WHO: Jules Hart and Gabe Shaw WHEN: Evening of February 3 WHERE: The Shaw Residence SUMMARY: After Jules and Gabe figure out that the anonymous person they have been talking to and steadily catching feelings for are each other, the former decides to show up at their agreed time to meet anyway. WARNINGS: Gets pretty PG-13 there for a minute, but nothing graphic. BINGO PROMPT: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Â
Jules spent her afternoon thinking of exactly one thing: what she was going to do at 6PM.
In the end, she had decided to go ahead and secure Tori as a babysitter, even going so far as to tell Ella that her aunts were coming over; she wouldn't want to disappoint her daughter, so it was one more barrier she would have to hurdle, if she decided that she definitely shouldn't go over to the Shaws.
Because she really, definitely, absolutely shouldn't go over there.
Except, when 6PM rolled around, that was exactly where Jules was. She bit down on her lower lip as she sat in her car, staring at the house that she had only seen from the outside, when she was either dropping off or picking up Ella. She found herself longing for a handful of hours prior, when she had been looking forward to the prospect of pasta and (most likely) heavy innuendo with the person she had been anonymously conversing with for weeks. Now, on the other side of the big reveal that was their identities, she didn't know what to expect. Gabe hadn't replied to her, but she couldn't blame him for that; she had considered doing the same when he had given her the address. But Jules had ghosted Gabe once, long before ghosted was even a term people used. She wasn't going to do it again, not even anonymously.
There were plenty of logical reasons this couldn't hang between them, all of which hinged on Ella. Jules had felt like they had found themselves in something akin to normal in regards to their daughter, even if it normally meant them staying apart. But there was more than just their shared child that had brought her across town. Gabe had every reason to want nothing to do with her and she had been existing on that fact since he had found her on Instagram. It had been how she pushed down the way he made her heart jump whenever she saw him or the way her eyes were drawn to him. She had always known just how not over Gabriel Shaw she had always been, but he had no reason to feel the same and she wasn't going to torture herself.
Except now she knew just how well they were together. There had been an attraction, there had been chemistry. That knowledge was cruel as now she had hope. It was that hope that she'd ridden across town on. And it was that hope that was going to give her the courage to put herself out there. Maybe he would push her out into the February chill and maybe she deserved that. She had to try, though.
Pulling in a deep breath, Jules forced herself out of her car. She walked up the driveway, climbed the steps, and hesitated only a few seconds before pressing the doorbell.
Gabe hadn't expected Jules to come after the abrupt end to their conversation. Or maybe he had because he knew her. Either way, he felt like his heart stopped when he heard the doorbell pierce through his thoughts. He sat there for a moment, as he'd been for the past few hours, perched on the couch with his head buried in his hands.
It wasn't like this was the first time he'd felt this conflicted about Juliet Hart. The first time he'd seen her after nearly twelve years, even with the knowledge of what she'd done to him, he'd felt that familiar squeeze of his heart that had made him so sure in his teens that he would marry her one day. He'd felt as betrayed by his heart as he'd felt betrayed by her. This was, of course, a very different sort of conflict. He'd opened his heart to someone he thought was new, someone he connected with on a deeper level than he'd ever imagined might exist. His former mystery woman had seen parts of himself that he hadn't been willing to share with Jules. He'd thought, finally, that he had found someone he had a chance of being good with. Someone who wasn't his ex-wife, or the woman who'd hidden his daughter from him for eleven years.
But his mystery woman was Jules and the fact that knowing that didn't change how he felt about his mystery woman was a new kind of mental torture.
He had no idea what he might do when he saw her next but he wouldn't have a chance to figure it out because suddenly she was there--he didn't have to answer the door to know it was her. He ran his hands over his hair and pulled them down his face before finally standing up and moving toward the door which he opened after another lingering moment of hesitation.
The door opened and Jules hadn't known what to expect. Maybe it would be Esther, telling her that Gabe wanted nothing to do with her and to get off their property. Maybe it would be Gabe, saying the very same. Maybe there would be no answer at all, with Jules left standing on the doorstep.
And so, with all those worst case scenarios bouncing around in her mind, Jules was almost surprised when it was actually just Gabe. Her chest seemed to squeeze and she felt her expression soften just at the sight of him. That was a first, she might have realized had she been able to focus on literally anything but him. In the months since he had reentered his life, she avoided looking at him and, when she did, simply tried to keep an expression of neutrality so as to not let her emotions betray her. But now they were dialed up to eleven. There was no hiding them.
