Chapter 26 #2
“Addie!” Bobby calls out, and I feel Gabe stiffen beside me. “You’re here.”
“If he kisses you again, we’re going to have problems, fresa,” he says as Bobby makes his way over to me and pulls me into his arms.
I just sigh in frustration. There are always problems where these two are concerned and there always will be. They both have me all twisted up inside in different ways, and I’m not sure how I’ll ever get untangled.
Thankfully, Manny saves the day with a knowing twinkle in his eye as he leads a short and curvy-in-all-the-right-places woman toward me, her hand clasped in his. “Adrienne!” he shouts as he pushes their way through the crowd. “This is my wife, Marisol.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I chirp with a genuine smile. “There are too many men in this crowd. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure,” she says with a laugh and a knowing look to her husband.
I loop her arm through mine and tow her across the room to the bar in the middle of the room.
“Thank you for the rescue,” I say with wide eyes as we pony up to the bar. “I wasn’t sure I could make it another minute back there.”
She laughs, a tinkling-bell laugh that is so beautiful, and her whole face lights up as she does. “Manny told me a little bit about what’s going on,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I’d fit in with this crowd, but he said I’d love you.”
“I hope you do,” I reply honestly. “I need a friend who’s a girl.”
“They can be a bit much,” she says as she receives her drink from the bartender and sips it. She seems to weigh her words before speaking again. “So… you and Gabe?”
I sigh and shoot back half of my whiskey.
“That bad?” she asks with a bit of hesitation in her voice.
“It’s not bad,” I tell her. “The truth of it is, it’s great, but it’s also not mine to have.”
She seems to understand the veracity of what I tell her more than I do, because her face turns a little sad, and she nods once before changing the subject.
I don’t know what she’s thinking, she’s clearly privileged to more of Gabe than I ever will be and she didn’t disagree when I said he wasn’t mine to claim.
I don’t know who’s out there, but if I had to guess, a saint of a woman has had a claim on him for years, and I’ll never be perfect.
“Well, I’m happy to be your friend,” she says. “And if you’re really unlucky, I’ll introduce you to the rest of our family.”
“I would love that.”
“Well don’t agree to anything yet,” she laughs. “It’s loud and crazy and there are so many kids all over the place. It took both my mother and my sister to watch them all so I could come out tonight.”
“I bet they love it.”
“They really do,” she agrees. “My kids are the best.”
We sit and visit for a bit longer at the bar, but when the live band starts another set, Manny comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her in a playful way that speaks volumes of how much this couple feels for each other.
“Princesa,” he coos into the side of her neck. “Come dance with me.”
“Go,” I tell her. “Have fun.”
Manny waggles his eyebrows at that, and I roll my eyes. I like seeing him in this new light. My friend and protector is very much in love with his wife and not at all embarrassed to show it.
“I can’t say no to him,” she admits.
“And that’s just the way I like it,” he replies playfully. The look they share hints at what they will also share later behind closed doors.
I turn on my barstool so I can watch the room.
There aren’t many couples on the dance floor yet, but the ones who are can really move.
I’ve never seen a two-step outside of movies, but Manny and Marisol swing and sway around the battered plank floor like professional dancers.
They share private words and smiles, and I feel like I’m intruding on their privacy, so I look away.
“Want to dance?” Gabe asks from beside me, catching me off guard.
“Sure.”
He holds out his hand for me as the song changes.
The band calls out for the brunette behind the bar, and she laughs and steps up to the stage to sing with them.
Gabe dances with a quiet confidence, and the smooth way he moves his body around the floor is reminiscent of the way he moves it in other ways.
He twirls me and leads me in a dance I don’t know the steps to, but he does it so well you would never know, all while the brunette and the band sing about a love gone bad in Tennessee. It lifts me up and breaks my heart all at the same time.
“Shit,” he bites out, looking over my head at someone. “I shouldn’t be here with you.”
“Then why are you?” I ask. I shouldn’t, and I know it.
It’s like handing him a knife and asking him to stick it in my belly to see how much I’ll bleed when he does.
I hate that he feels like he shouldn’t be with me, or maybe that it’s here, so close to his home that he doesn’t want to be seen with me. Either way, it burns.
“Because I can’t stay away,” he admits, mirroring my thought exactly , so I can’t blame him.
“I wasn’t going to come to you, not here, but then I saw you across the room in that fucking dress.
Your tits are so full and pretty, and those straps tease me with the way they look like they’ll break at any moment and give me and everyone else a glimpse of what I want so badly. ”
“Gabe—”
“And then there’s the way that skirt swishes,” he continues. “The way it shows just enough and hints at your sexy thighs, your ass, and that pussy that are all hidden underneath material that is meant to be sweet. But all it does is make me hard for you.”
His words are not the flowery affirmations of love that I hoped he would share, but I always knew they wouldn’t be. That’s not him or me or what we are to each other. His raw words turn me on, and that only makes me mad.
“So it’s my fault your dick is hard?” I snap. His words leave something to be desired, even if they are hot.
“No,” he says and runs his hand through his hair. It’s a small sign of his agitation. “Fuck. I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Why don’t you try the truth?”
“Texas always messes me up,” he admits, “and I don’t know what to say or how to act here.”
“Why?”
“This is where Macy is.”
I bristle and ask, “Who’s Macy?” Again, I wish I could recall the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth, because by the pained look on his face, I know without a doubt that I do not want the answer.
“My wife,” he says, and the air is sucked from my lungs. “I should go.”
I knew he was emotionally unavailable to me, I just had no idea it was because there was a whole wife standing metaphorically between us. No wonder Marisol had a strange look on her face when she asked if Gabe and I were a thing.
Gabe walks away, leaving me standing in the middle of the dance floor like an asshole while he makes his way through the bar.
My face burns with my humiliation. This is what Eli and Manny knew the whole time. This was the sad but knowing look on Marisol’s face when I told her that he wasn’t mine to keep.
They knew.
They all knew I was giving him my body every night, letting him into my life, falling for his not-so-honeyed words and the orgasms he gave me. As spectacular as they were, it doesn’t change the fact that the entire time, he was married and just fucking the client.
And they all knew.
It’s like something snaps within me, that last shred of me finally breaking, and I am done. How dare he announce to me that he’s married but he can’t stay away? I don’t care how being here with me, in the state that she lives in, messes him up. He’s done far worse to me, and that shit is not right.
I see red.
I follow him through the bar, shoving my way between people, not even uttering an apology as I race to catch up with him.
He wants to go lick his wounds. Hell, maybe he wants to go to her, and that’s fine.
That’s great, because he and I are done, but he’s not leaving here until I get a few things off my chest first.
He’s almost to his SUV when I push through the door of the bar. The moon is high and full in the clear Texas sky, and it gives ample light for me to see his slumped shoulders and agitated movements. But fuck him.
“Gabe!” I shout. “Gabe! You stop right fucking there.”
“Go back inside, Adrienne,” he calls without turning back to face me.
Excuse me? No fucking way.
“No!” I yell as I gain on him.