by Beth Bolden
Jemma was halfway through her first esfiha when she turned to him. “I wasn’t going to overpay him, you know.”
He shook his head again, still that brand of amusement that always infuriated her. “And you think if you hold out a whole palmful of money, he’ll just take what it costs?”
She took a bite of flavorful pastry. “I was going to ask you, of course.”
“You were?” he said, looking genuinely surprised.
Jemma took a long drink of her beer, letting the moment drag out a bit longer. “Of course I was. I don’t know how to speak Portuguese. I had no idea how much he was asking for; I had no idea how much money was in my hand. You had answers to both of those questions. I’d have to be incredibly stubborn and a little stupid to not ask for your help in that situation.”
His smile deepened. “I’m glad to hear you’ve finally seen the light.”
She nudged him firmly with an elbow. “No need to rub it in.”
“Does that mean you’re going to listen to me all the time?”
Jemma rolled her eyes and shook her head as the lights began to dim in the makeshift amphitheater and the countdown on the screen rolled to zero.
The spectacle kept her eyes glued to the screen as Opening Ceremonies began to unfold. She’d heard rumors of the incredible samba parade the Rio samba schools had planned, and even after spending a few afternoons watching YouTube videos in her office hadn’t prepared her for the reality, even across another screen.
It was a stunning display, impressive and every inch the theatrical equivalent of the last few Olympics. Beijing had raised the bar, and the other cities had definitely responded.
When the countries began marching in, Gabe leaned over. It had long grown dark, and there were torches set here and there in the sand, and the flickering light danced over the planes of his handsome face. “Do you want another beer?” he asked. “I find the parade of nations really boring.”
She did too, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “Not another beer,” she said. It had been a long day, and she had barely been able to hold back a few yawns already. “But a bottle of water would be great. Cold, if you can make it happen.”
“You’ve got it,” he said, and disappeared into the murky light outside of the amphitheater.
She was kind of hoping Gabe’s errand would take him long enough to make it through the parade, because she wanted to pay the sort of attention to Kimber he would absolutely question.
Of course, he made it back long before that, and she realized she should have known better. He spoke Portuguese and he was a cop in LA. He knew how to get things done. He quirked an eyebrow at her surely disgruntled expression as he handed her a cold bottle of water.
She wrenched open the lid and took a long drink, watching as the Chilean Olympic delegation walked into the stadium waving their flags excitedly.
“Something wrong?” he asked, clearly amused.
Jemma paused, thinking of how much she should tell him. How much she even wanted to tell him.
“Have you ever known someone with a problem and you didn’t know if you’d be helping or hurting them to try to solve it?” she finally asked.
“Yes.”
She looked up in surprise at him. “I’m a cop, Jemma,” he said, gesturing with his bottle of beer. “I see situations like that every day on the streets of LA. Countless decisions that I’ve made that I don’t know turned out good or bad, or if I made everything a worse muddle than it was before. Sometimes, I don’t feel like it gets better.”
“It’s an interesting profession for you to choose.” Jemma watched as the Spanish delegation made their way into the stadium. The United States was next. “How did you decide to become a cop?”
“I wanted to help people,” Gabe said. “And I do. But I also wonder if I hurt them too, sometimes. I think you do what you think is best, and then it’s up to fate. You can’t fix everything.”
The United States and its enormous delegation entered the Maracanã Stadium on the screen. Jemma watched intently as the camera swung from the flag bearer to the more important members of the delegation. To nobody’s surprise, Kimber was the second athlete shown. She was smiling and happy, but there was still that same shadow in her eyes that worried Jemma. She’d just met Kimber that morning and had only spent a handful of hours with her, but she still felt connected to her. Like somehow she was one of a very few who actually saw her for who she was and not what they wanted her to be. And for someone who worked this hard, to reach this pinnacle, to be praised for being someone else didn’t seem fair to Jemma at all.
But she remained conflicted as to what to do exactly. She didn’t want to write an article, not unless Kimber explicitly asked her to, and they were by no means at that point yet. Kimber had just barely decided to trust her. The best she could do, Jemma decided as they watched the rest of the parade of Nations, was to be there for her and to be a support during this stressful time.
After the Brazilian delegates entered the stadium, the Opening Ceremonies drew to a close, and Gabe looked over at her. Jemma was sleepily staring at the dark screen. “You look exhausted,” he said, and she could hear the edge of worry in his voice.
“I’ll be fine. It was a long day,” she said.
“Let’s go back,” he said. “You need your rest.”
She would have argued with him, but he already had her up out of her chair and he even managed to get them another pedi-cart, even though the streets were teeming with people looking for one. “You’re handy to have around,” Jemma murmured as they walked into the elevator at the hotel.
He gave a bashful shrug. It felt so different than the night before, when they’d both been fevered and out of control. Jemma couldn’t help but wonder if he would leave her at her door to sleep or if he’d attempt to join her again.
It was something she was definitely interested in revisiting, but every muscle in her body screamed with exhaustion, and she wasn’t sure any of them would actually cooperate.
Sure enough, as they approached Jemma’s door, he seemed to hesitate, walk a little slower.
