13. Chapter Thirteen
Sitting in the back of the bus on my way to meet Gabe, I can”t help re-reading Gabe’s message from last night. ‘If you”re a good girl, maybe I”ll eat you for breakfast.’ and then nothing since.
I send him a message letting him know I”m about twenty minutes away.
Taking out the compact mirror, I check my hair and makeup one last time. I don”t know if he was serious or joking, but just in case I”ve thrown some spare clothes into my handbag as well as a toothbrush and a baggy top to sleep in. Although, if I get my way there won”t be a whole heap of sleeping.
I get off the bus just as a message beeps from my sister.
Twinnie
Be safe tonight. You barely know this guy. If you need me, text and we’ll swing by and save you.
I roll my eyes but can’t help but grin. She’s only thirty minutes older than me, but she takes those whole eighteen hundred seconds very seriously and believes it’s her role and her right to play the big sister card.
Me
I”ll be fine. Have fun with the gang. I”ll see you tomorrow.
I load up my GPS and make my way towards O”Malley”s Construction where he apparently works. I see a bunch of guys outside, each one looking more jacked and angry than the last. That is until I see an oddly familiar face making his way over to me.
“Nate? What are you doing here?” I ask as he gets closer.
“Me? I work here. What are YOU doing here?”
I feel my cheeks flush as I admit. “I”m waiting for someone, a guy”
“A guy? As in a boyfriend? You”re dating one of the knuckleheads that work here?” he asks, looking around and sounding surprised.
“Well, not dating per se,” I hesitate, “more like getting to know.” How embarrassing! I”m literally here to hook up with a guy, and I don”t even know what to call us. Are we a couple? Friends? Friends with benefits? Who knows.All I know is I can”t seem to stay away.
“Oh…who? Scotty? Davis? Ryan? Please tell me it”s not that loser, Evan, because you”re far too good for him; he”s a total douchebag.”
“Erm, no.”
“Who then?” Nate asks, scratching his head.
“Him, actually,” I lift my chin as I see Gabe walking out of the door. He clocks me and his face turns to a mixture of confusion and thunder.
“Gabe?” Nate gasps. “You”re here to see Gabe?” I can”t help but notice how wide Nate”s eyes are. Shit does he know something I don”t? I feel my anxiety bubbling at Nate”s comment before the anxiety turns to frustration.
Feeling strangely defensive, I react. “Yes. Gabe. And what”s wrong with that? He”s actually a great guy if you take the time to get to know him,” I snap.
“Woah,” Nate says, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Believe me, I know better than most what a great guy he can be, I”m just shocked that you know that too,” Nate smirks.
“What? So you think I’m not good enough? You think he”s some super hot stud and I”m just boring old me, is that it?” I snap back, feeling all my insecurities come to the surface. Until now I didn”t realize quite how much I liked Gabe.
“Woah, calm down,” Nate laughs, throwing his arm around my shoulder. “First of all, if I thought of Gabe as hot I”d be washing my eyes out with soap. And second, I don”t think you”re boring at all. You”re lovely. My brother would be lucky to have someone as kind, caring, and pretty as you on his arm.” Wait, Nate is Gabe’s brother??
“Did you just call me pretty Nate?” I tease with a smirk.
“No, well yes, but no,” Nate stutters, obviously embarrassed. “Pretty in a friend way… pretty for Gabe… not me.”
“Haha, don”t worry Natey boy, your secrets are safe with me. I won”t tell Izzy you want a piece of all this,” I laugh as I motion up and down my body.
Nate pushes me playfully just as Gabe reaches us.
“What the fuck?” Gabe shouts, stopping our playful banter in its tracks.
“Take your hands off her, Nate.” Was that a growl? Is Gabe upset?
“Chill, me and Rilez were just having a laugh, isn”t that right?” Nate laughs as he shakes his head at his brother.
“Rilez?” Gabe questions.
“Yeah Rilez, you know, isn”t that what they call you, Riley? Nate asks, turning to look at me, with a confused expression.
“Her name”s Stacey,” Gabe snaps, turning to look at me with a murderous gaze.
“No, it”s not.” I say in confusion when suddenly it dawns on me. “Oh shit, wait…”
“Damn Gabe, you got given a fake name. That”s savage!”” Nate gives a full body laugh but it soon becomes apparent this is no laughing matter as Nate”s face morphs from playful to panicked in a microsecond.
“Gabe, wait! Let me explain,” I call as he turns and storms off.
“Shit, sorry Riley.” Nate says as I turn to chase after him.
Nate comes running beside me, “I”ll talk to him,” he offers.
“No, it needs to be me. I”ll explain everything later,”” I reply, as I try to speed up. Somehow despite the fact I”m running and Gabe is walking, he”s still so much further ahead of me.
“Fine, but call me if you need me. Or if you need picking up and taking home. I”m just a call away.” he shouts as his voice fades into the distance behind me.
I finally catch sight of Gabe heading into the pub at the corner of the street. I follow him inside and after scanning the bar I find him sitting alone in one of the corner booths.
“Let me explain,” I beg as I slide in opposite him.
“What, explain how this has all been some big joke? How you and Izzy thought it would be funny to pretend you were someone special?” he huffs as he takes his drink and downs the whole thing in one gigantic gulp. “Bet you and Izzy had a great laugh at my expense.”
“Izzy?” I ask, clearly confused. “What”s she got to do with anything?”
“Bet it was her that told you about our father. Bet it was her idea to get that guy to hit you when I was watching to see what I”d do next. Bet you all had a great laugh at my expense,” Gabe snaps, clearly spiraling. What the hell is he talking about? I stare at him looking at his glass with his chest heaving.