After a brief pause, Jules said, "Hi. I know that this probably changes everything and I know that it's probably selfish of me to be here, but..." She paused, her eyes closing for a brief moment before looking back to Gabe with a bit more resolve. "I just had to see you."
Seeing her was even worse, Gabe thought. Seeing her solidified everything he'd been feeling over the past few weeks. Seeing her now was like seeing both Jules and the resilient, fierce, beautiful woman he'd met in his dreams. And he wanted so desperately to hate her, to remember all of the reasons why having feelings for her was the worst thing he could possibly do. A part of him still had no idea how he could ever forgive her, but now there was also the part of him that remembered laughing and smiling more over the past few weeks than he had in years.
And, god, she was beautiful. Breathtaking, really, and Gabe hated himself a little bit for being so aware of it
And because he had no idea what else to do, or say, and because he'd spent the better part of the day thinking about what he might do when he came face to face with his Lysandra, Gabe did the only thing he could do. He took a step forward, brought his hands to her face and kissed her. It wasn't soft, or tender, or hesitant. It was desperate, and angry, and wanting. And just for a second, Gabe stopped thinking about anything at all except for the softness of her skin beneath his palms and the taste of her lips against his mouth.
Jules would have thought that, as Gabe stepped forward, she wouldn't have expected his hands to find her face and his lips to meet her own. She hadn't expected it, not really. And yet, there was no hesitation as she kissed him in return, meeting him in that very same desperation and want, while mixing with twelve long years of longing and just missing him with so much of her heart. Jules hadn't known that their last kiss would end up being their final kiss and she had berated herself time and again over the years for having not appreciated those kisses more -- for having not appreciated Gabe more. She should have done so many things different, but that was the crux of them all; if she'd just appreciated him as he deserved, maybe none of the past twelve years would have happened. They'd had a taste of what they could have been under the shelter of anonymity and the knowledge made her heart ache.
And that was what she so desperately tried to convey as Jules kissed him back, her arms moving to wrap around him. He may never forgive her and she may not have been entirely sure she was deserving of his forgiveness in the first place, but as she pushed herself up on her toes in an attempt to get as near to him as she could, all she wanted was for him to know how much she still cared, how much she had always cared, and how much she had missed him.
Gabriel Shaw had wanted Jules Hart for more than half his life and more than half of that time had been spent wanting her in a way that he had to deny himself because he'd been so sure that she had wiped her hands of him. He'd buried his desire in a degree and then a career. He had buried it in a marriage that had never been built to last. He had buried it in an anonymous conversation with someone he'd thought he might desire more than Jules only to find out he'd been burying his desire in his desire. And now she was here and he was close enough to feel her heartbeat and, for a moment, he could pretend like those twelve years hadn't happened, and that all they had between them was this very real, palpable chemistry that he wasn't entirely convinced had ever gone away.
He pulled her against him, maneuvering them inside and shoving the door closed as he pressed her back against the wall.
This was the stupidest fucking thing he could remember doing, he thought, and that was saying something considering the shit he'd been up to since his divorce. But Gabe was beyond reason now, consumed with the fire that very clearly still burned between them.
"You shouldn't have come," Gabe breathed between frenzied, demanding kisses. "And we shouldn't-- shouldn't be doing this. What-- whatever this is." He didn't want to stop.
Jules didn't want to stop. If they stopped, everything could go back to how it was. If they stopped, she may never know again what it was to kiss Gabe, to have him hold her against him, to be so consumed in him. If they stopped, this could all shatter.
She knew that it was the right thing to do. They should stop whatever it was they were doing and they should actually talk like the grown ups they were supposed to be. But she was downright drunk on him and instead of pulling away, her arms raised to circle around his neck, her fingers threading directly into his hair. Even so, she still managed a quick assent of, "I know," before she was falling back into him. It was the same answer for both -- she shouldn't have come and they shouldn't be doing what they were doing. And yet, she was there... and there they were.
But still, there was that gnawing at the back of her mind -- the reminder of the woman she had tried her best to become in the years they had been separated. The one that had known she'd done wrong and had done everything in her power to atone by raising and dedicating everything she was to their daughter. The person that tried to do the right thing, not the easy thing.
And so, Jules compromised. "I'm sorry," she said, the words barely over a murmur before she was kissing him again. Then, once more, "I'm so sorry, Gabe."
He needed to stop, to think this through before either of them did something they regretted but Gabe already had so many regrets and not having Jules in his life for the past twelve years, regardless of whose fault that was, was high on his list of them. So he pushed back the voice inside of him that protested and let his hands move down toward her arms, fingers slipping beneath her jacket as he pushed it off her shoulders.
