Chapter 7 #2
I don’t know how I let myself get swept up in the moment, in the attraction between us, when I know damn well that the last thing I need right now is a distraction dressed in leather. Especially when there was this sudden change in him the moment it was over.
An awkward silence falls over us, and Gage glances at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” I raise a brow at him. “Why are you giving me that look?”
One corner of his mouth curls up into a half-grin. “Just trying to figure you out.”
I shake my head. “There isn’t anything to figure out.”
The last thing I want is him trying to root around in my head any more than he already has tonight. In such a short amount of time, he’s unraveled so many things that have been tangled up inside me for so long that it’s terrifying what he might do if given another opportunity.
“Oh, I beg to differ.” He accepts the bottle again. “There’s a lot going on inside that head of yours.”
“And what about you?”
He raises a brow. “What about me?”
“I’ve been trying to figure you out. But I don’t know anything about you.”
Tonight he’s told me more than I learned through any of my research into his background, and even without him explicitly saying it, I know he’s seen things that no one should have to. Experienced similar traumas to the ones I have, just in a different setting.
His jaw hardens. “You know enough.”
There’s a finality in his words.
A definitive statement that says I won’t be getting anything else out of him tonight.
That only adds to the frustration growing inside me like a festering weed that couldn’t be eradicated by what just happened—no matter how damn good it was.
The night air continues to chill, and the sounds of the animals by the lake fill the silence between us as we pass the bottle back and forth several times.
We allow the tension to rebuild, but this isn’t the same tension that made us lay down on this blanket together. It’s the one that’s been plaguing us since I first saw him—that lingering question that I can’t shake.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “What are you doing here?”
Gage raises a brow. “The park?”
I shake my head. “No, New Orleans.”
“I told you.” He stares ahead at the quiet lake, the moon reflecting off its surface giving it an almost ethereal glow. “Work.”
“Yeah, but you also told me you’re a mechanic, and you can do that anywhere, so why New Orleans?”
He swallows thickly. “I’ve always loved New Orleans.
All of Louisiana, actually—the food, the people, the culture.
” Finally, he glances over and gives me a little half-grin.
“After I retired from the Army, I moved around a lot. Never really had a place to call home. So, when the opportunity presented itself”—he shrugs—“I came here.”
I nod slowly. “That makes sense, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Fiddling with the edge of the blanket, I attempt to process how I’ve felt around this man since the moment he appeared in my life.
There isn’t any reason to believe he isn’t exactly who he appears to be, or that he isn’t here for exactly why he says he is.
Yet, I can’t let go of this disquiet in my heart where he’s concerned.
“I’m trying really hard to believe that your interest in me is genuine, Gage.”
He flinches, as if the statement physically hurts him. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because there are a lot of reasons people try to get close to the Hawkes…”
His back stiffens. “Like what?”
“Their money. Their power. Revenge.” That word hangs in the air between us like a bomb waiting to hit its mark. “You wouldn’t be the first one to show up and weasel your way in with an ulterior motive.”
That’s what Cass did with Kennedy and it almost destroyed her. It almost destroyed us. Then Allegra did the same with Coen, using their closeness to spy on him for her father, our greatest enemy.
It would be impossible not to be suspicious.
The truth is never as simple as people make it out to be.
It’s heavily layered.
Predicated on certain beliefs that themselves could be lies.
After everything that’s happened, I don’t think I have the strength to face the type of betrayal Kennedy did when Cass came clean or Coen suffered when Allegra did.
I don’t know that I’d survive it.
Gage is silent for a few seconds before he turns to fully face me. “The only reason I’m sitting on this blanket with you right now, Bishop, is because I want to be. Because I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting to be wherever you are.”
The sincerity in his words makes my chest tighten violently around my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
People don’t talk like that.
Men don’t say things like that to women like me.
I’ve always been the Tomboy, the one kicking asses instead of kissing them. I’ve never cared what anyone thought about me or what I was doing with my life. I’ve ignored the dirty looks from other women, the jibes tossed at me from men who were just insecure because I was stronger than them.
I’ll forever be thought of as a renegade for not following the path I should have, and I’ve embraced that. This is who I am and always wanted to be.
Yet, what Gage observed so easily is true. Since I became an adult, no one else has ever really taken care of me because I haven’t let them.
I’ve taken care of myself.
Any sexual connections I had couldn’t even be called relationships because they were always brief—hot, hard, and fast flings designed to satiate my momentary needs.
Never more than one or two nights in any one bed and never in mine.
Never opening up.
Never revealing anything about myself that matters.
Because ultimately, the life I lead isn’t one that leaves room for someone else.
Gage somehow sees that. Yet, he’s still here. Where he claims he wants to be. He sees me and isn’t scared away.
“Can I ask you something?” His voice wavers slightly, and I wait for him to continue. He takes another sip of the wine before he does. “What would’ve happened the other night if you hadn’t been at the club?”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “If you hadn’t been there and that creep had grabbed the girl, what would’ve happened?”
“I guess you would’ve intervened and our doorman probably would’ve put you on your ass, the same way I did, and then kicked you out. Unless he saw the whole thing and knew what you were doing. In that case, he would have thanked you and gotten you a free drink.”
He nods slowly. “So, either way, everything would have been handled.”
“I guess.”
“Meaning they can operate without you there.”
I lock my jaw because I can see exactly where this is going, and it is not a journey I particularly care to take right now.
Gage keeps pressing. “You’re not supposed to be working right now, are you?”
“No.”
“But I caught you walking into the club.”
“Yeah…”
“On your night off.”
With a huff, I throw up my hands. “What’s your point?”
He offers a little mirthless laugh. “My point is that you have to have something in your life outside of your job. I know they’re your family and you care about them, but you hire people to do certain tasks.
You delegate. You trust them to do it. And if you don’t, you’re going to burn yourself out or drive yourself mad trying to handle it all on your own. ”
His words sting more than they should because I know he’s right.
It isn’t anything I haven’t heard from Dad, Mom, Pope, and most of the rest of the family at some point over the last couple of years especially. But it doesn’t mean I want to discuss it with a man who is still a stranger to me.
Ugly truths are hard to face, and knowing I’m going to spend my life alone because I don’t know how to let anyone else in isn’t something I’m ready to stare down right now.
I grab my gun, shove it back in the holster, then push up to my feet and release a heavy sigh. “I appreciate the picnic, Gage, but what I don’t need is advice on how I live my life.”
“Bishop, wait.” He holds up a hand. “That’s not what I—”
“It is what you meant. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, showing up out of nowhere, stalking me, whisking me away on this…”—I spread my hands out over the blanket—“whatever this is. Just to offer commentary on something that you know nothing about.”
He opens his mouth to offer another apology or explanation, but I hold up my hand to stop him. If I let him keep going, any lingering good vibes still coursing through me from that orgasm will be long gone.
“I’ll see you around.”
Because something tells me he isn’t going to just walk away like I am right now.
Not until I explicitly ask him to.
And I don’t have that in me when my legs are still trembling and my body throbbing from release.
I pull my phone from my pocket and consider which one of the Hawkes to call to pick me up so that I’m not stuck on the back of that bike with my arms wrapped around that man tonight.