She didn’t really feel like he was uncertain about anything, but he did seem to be uncertain about this.
“Thank you for coming with me tonight, I had a really good time,” she said, and the irony wasn’t lost on her. This felt like the end of every date ever. All that remained was to see if he’d kiss her goodnight.
She wished he would, but from the shuttered look in his eyes, she was fairly certain that he wouldn’t. Message received, she thought to herself.
“Me too,” he said, and he sounded a bit surprised that he seemed to mean it.
“I’ll let you know in the morning what the plan is,” Jemma said. “I think we have some swimming events in the evening. I may work on some articles in the morning.”
“If you’re . . .”
“I know,” Jemma snapped, “if I’m going to leave the hotel, I’m to tell you. Message received.”
The easy camaraderie of the last few hours seemed to dissipate and the hostile edge in the air was back. Jemma missed the lighter vibe, and it had only just disappeared.
On his way to turning toward his own room, Gabe froze. He scrubbed a hand over his face, his expression suddenly melting into one of awkward confusion. If Jemma wasn’t so tired, she would have been very confused. Gabe didn’t look awkward, at least from her own experience.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m being an ass.”
“Kind of,” she agreed.
“It’s just. . .”and he gestured between them. “I’m torn between what I want to do and what I should do, and what I need to do.”
Jemma gazed at him steadily. “What is it that you want to do?”
His lips parted in surprise, and it took him a second to process, but then when he did, he didn’t hesitate. He closed the distance between them, hands reaching up to cradle her head, and he kissed her, his mouth soft and sweet on hers. The kind of goodnight kiss that y
ou might expect from a first date. Not from a non-date after already having had sex twice.
He pulled away, his breath rasping a bit. “It’s complicated,” he admitted.
She smiled brightly at him as his hands slid out of her hair. He shoved them in his pockets, as if he was desperately afraid he was going to press her back up against the door again. “You don’t make it seem that complicated,” Jemma confided in a quiet murmur. “Goodnight.”
She slid her key in the slot, and even after she was into the room and the door was shutting behind her, Gabe was still standing in the hall, looking shell-shocked.
Jemma didn’t set an alarm, sleeping hard and long, and then after a quick shower, took advantage of the quiet morning to finally open her email.
She was so sure when she finally was able to read through her messages that she’d see Colin’s email sitting in her inbox, but as she scanned through once, then again, her heart galloping in her chest, every nerve tense, she didn’t see anything. She scanned it again, slower this time, to be sure she hadn’t missed it.
She hadn’t. There wasn’t an email from Colin at all.
Jemma sank back into the chair, shocked into disbelief. She really hadn’t believed he’d say nothing. Sure, she had outlined why it was a good idea to create some distance between them, but she hadn’t really imagined a scenario in which he didn’t acknowledge her at all. It was disheartening and more than a little terrifying. Colin was her best friend; she hadn’t wanted to lose him, only to attempt to move their relationship to a healthier place. It ached to think she’d hurt his feelings, even as careful as she’d been.
Whatever it was, though, it was done, and she couldn’t undo it. Jemma distracted herself by spending the next two hours typing up notes and ideas for the stories she’d be submitting over the next few weeks.
Only when she was done did she get up and stretch and let herself wander downstairs in search of sustenance and caffeine.
She hesitated in the hallway outside of her room, wondering if she should knock on Gabe’s door and see if he was interested in having a late lunch with her. A maid walked by, giving her an odd look, as she stood there in the hall, hesitating in front of Gabe’s door. She shouldn’t be so nervous about approaching him. They’d had sex twice and he’d kissed her last night, even though she’d been so tired it seemed more like a remnant of a dream than a reality. Just when she’d finally made a decision and reached to knock on the door, it opened.
Gabe stood there, an amused look on his face. “Finally make up your mind?” he asked.
The night’s sleep had been good for him too, and he had finally lost that pinched, stressed look around his eyes that she’d noticed when he’d first picked her up. She’d known he was upset over Nick’s injury, but she hadn’t quite understood just how much until she’d gotten to know him better. And the relaxed, clear gaze he directed her way told her more than he’d said over the last few days.
“I was a little afraid to rouse the sleeping dragon,” she teased back, “but I see he’s wide awake.”
He shot her an incredulous look. “I’ve been up for hours.”
“Me too,” Jemma retorted, then gave a half-hearted shrug. “Kind of, anyway.”
“Right,” he said, still obviously amused, but not necessarily at her, more by her. Before that moment, Jemma hadn’t been certain there was a difference, but she was discovering there definitely was.
“I was going to get some lunch from the hotel café. Interested?” she asked.
He exited the room, crowding right into her personal space, and shut the door behind him. Like he’d already known what she’d planned to ask and was a step ahead of her. She frowned as they walked down the hall and into the elevator.
“How did you know I was even there?” she finally asked as they began to descend to the lobby.
“Easy,” Gabe said as they walked out of the elevator and crossed the lobby toward the café. It was noticeably more crowded than it had been over the last two days, which made sense now that the Games were officially opened and the events had started. “I heard your door open. I heard it close. Then I heard your footsteps stop in front of my door. Easy.”