"I love you," he said, distracted as his mouth found the smooth curve of her neck and his fingers curled into her hair. "And I hate what you did. And--" his mouth was on hers again, the words hesitating, waiting. "And this-- this doesn't change anything."
But it did, it did, because he'd been dreaming about Jules before he dreamed about Lysandra and now he dreamed about them both. He wanted them both. He wanted the parts of them they shared and the parts that were so uniquely Jules that he'd known for most of his life. He couldn't see Lysandra without Jules' face and he'd been underling to admit that his dream girl had worn her face, too. He wanted...so much. He wanted time. He wanted to relearn every curve to her body. He wanted to be fluent in her again and he wanted her betrayal to stop feeling like a knife twisting again and again in his heart.
He wanted her and what they could have been and what they could be and he knew that he shouldn't want any of those things, but…
"Those fucking pancakes," he growled, pausing only a moment to let his eyes catch hers, looking for permission, or validation, or both, and he found the same things he was feeling flickering and mirrored back at him in her eyes. He pulled his hands away from her to reach behind him and pull his shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor beside Jules' discarded jacket. In terms of mistakes he'd made, this currently felt like the least of them.
If Jules hadn't known any better, she might have thought that her heart had actually stopped in her chest as his words registered in her mind. It couldn't have stopped, though, as it was instead racing, her heartbeat pulsing against his thoroughly distracting lips at her throat. Distracting, but not enough to keep her from understanding just what he had said.
He loved her. He hated what she had done and he didn't think this changed anything, but Gabe loved her.
Jules didn't have time to react, at least not verbally. His mouth was on hers once more and she met his demands with her own. Because, while Gabe might have wanted her, she wanted him just as much. She had always known she missed him, but that simple acknowledgement was nothing compared to the reality of just how much her heart had longed for him. She missed what they'd had and she missed the possibility of what they could have been, the plans that they had made before everything had become more than a teenaged Jules had known how to handle. She missed the years of simplicity that they'd shared, the ease of their friendship and eventual relationship.
But, most of all, she missed this. She missed how he could make her forget everything else around them, until it was just the two of them. And for as complicated as the two of them were, there was a sense of right that settled around her heart. It might have been heightened emotions or just the dam breaking on years of pent up feelings and desire, but in that moment it was right. That, mixed with her want and need and the simple fact that she still loved him as well, reflected in her eyes when he pulled away. She was pulling him back to her before his shirt hit the floor, her mouth on his.
A trail of clothes through the Shaw residence hadn't been what Jules had been expecting when she had come over to see Gabe, but she wondered if she really could consider herself surprised by the time she found herself in his bed some time later. Whether or not this decision would prove to be a mistake remained to be seen, but she knew that she hated the thought of it; they might have had a complicated history and her feelings for him might have been just as muddled, but after all of the mistakes she had made in regards to Gabe, this felt like a far cry.
Jules wasn't sure if staying close to him was allowed, but she decided that in the grand scheme of things she had to dwell on, that was one she could let go of. Curled on her side, her cheek resting on his shoulder, her eyes stared at the wall as she realized that they still needed to do the one thing she had actually come here to do -- talk.
There had been no easing into any of this, so Jules found no reason to start now. "Gabe?" Her voice was quiet, tentative. "Did you mean what you said before? That you love me?" He'd said more on the tail of it, of course, but she thought that was a good place to start.
The thing was, this was exactly where Gabe had imagined his night might lead, it was just that he hadn't quite imagined that it would lead here with Jules of all people. He lay there with his arm beneath her head, his breaths becoming steadier as he let himself process what had happened between her showing up at his door and now. It wasn't nearly enough time to prepare himself for the inevitable questions she would have and, before he was ready to confront the things they needed to confront, she was asking questions that he didn't know how to begin to answer.
With a sigh, Gabe almost pushed himself up in the bed but then decided to stay where he was with her head on his shoulder. However this conversation went, he thought he could allow himself to revel in how that felt for just a little while longer. "I always have," Gabe admitted, his eyes trained on the ceiling. "Which makes all of this worse, you know? It's one thing to get blindsided by an ex you hate because at least then you expected the worst. It's not surprising when they hurt you. This is all so much harder and more complicated because I never stopped loving the girl I once thought was my future. I clearly can't turn it off or redirect it. The first time I tried, I ended up divorced. The second time, I ended up here."
