45. Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
Abbie
A bbie
Gabe and I walk the rows of animals and then find my mother to say goodbye. She hugs me and then follows up by doing the same to Gabe, but the look she gives me over his shoulder twists me in knots. She likes him, but she still thinks I need to distance myself from him. In fact, that’s why she wants me to distance myself.
I cut my gaze. I don’t want to walk away from Gabe. I’m done fighting our connection. And it won’t matter anymore. I’ve made my call. My ex is going to stop coming after us. I’ve made sure of it. My mom will see and so will Gabe, but for now, I decide to just enjoy Gabe, to enjoy life for the first time in a long time.
I link my arm with his and we walk to the car, laughing about some of our moments with the pups and Gabbie. An hour later, we’re still talking about the ranch, and eating burgers, me vowing I’ll work off my food. “You won’t need the gym,” he promises, winking before shoving a fry in his mouth, and I swear, only Gabe could make eating a fry sexy.
The man is pure sin and sex and he really does make me feel warm all over in all kinds of ways. And he makes me laugh. I laugh now, my cheeks heating.
“And she blushes,” he teases softy, using his thumb to caress my bottom lip. “And makes me want to eat her, not my food. Let’s go to the bathroom. It’s one stall with a locking door.”
“No,” I say. “Eat your burger.”
“Not you?”
I laugh. “Not here.”
“Ah. Not here. Is that a rule? No public places?”
“Yes. It’s a rule.”
“We’ll see if we get out of here with that rule followed.”
We do.
But he tries to change my mind.
Another hour later, we’re packing Dexter’s things into the car and loading up to head to the airport. “If you have this car, why do you bother with one in the city?”
“There are too many reasons a client might need me for me to be without a car, especially with a few of them living outside the city limits. What about you?”
“It’s too expensive to park a car I barely use,” I say.
“From billionaire’s wife to watching your pennies.”
Seeing where this might be headed, I quickly counter, “This is not about him, who for the record, we decided to leave out of our relationship, or his money. No matter how much money I had, I’d make that choice and save the parking money. Unless, of course, my job made a car necessary, but in New York City, that’s not the norm.”
Dexter whines and licks me, clearly aware that Gabe has just been reprimanded and apparently, I now need calming. I thank Dexter and arch a brow at Gabe. He pulls us into the airport and parks. “For the record,” he says, turning to look at me, “that question wasn’t about him. It was about you. Everything I do with you is about you.” He leans in and cups my face. “Remember that. I will never do anything for me that isn’t for you, too. You have my word.”
Despite his low, raspy tone, there is something intense and dark about his promise that shouldn’t be anything but sweet and thoughtful, but then, this is Gabe. He’s light and fun on the outside and layered with secrets and torment on the inside that should scare me. Nothing with him is as it seems. Instead, I’m intrigued. I’m drawn to him in every possible way.
I think of what I’ve done, of that call I made, and I lean forward and press my lips to his, but I say nothing. What can I say? What I’ve done is done. I can’t go back, and if it protects this man and my mother, I’ll live with whatever the consequences.
He leans back and stares at me, his eyes narrowing, and I know he senses my secret, he searches for it, but I see the moment he decides he’s paranoid and I wonder: what made him paranoid? What made him question everything?
Who hurt him?
And can two hurt, broken people save each other? Or will we simply shatter into smaller pieces, no longer capable of ever coming together?
He strokes my cheek. “I’m ten shades of ready to be back in the city with you in my apartment.” He leans back into his seat, opens his door, and in a few minutes, we’re inside, helping the team for our flight get Dexter settled.
Once they take him away, I glance at Gabe. “How did you come to be so good with animals and not have one in your life until Dexter?”
“I had a collie when I was a teen and losing him crushed me. I didn’t think I could go through that again.” There is a slice of emotion in his eyes.
Losing that dog really hurt him. He’s so much more than his good humor.
“What was his name?” I ask, focusing on the positive, not the end of their time together.
“Jack.”
“Why Jack?” I ask.
“Because Reid hated the name and Jack in the Box was on every corner. My Jack. My Box. That’s what I told Reid because Reid had his own dog.”
“Sibling love,” I laugh. “Were you two close growing up?”
“Closer than you might think, considering the adult version of our lives.”
“But you work together and I’ve heard you interact. You two seem very close.”
“More so now than in the past.”
He offers nothing more and I turn to look at him. “This is where I drop the topic because you said nothing more.”
He stares forward for several beats, unmoving, more steel than man, and then he’s looking at me, his hand on my shoulders, pulling me closer. “I’ve trained myself to shut people down. It’s what I do. If you want to know something, ask. If I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll tell you. As for me and Reid, we’ve both waded through a lot of shit in the past, more when our mother died a few years ago than ever. We worked. We worked some more. We shut everyone out, including each other.”
I have ten million new questions to ask him, but I know deep inside that if he shares this with me, if he goes deeper into this story, it will hurt him. We need to be somewhere alone, where that pain can be shielded from the world. Where we can share pieces of ourselves without an airport audience. I need to protect him the way he wants to protect me. And he does. I sense that in him. And that’s the entire point in all that I’ve done. I want to protect him. I don’t want to hurt him. I want to save him now, more than ever.
We need to be alone.
We need to be with each other.
We came together for a reason.
The end of evil. The beginning of something good: us , I think. I think me and this man really are good and it’s wonderful and terrifying. So very terrifying, because who is going to keep me from getting hurt except him? And what if he’s the one who hurts me?