Return to Me (Breaking Free Book 2) Page 12

  “I doubt your destiny was to work at Mcdonalds in Trenton, South Carolina.”

  “Destiny is bullshit.”

  “No it’s not. Maybe you just haven’t found your destiny yet.”

  “Maybe I already found it, and I squandered it.”

  “Squandered? What kind of word is that?”

  “It’s a word in the dictionary. It means I threw it away. I wasted it. You really are an idiot.”

  “And I’m a pig, and this piggish idiot thinks you’ve wasted enough time recouperating from exhaustion, and not just because Brent told me to say that. Sitting around thinking about shit, it’s not good for anybody.”

  “I might be more motivated to get back to work if I wasn’t doing another Sinful clone.”

  “Is that what you’re planning?”

  “That’s what Brent has planned for me.”

  “Why don’t you do something you want? If this is gonna be your last hoorah, you might as well.”

  I shake my head and stare down at my hometown far below. “I signed a shitty contract before I knew any better. I have to sell a certain number of seats for tour. If I attempt something like Imperfect again, I’ll be on the road for a fucking year.”

  “Imperfect was a good album, Trin, and I’m not just saying that because I was on it.”

  “It didn’t sell.”

  “The next one might.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m willing to bet a year of my life on might.”

  A few hours later Kane prepares to leave with Brent, who is going to drop him off at the airport before returning to Charlotte. “Thank you,” I tell Brent, giving him a big hug. “I don’t know how I would’ve got through this without you.”

  “Anytime. You need to come down and see Sue and me soon. She’s been asking about you.”

  “I’ll try.” I have no doubt that if my mother hadn’t just passed, he’d be hounding me to get back in the studio, or lose some weight. I’m sure I’ll be getting a call from him sometime very soon.

  Kane embraces me as well. “Maybe I’ll see you in Nashville soon.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ve got my number. Don’t be a stranger.”

  Little by little people began to depart until only Charity and I remained. Faith quietly shared some of my concerns earlier. Is she really going to be okay in that house on her own? In either case, she can stay with me for a bit, and I can have someone swing by my mother’s old place to move that hospital bed and other stuff.

  Charity is already upstairs tinkering around in my music room. Despite the sound proof insulation around the space, I can faintly make out the low, somber moan of violin. Maybe she doesn’t cry, and didn’t admit to being sad, but it’s obvious she’s going through something.

  Just as I was closing the door behind Faith, one of the police cruisers pulls up through the open gate. I’m equal parts hoping it’s Gabe, and hoping it’s not. Maybe I will eventually end up moving to Jamaica, or Brazil. Some far flung place where I’ll never chance seeing him again.

  “Is that everyone?” Gabe asks.

  I swing the door open wider for him to come in out of the cold. “You must be freezing. You’ve been standing out there for hours.”

  “Nah. We took turns sitting in the cruiser.”

  “Still… Thank you.”

  “I was only doing my job. Donovan just took off, and all those reporters have given up I think.”

  “Do you want some of this food to take home? My manager went way overboard. There’s too much. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all.”

  Shut up, Trin. Stop babbling, and let him get home to his wife.

  Gabe shakes his head. “How did it go?”

  “The wake? As well as those things usually go.” I smile down towards the tips of my pointed shoes. I can’t wait to take these things off. They are so fucking uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to one before.”

  “Is that a wig?” he asks with a small laugh. “I know it hasn’t grown that much since I saw you last.”

  “Nope. It’s real hair. It’s just not my hair. Brent, my manager, he was afraid they’d get a picture of me looking like a mess.” Why am I so nervous? I’m not usually a nervous person. “It’s extensions. It’s fake.” I left up my hair to show him the sections braided and wove in beneath. “It took forever.”

  “Huh. I never knew there was such a thing,” he says. I drop the thick veil of hair. A piece falls forward, and Gabe reaches a hand out to tuck it behind my ear with icy fingers. I shiver at the touch. He’s standing near enough I can feel the cold rolling off him, but I am suddenly warm all over.

  Why is he standing so close? Why is he looking at me like that? Go home to Leah.

  “Do you want some coffee to warm up?” What the fuck am I doing? He’s married. I have no business inviting him in for anything. I should just thank him for his time, and send him on his way. “Actually it’s kind of late for coffee, but... I have hot chocolate I think.”

  Gabe opens his mouth, doesn’t speak for a second. I’m sure he’s about to decline, then he shrugs.

  I step out of my shoes, and leave them in the foyer. Gabe follows me through to the kitchen. He takes his coat off, and drapes it over one of the kitchen chairs while I fill the electric tea kettle with water. “You weren’t kidding,” he says, eyeing the serving trays of food remaining.

  “You should take it. I hate to throw it out.” I open and close cabinets, looking for the hot cocoa mix. I know I have some around here somewhere. “It’s so wasteful to… waste all that.”

  I swear I can almost feel his eyes on me, but I doubt he’s looking at me the way I wish he’d look at me. He’s probably afraid I’m about to go mental again. I bet he came in because he’s worried about me. Gabe is too good to come in for any other reason.