Unsure what to do, my only options are to physically slap some sense into him or to do something to distract him and break the spiral. I decide on the latter. Reaching over the table I grab hold of his face and kiss him. At first he resists, keeping his lips tight in defiance, but soon they open and let me in. Gabe reaches out, grabs the back of my hair, and pulls me tighter against him. This kiss is anything but sweet; it”s filled with a mixture of hate, anger, and passion. He kisses me so hard that it almost hurts.
I pull away and run my hand up to my mouth and am shocked when I find that my lip is bleeding. Not a lot, but enough that the metallic taste of blood is present when I swallow.
“You bit me, you bastard.” I snap.
“You deserved it.” He replies back with a smirk. At least the anger seems to have subsided slightly.
“You have five minutes to explain,” Gabe informs me.
“Fine but not here. Let”s go somewhere else.” I suggest.
Gabe throws some money down on the table and we head outside.
“Where to?” Gabe asks.
I realize I have no idea where to go next. I don”t really wanna go for a drive with him in this state, but I also don”t wanna end up at another motel, well not just yet. Then an idea hits me. “Follow me.”
I lead him down the road to an old abandoned building, slip through the broken fence, and lead him up the rickety staircase until we get to the top.
“We’re here,” I finally say, opening the door, and carefully placing a nearby brick to stop the door from closing behind us.
“And where is here?” Gabe asks, looking around with that pissed off look he often has.
“My safe space,” I say quietly.
“Really? You call this safe?” Gabe laughs as he takes in the site around us. I look around as well, seeing it the way he must see it. The rooftop is old and bare. There are broken and cracked walls around us. Even the safety rail is hanging off.
“Safer than it is out there,” I admit as I sit down and point to the world below us.
I look over at Gabe and he has that ‘tell me more’ look in his eyes as he sits himself beside me. So I take a huge breath and begin.
“The reason why this is my safe place is because when my world was falling apart I had this place to escape to. When I was ten, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. My sister Harper stepped up and took it upon herself to become mom”s nurse. Dad was wonderful to my mom. He took care of her and took her to all of her appointments. Dad did so many fundraisers to get money for her to fly all the way to the UK for some experimental treatment. Do you know what I did? I broke down and I didn”t know how to cope. I didn”t know what to do and I couldn”t ‘fix’ my mom or make her cancer go away. So I acted out, I got into trouble daily, I didn”t pay attention or care about school. I became a little shit to everyone.”
“And what happened next?” Gabe asks and I can hear the sincerity in his voice.
“Thankfully it worked. She was given some experimental drug that shrank the cancer enough that doctors were able to operate. She had to have a full mastectomy but they say the cancer’s gone. She gets checked regularly, but knock on wood, she”s been given the all clear for the last five years.”
“She was very lucky,” Gabe says as he reaches out and wipes away the tear rolling down my cheek.
“Spoken like someone who understands,” I say leaning into him.
“Unfortunately, my mother wasn”t so lucky. Her cancer was fast and aggressive. She went from happy and vibrant, to a shell of her former self in the blink of an eye.” Gabe admits and I can hear how his voice breaks as he speaks.
“How old were you?” I ask.
“Eight, poor Nate wasn”t even five,” he says, standing and turning away.
Standing to join him I add, “You were only a little kid too, that must have been unbearable.”
“You have no idea,” he scoffs. Sadness mixed with anger rolling off of him.
We sit back down, letting our legs hang off the edge of the roof as we both sit in silence.
“So you never explained how this became your safe space,” Gabe finally breaks the silence by asking.
“This used to belong to my parents. At one point this was the place to be, this whole roof used to be covered in fairy lights.” I say as I stand again and begin motioning to different areas of nothingness. “We had a bar here… and over here was a small dance floor. And this here used to have a pool table.” I say pointing to the corner of the roof.
“So what happened to it all?” Gabe asks as he comes to join me.
“Well when my Mom got sick, my dad stopped working. Missed a few payments and the bank foreclosed on the business. And it”s been sitting empty ever since. When I was a kid I liked to come here and pretend everything was fine. I would just pretend that Dad was still working in the kitchen and Mom was talking to all the customers.”
“I get it, kind of. When Mom died I used to spray her perfume on my pillow just so when I woke up I could imagine, even for just a moment, that she was still here.” Gabe says sadly as he stares off into space.
“And what about your dad?” I ask, reaching out to touch his hand, but he pulls it away as if I burned him.
“He was a sadistic bastard who died. Hopefully the bastard is rotting in hell,” he snaps back his brow furrowing. The change in his demeanor is so sudden it”s like he morphed into a whole different person. Two minutes ago he was sweet and caring, now he”s cold and distant.
“Anyway can we go, it’s fucking freezing up here,” Gabe snaps.
“Wait here,” I say before running back downstairs. I head towards the old cloakroom that is completely bare. I reach for the light, but of course it”s been years since this place had power so I pull out my phone flashlight. Eventually, I find what I”m looking for, the old wooden ottoman. Inside I find the zip locked blankets Mom kept here for emergencies.
Since our parents often worked late, me and Harper would regularly fall asleep waiting. So Mom kept spare pillows and blankets in zip locked bags so we could create makeshift beds on the comfy sofa that was in the corner of the restaurant. Grabbing two blankets and pillows I make my way back upstairs.
“Here,” I say, handing Gabe a set, before carefully placing mine down on the floor so I can stare up at the stars.