Chapter 21 Warp Speed
TWENTY-ONE
WARP SPEED
It was safe to say I still wasn’t over Ariana being such a bad girlfriend by the time I showed (late) at work.
Okay, so maybe I was still reeling from all he’d shared, about Denise as well as Ariana.
But yeah, I was stuck on the fact that Gabe had been going about his business at work, unsuspecting his world would be rocked that way, and he’d walked up to his dead girlfriend by a river, and Ariana was such a bitch, she was next in line in his life, and she wasn’t there for him about it.
Sure, no one wanted to rehash exes. That was never any fun.
But it was crucial to a relationship, FFS.
Especially if something like that happened.
She was long gone, Gabe was with me, so I should just shake it off.
Even if I knew that, I still wasn’t over it after I filled the case and the customers started coming in, therefore, I flounced irately through serving (though, not too irately that it would affect my tips).
So it was no surprise Raye and Luna gave me a wide berth and waited until the second shift joined us for the always-busy lunch sesh, they huddled without me, and Shanti was elected to make the approach.
She did, and being Shanti, she didn’t sugarcoat it.
“What’s up your ass, sis?” she asked.
Her eyes dropped to the bite mark Gabe left on my neck (hot) and back to mine.
“Gabe’s a biter,” I snapped.
The other girls were edging closer.
“You don’t like that?” Shanti queried.
“No, I love it. You were right, with all that’s him, he wrecks a woman in bed. Also against a bathroom sink.”
Her eyes lit with happy.
“And he carries me to bed over his shoulder like I weigh nothing,” I added.
“Stark family move,” Harlow muttered.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve read the books. And Luke did that too,” Harlow told me.
Interesting.
Was that kind of stuff hereditary?
Shanti brought us back on target. “Since it seems you’re getting it good, not sure what the attitude is about.”
“We had a deep chat last night,” I told her.
“And I’m not going to get into specifics, because all of that is Gabe’s, but I will tell you, he had a relationship that didn’t work out for reasons beyond his control, but he did everything he could.
Then, back when he was a cop, he was on duty when the call went out because there was a body by the river.
It was her. She’d committed suicide. He found her. ”
“Oh my God.” Harlow’s whisper was suitably horrified.
“And his girlfriend after that was a spoiled, selfish bitch. So he thanked me this morning. Thanked me just for listening to him, because she didn’t,” I finished.
“Did she know about the…earlier one?” Luna asked.
“She did,” I answered. “But she had a wicked jealous streak and didn’t want to hear about it.”
“God, what a bitch,” Jessie snapped.
“Right?” I asked.
“Um…Willow—” Raye started, her eyes aimed beyond me.
I talked over her. “Her name is Ariana. I’m going to ask Arthur to hunt her down.”
“Will—” Shanti tried to cut in.
Alas, she did not succeed.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when I find her, but I want that info just in case I come up with something sweet to fuck her up. He brings me coffee in the morning, for shit’s sake.”
“Hey, Willow, if you’d—” Luna said swiftly.
I talked over her too.
“And he listens to me, really hears me, you know?”
I did not wait for them to say they knew.
I kept going.
“He waited up for me the other night. Neither of us get enough sleep, but he was waiting up for me. And I got home at midnight. He bought me Beckett’s Table like he was going through a drive thru.
When we go out, there’s none of that, ‘What do you feel like? No, what do you feel like?’ malarky. He just makes a decision, and we eat.”
“Sis,” Shanti said urgently.
I was on a roll so her urgency was lost on me.
“I mean, how hot is that? Just decide where to eat and then eat. He’s so confident. He’s so together. It’d give me a complex, if he didn’t think I was gorgeous. Me!” I scoffed. “Gorgeous.”
“Seriously, babe—” Jessie said.
“And as hot as he is, which is off the scales, multiply that by about nine thousand, that’s how hot he is in—”
“Well, hello!” Harlow shouted very loudly, then finished with, “Luke, and I think, Mr. and Mrs. Stark, Gabe’s parents.”
I froze.
Shanti gave me an EEK! face (all-caps, in bold and italics).
“They’re not behind me, are they?” I whispered.
She pulled in both her lips.
Yep.
Somehow, for some reason, Gabe’s parents were behind me.
Since I couldn’t will myself to evaporate—a trick I was going to begin practicing immediately after this ordeal was over—slowly, I turned around and was confronted with Luke Stark wearing a half-smile.
He was standing next to a man who I was in no doubt Gabriel Stark was a product of his loins. Built body, black hair (with lots of silver), cobalt-blue eyes and all.
He was grinning.
Standing next to him was a woman with strawberry-blonde hair (more strawberry than blonde, hmm) who had to be at least in her late fifties, and she was a bona fide knockout.
Shit.
She was looking through me, her cheeks pink.