  Not that it matters much one way or the other. Maybe I made my fortune pretending to be sinful, and perhaps I have been sinful in my time, but there are lines I will never cross. Fooling around with a married man is definitely one of them.

  “How are you handling everything, Trin?”

  Yup. He’s just here out of concern. He wants to make sure I’m not about to dive off the deep end. I locate the hot chocolate mix, and turn around to face him.

  God, he looks good. The dark lashes surrounding his eyes make them appear brighter, bluer than blue. If I hadn’t known him since forever I’d almost swear they were contacts, but they’re the real thing all right. There is a faint shadow of stubble along the squareness of his jaw that I bet would feel sooo nice against my palm, or maybe scratching up along my inner thigh right before he… What the fuck is wrong with me? He’s married, Trin. Gabe is married, and not to you.

  “I’m doing okay,” I say in a somewhat shaky voice. “The truth is, I haven’t seen her for years until recently.”

  “You were never that close.”

  “No, we weren’t.”

  “Still… you’re really doing okay?”

  “I’m not about to fly over the cuckoo’s nest again, Gabe.”

  He shoves his hands in his pockets, and smiles down towards the space between us. There’s only a measly three feet separating us. Why is he standing so close? Why does three feet feel like way too far away? “Trin, that’s not what I meant.”

  After a bit of difficulty, I rip open the foil and paper packets of powder mix and shake them out into two porcelain mugs. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

  “I’m glad I was there. You needed someone, and now you’re better, right?”

  “Right,” I whisper. “And thank you for calling my dad that night. I know I wasn’t saying thanks then, but… thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” The violin soars on a high, sustained note upstairs. Gabe’s eyes track towards the ceiling. “Is that your boyfriend up there practicing or something?”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “That Kane guy.”

  I huff a laugh. “He’s not my boyfriend. Don’t
you remember from my little tantrum that night. He wasn’t my real boyfriend anyways. That’s Charity.”

  “Oh, I saw him heading up earlier.”

  I roll my eyes. “My manager, who is also his manager, called him in to try and talk me into getting back to work.”

  His face scrunches up. “At your mother’s wake?”

  “Yeah. I’m not making anybody any money sitting around up here.” The tea kettle whistles. I snatch it up, and fill two mugs.

  “That guy seems like a creep.”

  “Kane?”

  “No, Brent.”

  “They’re both creeps in their own way,” I say with a small laugh, pawing through the drawer for two spoons. “But Brent’s okay. He’s got the label breathing down his neck, that’s the only reason why, but he takes care of me when it counts.”

  “I guess I don’t know how any of it works.” Gabe takes the spoon from my hand, his fingers brushing over my knuckles briefly.

  We’re not doing anything wrong, I remind myself. We’re just too old friends having a cup of hot cocoa. What’s so scandalous about that?

  “I didn’t get how it worked for a long time either. I still don’t sometimes.” I sound so breathless, but standing this close to him makes it hard to draw in air. One of us should take a step back, but he’s the one who’s married, not me. He should be the one.

  For a long beat there is nothing but the sound of metal clinking against porcelain as we stir. Even his hands are sexy, big, strong, with the faintest smattering of dark hair across the top knuckles which I don’t remember him having before.

  The last time we were together, he was eighteen, a man but still a boy in some ways. He’s the same, but also different now. What I wouldn’t give to find out all the ways he’s different, but I’m not going to, because he’s married, and I’m not a homewrecking skank.

  I take a tentative sip of the scalding liquid. It’s still way too hot, something I think Gabe realizes as well since he sets the cup back on the counter beside mine. I smile at him, and he returns the gesture. I can’t think of a single thing to say. No, that’s a lie. I know what I should say - Go home, Gabe.

  “You really can’t tell it’s not real,” he says, touching my hair again. His fingers brush along my neck. Is he doing this on purpose? Maybe it’s all innocent on his part. I’m reading into things. “It feels real.”

  He’s not looking at my fake hair that feels real. His eyes are locked on mine. They sweep down to my mouth, and his tongue darts out to flick across his bottom lip. The warmth of his palm curves against the side of my neck. I feel like I’m breathing fast. I am. I’m breathing way too fast to tell him to get his hand off me, to stop looking at me like he wants to eat me alive.

  God, help me. I want to be eaten alive.

  His eyes flick up to mine. He’s waiting for me to tell him to stop. I should. I’m going to. He leans in slow, giving me every opportunity to pull back. I’m going to pull back. In just one more second.

  I don’t tell him to stop, and I don’t pull back.

  His lips brush up against mine, soft, tentative, so achingly familiar I could cry. I hum a tiny moan under my breath as the kiss deepens. After so long I’d almost convinced myself that I imagined the way his mouth felt against mine. Nothing could be that perfect. Surely I’d built it up in my mind over the years, but it is perfect. Our lips fit together just right, like his were made to kiss mine. He said that to me before, that we were made for each other.

  He said that to me.

  Maybe he said the same thing to Leah.

  But he said it to me first.

  They have a baby together. Gabe has a family.

  Trinity Adah, you’re kissing a married man.

