He held out my phone. I took it.

WAITING GAME

Gabriel had been home for an hour now, and for nearly that long he’d been standing in front of his fifty-fifth-floor window, staring out at the city with a tumbler of Scotch. He hadn’t touched the drink. He wouldn’t, even if he’d never wanted it more in his life.

No, that wasn’t true. There’d been one other time he’d wanted it this badly, one other night he’d spent holding a glass, staring out this window. When Olivia left.

She’d only been away for two weeks, and he’d known she was going. It was a motorcycle trip with Ricky, a much-needed vacation after they broke the case against her parents, discovering that Pamela had indeed murdered four people and Todd let himself also be convicted for the crimes, because she’d done it for Olivia, as part of a deal with the Cŵn Annwn to cure Olivia’s spina bifida.

It was not surprising that Olivia had needed to get away after that. But it hadn’t felt as if she was fleeing Pamela as much as fleeing him. Getting him out of her sight after he’d abandoned her when she needed him most.

It was a mistake.

Except it hadn’t been. Not really. The mistake had been that he hadn’t listened to her messages and known she was in trouble. But the reason he hadn’t been listening? That was no mistake.

Tristan had just told Gabriel that he was Gwynn, and he’d refused to believe it. Matilda’s jealous lover? The man who’d betrayed both her and Arawn? Dishonored their friendships? The man who’d brought about Matilda’s death through his own selfishness and blindness and arrogance? Gabriel was not that man.

He’d rejected the idea. And then he’d rejected Olivia. He’d laughed at her suggestion that they were friends. Left her standing by the roadside in one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods. Told her not to come into work the next day.

Later, when Ricky had come by the office, trying to set things right, Gabriel had sent him away.

A few nights before that, Olivia had woken from a nightmare vision of being alone and trapped and needing Gabriel and he would not come, and he had said he’d never do that. He would be there for her. Always. And when she called, alone and trapped and needing him, where had he been? In his bed, ignoring her calls, wallowing in a pit of jealousy and selfishness and arrogance.

No, he was not Gwynn at all.

His hand tightened on the glass. He looked down, swirled it, considered. Squeezed his eyes shut and saw Olivia that morning before she left. Showing Lydia her new tattoo. A moon for Ricky. A moon for Arawn.

Gabriel had followed her out the door and thought, I won’t let her leave. I’ll say something. Then his gaze had dropped to her ankle, where her boots covered the tattoo.

She’s made her choice. Branded it on her skin. And it’s the right choice. The one that makes her happy.

The trip had lasted exactly as long as it was supposed to, and when it ended, she’d come back to work with him, as it had been.

Only not as it had been.

He’d started losing her when he’d laughed at the notion they were friends. When he left her on that roadside. Then he’d sealed the loss when she’d called and called and, yes, he did come—came running as soon as he heard her messages—but it’d been too little, too late.

He’d spent the intervening months telling himself it was better this way. What was the alternative? That he keep jealously consuming her time and attention with no intention of taking more, of giving more?

In that moment, at the office, as she’d been leaving and he’d wanted to speak, it wasn’t just the tattoo that stopped him. He’d wanted to say, “Stay,” and nothing more, because he didn’t know what more to say.

I don’t want you to go. I want … I want to try …

I want to go back to the beach. Before Tristan came. I want that moment again, and I want more than that. I want you to tell Ricky goodbye. Be free of him so I can try to make this more. But I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee it’ll work or that I’m capable of more, capable of being anything you need, capable of knowing what you need, of making you happy. I probably can’t.

I’ll try and I’ll make a mess of it, and you’ll leave for good, finally say “Enough” and walk out.

Gabriel had never had a relationship with a woman that lasted beyond a night. No person had ever gotten as close to him as Olivia already was, and he’d screwed that up time after time, which proved he really wasn’t cut out for more, was deluding himself if he thought otherwise.

But the bigger delusion? The past four months of telling himself this distance was for the best.

He was right to leave her with Ricky. To not interfere. That wasn’t easy—Gabriel was accustomed to getting what he wanted, and having admitted that he wanted Olivia, doing nothing about it went against everything in his nature. But if he cared about her, then he could do that. He had to.

If he was being honest, it was not so much selflessness as an exercise in delayed gratification, a concept he was more familiar with: working toward a goal with systematic forethought. He was not saying he’d leave her with Ricky forever. He was stepping back to reassess and determine exactly how to win her.

To that end, he’d accepted the fact that he was not happy about this schism between them. No, let’s be honest. To say he was “not happy” understated the matter entirely. He’d had something and he’d lost it and he wanted it back, even if “it” was only more of that evening on the beach, the feeling that he could stay in that moment forever, like a peasant caught in a fae dance, not caring if the rest of the world continued on without him. For now, that would be enough. To get back what they had.