“What the hell,” he growls. “Oz…?”

“I know this is going to be hard to accept,” Oz says, his words coming out in a rush like he thinks he needs to get it all out before my dad interrupts again. “I know it’s a lot. But please, just know this isn’t the kind of thing I take lightly. I’m serious about this – extremely serious. Gabby means everything to me. And, yes, it’s fast – but it’s real.”

“Fast?” Dad barks. “Fast? You’ve… she’s been there a week! What in the hell has been happening between you two?”

We exchange a look.

I don’t think he wants to hear the honest answer to that.

“We didn’t plan this,” I say. “It just… it came out of nowhere. And it surprised both of us. But it did happen. It was an instant connection – like the two of us meeting now, at this time in our lives, it was just right.”

As the words come out of my mouth, I know I’m right. It’s like everything in the world clicked into place and was suddenly exactly where it needed to be. Like we were where we needed to be. “I couldn’t stop thinking about her,” Oz says. “After that first dinner, I didn’t want to not ever see her again.”

“But it was me that reached out,” I add quickly. “It was me that initiated everything. He didn’t… take advantage of me or anything like that. I swear, Dad.”

“And then it was just impossible to stop,” Oz says. He grasps my hand tightly, bringing it up between us to cover it with his other hand as well, looking at me lovingly. “From the moment I realized my feelings weren’t one-sided, I couldn’t hold myself back. She’s so perfect. I called my assistant and canceled all of my meetings, took the whole week off work. I feel like I want to take the year off. I don’t want to look at anyone else, talk to anyone else, spend time with anyone else.”

“And I couldn’t bear to get on the flight and come home,” I say, looking at him now and only him, my dad, almost forgotten on the screen. “I just can’t. I can’t be apart from him. The way I feel, it’s… it’s like my heart grew fifteen sizes overnight. And the thought of leaving would be like ripping it out from my chest and stomping on it. And that hole inside me would be even bigger now that I know what it’s like to be with him.”

“I can’t let that happen,” Oz says fiercely. “I won’t let you get hurt. Not by anyone, and most of all not by me. You’re too important to me.” He brushes a strand of hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear the way he does sometimes, his eyes searching mine, conveying so much more than our words can.

“I couldn’t go if I wanted to,” I say. “And I don’t want to. I never want to. I can’t imagine my life without you, now.”

“Neither can I,” Oz says. “I don’t even remember what my life was like a week ago. I can’t picture it. It’s just wrong.”

From the speakers, I hear the sound of my dad clearing his throat loudly, and I look back at him with a flinch. I almost forgot that he was even watching us. I was so wrapped up in Oz that nothing else existed for a moment.

“Are you sure this isn’t a joke?” he says, looking at us. “If it is, I’m about to reach out to the Oscars, because I think that might have been the best performance of all time.”

Oz frowns. I see it in the corner of the screen, the pair of us in miniature. “It’s not a joke,” he says. “I don’t know what we have to do to convince you that…”

My dad raises a hand, making Oz trail off. “I’m convinced,” he says. “At least, I’m convinced that the two of you are convinced. But this is all so intense. It’s been too short a time. You should get some distance, see this from a different perspective.”

I understand what he’s saying. It does make sense. It’s rational and mature. A way to prove that the way we feel about each other is real.

But I don’t need to prove it. I know it deep in my bones. This isn’t just some kind of vacation fling, or me getting carried away because I’ve never been with a man before. This is so much more than that.

“I hear what you’re saying,” Oz says, and my heart sinks just a little, wondering if he’s going to agree. “But the thing is, Dean – I don’t need perspective. I knew it from the moment I saw her again, saw who she’s become. She’s the one for me. All these years I’ve been single and waiting, and I didn’t know what for. But when I saw her, I knew. I’ve been waiting for her.”

My heart clenches inside of me with a kind of joyous pain, like someone is squeezing it tightly in their fist. I don’t know how much more happiness a person can take.

I look at him with tears in my eyes, and he kisses them away, gentle and practically chaste compared to our usual kisses. Then he kisses the back of my hand, holding it to his mouth like he can’t bear for his lips not to be in contact with my skin.

I look back at my dad, all the way on the other side of a big ocean. He could try to keep us apart. But I don’t see how he would manage it. Not with the force of what we feel.

But still, he’s frowning.

“How do you expect all of this to work?” he asks, at length, his eyes fixed on us. “A college student and a grown man with much more than a full-time job – when do you think you’re even going to see each other?”

And for the first time, desperation claws its way up my throat as I see something begin to flicker in Oz’s eyes.