Jules closed her eyes as they spoke, but the darkness did nothing to protect her heart from the pain that his words inspired. She felt a guilt tied to the pain -- not only was it not hers to have, a right she thought she'd given up when she had left St. Louis and Gabe behind, but she was the one that had hurt him. That thought had always existed under the surface of her mind. In the eleven years since Ella had been born, she had gotten good at ignoring it or becoming numb to what she'd done. But that had changed with that first direct message on Instagram and now it was all-consuming. It was a miracle that Jules could focus on anything else.
Because she had loved Gabe when she was sixteen and she'd loved him every moment since, but Jules had still hurt him. And for as much as she knew she had made the only decision she thought possible at the time and she had plenty of loved ones echoing the sentiment, it didn't change the fact that she had hurt the one person she'd thought she never would.
Jules was quiet for a few moments, trying to come up with something, anything that she could say. "I know that no explanations or apologies would ever change what I did. I don't expect you to forgive me, because what I did was unforgivable. And I don't expect you to believe me when I say that I've loved you all this time, because my actions don't reflect that, but... I have. And I do." She hesitated, considering sitting up to look at him, but deciding against it; it was easier to speak this way, even if it might have been cowardly. "I would do anything to change the past and do everything different if I could."
Gabe's fingers traced circles over Jules' shoulder as he considered her words. "You can't, though," he replied. "You can't change it, or fix it. We can't forget the past, and we can't stop feeling the way we feel. I don't know how to forgive you, but I can't deny that the past few weeks have been the best I can remember in recent history, when this thing between us was unadulterated by the past. So I don't know Jules. I don't know where we go from here."
Jules let her eyes flutter shut once more, a tingle spreading down her spine at the touch of Gabe's fingers at her shoulder. Not knowing if she would ever get to be in this position again, she found herself wanting to appreciate it as much as she could. It might have been a late show of appreciation for Gabe, she thought, but it didn't stop her from extending her arm to drape over his torso to hold him close.
"I don't know either." It was an admission that she didn't want to make. She wanted to have a plan, something solid that they would be able to move forward on. It didn't stop her from hoping that maybe, just maybe, they would be able to make a plan. "Where do you want to go?"
Shaking his head, Gabe ran his free hand over his tired face. "I don't know an answer to that, either, Jules. I thought I wanted a try at something real with my Lysandra, but now here we are and I...just don't know. And I don't regret what just happened, but I don't know that it made anything less complicated. Moreso, probably."
He was right in that they had only made things more complicated, Jules knew. There was no doubt in her mind that was the case. She had known from the very start that it wasn't a good idea and yet she hadn't wanted to stop. In fact, she said, "I don't regret it either, for the record." Jules breathed out a sigh, opening her eyes and tipping her head back just enough to at least look in the direction of his face from where she rest at his shoulder. "Even if it's more complicated for us, we just can't let it be complicated for Ella." Her eyes darted away, looking toward the wall. "I've made her life complicated enough already."
That was something Gabe could whole-heartedly agree with Jules on. If there was one person who mattered above both of them, it was Ella, and Ella had to be protected from their drama at all costs. "I agree, we can't let it be more complicated for her. We've worked it out well thus far and I think we can at least agree that whatever this is, it's marginally easier to work with than outright hostility," he conceded. He was still angry, still hurt, but tonight had at least succeeded in getting some of that frustration out and that could only be a good thing, right?
"Would it make things more or less complicated if I said I wanted you to stay for a little while longer?"
More complicated, she thought. There was no doubt about that. But they were already here, long since crossed over whatever lines they had thought they'd drawn up when he had come to Dunhaven. Gabe was right, though. For however complicated this might have been, it was better than the hostility or attempts at indifference. This ached in a different way, but it didn't hurt.
Jules moved her arm that was draped over him, seeking out his free hand. Though it was much more tender a move than everything that had just transpired between them, she let her fingers slip between his. Their future was a giant question mark. If this was the only time she would ever get to be reminded of what it was to hold Gabe's hand, she had to take it. "I'll stay," she murmured. "For a little while."
It was a terrible idea, but no more terrible, he thought, than letting himself drown in her in the first place. Their fingers laced together, Gabe shifted onto his side and looked down at her. She was as breathtakingly beautiful as he'd always remembered her. He'd known it when he'd seen her again after twelve years apart but, for the first time, he let himself drink her in. Leaning down, he drew her into another kiss, this time slow and deliberate. With a small, resigned, conflicted smile he said, "This one's for the s'more's cupcake." And then he let himself kiss her again.