“Has anybody ever told you that you’re far too observant?”
He chuckled. “Not really a bad thing for a detective to be observant.”
“I didn’t know you were a detective.”
The host took them to a table on the wide veranda, overlooking the street.
“Not quite yet,” he admitted. “But it’s the track I’m on.”
“Ambitious,” she noted as they sat and opened the menus. Unlike dinner two nights before, when there’d not even been any menus, and only traditional Brazilian cuisine had been available, there was a wide range of food here. Including very American items, like club sandwiches and burgers. No doubt this menu had been heavily revised before the Olympics. The scoff that came out of Gabe’s mouth confirmed it.
Jemma tried to hold back the smile that threatened to bloom over her entire face. “Not interested in a burger?” she asked.
“If we were in LA, sure. I’d take you to one of my favorite diners. Burgers good enough to make you cry, but in Rio? No way.”
It was impossible to hold back the smile now. She had a horrible crush, for sure, and the concept that he might want to take her out when they got back to LA was a heady one. She’d assumed that whatever this was between them would end when they flew back to America, but maybe it didn’t have to.
“Well luckily for you, they do seem to offer a number of Brazilian specialties,” she said, pointing to one side of the menu.
He leaned forward, his forearms on the table, his eyes dark and intent. “Want me to order for you again?”
Having a man order for her wasn’t something that Jemma had ever thought she would enjoy. In fact, she’d always been completely certain it would piss her off. But instead of anger, she felt an entirely unexpected dark thrill at the idea of giving up control to someone.
To Gabe, specifically.
“Sure,” she said, flustered and more than a little surprised at the arousal blooming in her stomach.
“No olives, right?” he asked, scanning over the menu once more before shutting it with a decisive movement and setting it on the table.
The waiter showed up, and Gabe rattled off their orders in Portuguese. “I got you an iced tea, by the way,” Gabe said after the waiter had gone to fetch their drinks. “Nick mentioned once that you’re always drinking one in the office.”
The way he casually inserted that fact into the conversation — and the fact itself that Nick and Gabe had talked about her — was quite unsettling. Jemma didn’t know how she felt about it. So she changed the subject.
“You have an excellent memory. Also good for a detective, I’d imagine.”
“So I’ve been told,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his coffee eyes brimming with amusement.
“Did you want to be a cop when you lived here?” she asked.
He gave a short, rather brittle laugh. “No. Policing here is different than it is in the States. But I knew I wanted to protect people, even back then. My job now is just an extension of that.”
“Well, if you’re about to become a detective, it sounds like you’re doing a good job.”
He hummed noncommittally, and she wanted to gnash her teeth in frustration. Getting anything out of him was tougher than squeezing water from a rock. Even when she’d thought she’d broken through, he’d clam up and give her one of those distantly inscrutable looks, and she’d be back at the beginning. “And you?” he asked, not surprising her one bit. He did that often—turn the conversation back onto her.
“Did I want to be a journalist? Not particularly actually,” she admitted, because she’d also learned it was easier to go along with him than protest outright, “I wanted to be a writer.”
“Isn’t that what you are?”
“I mean, in a very general sense, yes, but growing up I wanted
to write novels. However,” she said, not quite catching the wistful note before it seeped into her voice, “that isn’t a very realistic career choice.”
“I would think that you’re actually doing something far cooler,” Gabe said, because apparently he’d not surprised her enough for the last three days, “you’re telling a story that might be fiction in another universe, but here, it’s happening and it’s real.”
Jemma rolled her eyes. “You’re quite annoying, you know.”
“I’ve heard that too,” he said, shooting her a conspiratorial smile.
Their food came and they discussed the evening’s plans, which were to head to the Olympic Aquatics Stadium to watch some of the preliminary swimming races. “I guess I should be happy it’s not Synchronized Swimming,” Gabe grumbled, but Jemma still caught the excited gleam in his eye as she told him the races they’d be watching tonight.
“Oh, that’s next week,” she said, and rather enjoyed his loud groan.
She could stop teasing him, but the quietly surprised amusement on his face every time she did lightened her mood another notch.
The tram they took over to the aquatic center was absolutely packed.
After lunch, she’d gone upstairs to grab her laptop and had spent the latter part of the afternoon in a sun-drenched corner of the lobby working on the beginnings of her rhythmic gymnastics story. Gabe had even come down with a tablet, stretching full length on the couch next to her, explaining that he had reading to do. It was then that she’d discovered that he was taking college courses to supplement his criminal justice background in preparation for his promotion to detective.
Every time she thought she could pin him down, he seemed to elude her, and instead of it unsettling her, now she looked forward to the moments where he eclipsed all her expectations. It was exciting instead of frustrating, and Jemma was left to be surprised at her own reaction.
They’d parted ways in the hallway, agreeing to meet downstairs to catch the tram to the aquatic center. He’d shot her an incredulous look at her insistence on taking the same transportation as the general public, adding that he could always drive them over. “I hear there’s even valet parking for VIP guests and the media,” he’d said, but she’d shook her head. She didn’t want special treatment.