Fuck.
“Well,” Gabe’s father ended the excruciatingly awkward silence, “when Gabe called and told us he was seeing someone, and Shelby got worried he’d hooked up with another Ariana and made me pack my shit so we could drive down here to make sure our son didn’t get wound up with another woman who wasn’t worth his time, we can just say she underestimated our boy. ”
“Shut up, Mike,” Shelby muttered.
Luke’s grin went from half to whole.
Mike’s grin remained whole.
He also thrust a strong hand out to me. “Mike Stark.”
I took his hand and mumbled, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark.”
He gave my hand a squeeze and invited, “Mike.” We let go and he turned to Gabe’s mom. “This is Shelby,” he said.
I offered my hand and said, “Nice to meet you too.”
She took it, her squeeze was firm and warm but swift, before we released, and she said, “Same.”
“These are my girls, Shanti, Harlow, Raye, Jessie and Luna,” I introduced.
There were waves and heys.
“I’m sorry about—” I began, aiming this to Shelby, but I stopped when her eyes dropped down to Gabe’s love bite and darted away.
Oh my God!
How weird was this!?
Why couldn’t I vaporize?!
“There you are!”
My body jolted at these words because I knew that voice.
It was my mom.
What was happening, and why?
Why was it happening?
Was I a vicious, brutal murderer in a past life or something?
Was this my penance for leaving a trail of despair in my wake in feudal England?
“Holy shit,” Shanti whispered.
“Oh my God,” Luna whispered.
“Yikes,” Jessie whispered.
“My goodness,” Harlow whispered.
“Hells bells,” Raye whispered.
“Mom,” I said as she and Robbie rounded Luke, Mike and Shelby and stopped, Mom beaming at me.
Robbie didn’t beam at me.
His eyes narrowed on my love bite.
Lord!
I didn’t know whether to run, vomit or cry, though I was leaning toward all three.
Mom was curvy and strawberry blonde like me. She had some white coming in, and she didn’t bother to hide it. Though, she had brown eyes, not my gray.
Robbie was like Gabe’s dad, built solid, with silver glinting in his dark-brown hair.
Though, Mike was wearing an ambush-the-new-girlfriend button down and jeans, and Robbie was wearing a faded tee that shared his appreciation for the music of Iron Maiden, but I suspected there were tees in wherever Mike’s suitcase was sitting.
Mom was busy hugging, bussing all my girls and chattering, “We were missing my baby, so I said to Robbie, ‘Honey, let’s just go down and surprise her.’ He grunted. I took that as a yes. And here we are!”
Daughter’s translation: She heard I was with Gabe, so did Robbie, and they were down here, for Mom’s part, to insert the proverbial happiness thermometer to see if I was testing the limits of the mercury (I was), and for Robbie’s part, to make absolutely certain Gabe was treating me right (another translation: he was down here to threaten him about being certain to treat me right).
When Mom stopped talking, I said, “Mom, Robbie, I’d like you to meet Gabe’s family. Mike and Shelby, his parents, and Luke, his cousin.”
Mom’s eyes got big and happy, and she whirled.
“Oh my God! This is amazing!” She rushed them to shake hands with Luke and Mike and give Shelby a hug. She bopped back from Shelby. “What a coincidence!”
Yeah.
A coincidence formed in hell by the devil’s own hand.
“Can you…uh, excuse me?” I asked, then didn’t wait for answers.
I raced to the staff room, pulling out my phone.
Gabe answered on the second ring.
“Hey, baby.”
“Your mom and dad are here. And then my mom and dad showed. Here. At SC. Right now. Right now, they’re here. Right now, they’re all here. All of them, at the same time.”
“My mom and—?” he began, and I should have tuned into his tone, but I was freaking out!
“And I was still mad about Ariana. So I was ranting about her to my girls. And in doing so, saying how awesome you were, and me talking about your varying shades of awesome, it might have veered into the sex stuff.”
“Rewind,” he bit out. “My mom and—?”
Since I clearly didn’t learn my lesson of approximately five point two five minutes ago about not letting anyone get a word in edgewise, again, I spoke over him.
“I think they heard some, if not all of it, and everyone can see my love bite.”
“Go tell them I’m gonna be there in five,” he ordered.
“Gabe!” I cried. “They can all see my love bite.”
“Go. Tell. My parents. To sit their asses down. Leave you alone. And I’ll be there in five.”
His vibe was finally penetrating my freakout.
“Gabe—”
“Five,” he gritted.
Then he disconnected.
Oh shit.
I forgot I had a platinum level protective boyfriend, and as such, he would not be at one with his parents ambushing me, and taking that further, I should have just dealt with it and not told him.
When I took my phone from my ear and turned, I saw all the girls were in the staff room with me.
“Well?” Harlow asked.