  I tear my lips off his, shove him back by the chest. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Gabe’s mouth gapes. After a moment to recover, he stammers, “Y-You’re right. You’re vulnerable right now. You just lost your mother, but you were giving me a... look. I thought.”

  Wiping a hand over my lips, I can still taste him. Why did I let him kiss me? What was I thinking? That kiss is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. “M-Maybe I was. I probably shouldn’t have invited you in to begin with, but… do you go around kissing every woman who looks at you?”

  His eyebrows pinch together in confusion, and he shakes his head quickly.

  “I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a homewrecking skank. Gabe, you need to leave. You need to go home to your family.”

  There is a huge amount of white around the piercing blue of his eyes. “I got divorced.”

  “You did?”

  He nods.

  “Oh.” I blink at him a few times as that sinks in. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Gabe starts to crack up. “Don’t be.”

  “Shit. I thought you were a scumbag, and I thought I was…” I suck in a few deep lungfuls of air. “Don’t you hate me?”

  Shaking his head, he closes the short gap between us in one step, and presses his palms against either sides of my face. “Of course I don’t hate you.”

  Is this real? Is this actually happening? He tips my head back, kisses me again, and it is so real. My lips part beneath his, and every day between then and now melts away. I knew I missed him, but I don’t think I realized how bad until this moment. How did I get through all those days without him?

  Not well. I didn’t do well at all without Gabe in my life.

  Some small sound alerts us both to the fact that we’re not alone. We break apart, and my eyelids drift open to see Charity peering at us from across the kitchen island. She’s pulling apart some of those mini sandwiches, but this time she is eating the tiny squares of cheese from the middle and setting the remains in little stacks off to the side.

  “Hi, Gabe.”

  Gabe clears his throat. “Hi, Charity.”

  “How’s your Jeep running?”

  He swallows back a small laugh. “Just perfect thanks to you.”

  I widen my eyes at her, make a face, trying to silently get across the message that she should skedaddle, but of course my intended message misses the mark.

  “Did you ever get the transmission fluid changed?” she asks.

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s overdue.”

  “I’ll have to bring it in my next day off.”

  Charity nods, and I resort to making a small motion with a finger while Gabe isn’t looking. Her eyes flick between us. “Oh, were you two about to have sex?”

  Gabe grins towards the floor and shakes his head. “Actually it’s getting kind of late.” His eyes raise to mine. “You two have had a long day, but maybe tomorrow we can… I would say go get coffee and talk, but…”

  “Maybe we can stay in and have coffee.”

  Gabe nods.

  “Let me walk you out.”

  I don’t want him to leave. There is a part of me, a very big part, that wouldn’t mind dragging him upstairs to my room right now, but that’s foolish. We haven’t talked in years, and everything is different, plus Charity is here, and as unaffected by recent events as she seems, I know better.

  We walk to the door, but neither of us makes a motion to open it. He grasps my hands, and stares down to where we are connected.

  “How can you not hate me?” I ask.

  “I’ve never hated you.”

  “I was such a bitch.”

  “It was a hard day. We were both… that was a long time ago, Trin.”

  With his lips against mine it was easy to imagine all that time vanishing, but there is a huge gap between then and now. So many complications. “How is this going to work?”

  “I’m not afraid of a few photographers.”

  “Your family hates me.”

  “They’re not too pleased with me nowadays either.”

  “Why?”

  “The divorce mostly.”

  I roll my eyes. “Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re just going to talk.”


  Gabe nods at me, but there is a glow to his eyes, and the same awestruck expression I must be wearing. I think the chance that we’re just going to talk is slim to none.

  “Do you have a bathing suit I can wear?” Charity asks from the open archway leading out from the foyer.

  “What the… why do you want a bathing suit?” I ask, barely able to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

  “I was going to get in the hot tub.”

  “I need to clean that thing out, Charity. I haven’t used it in forever.”

  “I can do it.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” My eyes flick back over to Gabe. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He nods and presses his mouth to the corner of mine in a chaste kiss that might’ve easily been more if Charity wasn’t standing there. “See you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 16

  Gabe

  “What the hell am I thinking?” I say towards the window as the bare winter trees slide past in a blur.

  “You’re thinking that you’re gonna get a piece of pop star pussy.”

  “Shut the hell up, Shane.”

  “I’m just messing with you, man.” Shane angles the car onto Low Mountain Pass, driving us away from the center of town. We’re headed to Misty Flats, a neighboring town even smaller than Trenton, situated right at the edge of our jurisdiction. It’s nothing but a tiny bait shop and boat rental place, an all-in-one convenience store, with a lake surrounded by a few rental properties and some tiny, weekend vacation cabins. “So you two were really gonna get married?” he asks.

  “Who told you that?”

  “She did.”

  “Huh?”

  “We ran into each other a few days ago at the gas station.”

  I’m not at all shocked that Shane spotted her and struck up a conversation. He talks to everyone, but I am surprised that Trin shared this detail with him. “That was a long time ago. We were just kids.”

  “That’s what she mentioned. What happened?”

  I shake my head towards the windshield. What happened was, Trin dumped my ass right outside that clinic when I didn’t want to drive off into the sunset with her.