She nods. “At this point, something stronger couldn’t hurt.”
“Bad day?” I ask with a smile. Maybe knowing a little something about her would be better than telling her anything about me. She already knows enough about me based on the cut. Yet, she still came walking towards me.
“That doesn’t begin to cut it.”
“Will your sister mind if we have a drink together?”
Pretty Gabby looks over her shoulder to check on the woman who must be her sister. Looks like her sister is pretty thoroughly occupied with the phone. My luck. I pat the seat next to me, encouraging the best thing I’ve seen since coming to Boston to pop a squat next to me. I haven’t done this in a while.
“She won’t.” Gabby says, and she sits next to me, flooding me with a sense of relief and the perfect scent of whatever perfume she has on.The woman smells good.
“Good. Then you can tell me all about that bad day of yours.” The fiercely protective urge to end the life of whoever hurt this woman passes through me like a tremor. But I feel the urge and wonder if it’s my fatherly instincts kicking in or something deeper. Gabby’s face softens and I sense hidden pain behind herverybeautiful face.
“Trust me, you don’t want to hear about it.” Her lashes flutter nervously and her soft, dark brown eyes drop away from mine. The sharp yearning to pull her back into my gaze wells up in me as well as a foolish, jealous question.
“Boyfriend piss you off?”
“Worse.”
My heart sinks as I lose the stupid game I played.Fuck, she has a boyfriend.
“He cheated on me. So he’s my ex-boyfriend. I found out today.”
Gabby bites down on her lower lip to keep words back or possibly tears. I hate to reopen a long closed wound, but I know how much it hurts when somebody breaks their word and shatters the sanctity of your relationship.
I used to tell myself that things would never be the same again because we could build something better from the hurt. That thought feels stupid and I realize that I’ve been quiet too long and I don’t want to say anything to scare Gabby away. I can’t imagine she trusts men right now.
Not when the hurt is still so raw.
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
I mean it, but I’m afraid to say anything more. I’ve never cheated on Tylee, and I would never cheat on any woman I love. Couldn’t imagine causing that much hurt, especially with kids of my own.
“I’ll be fine.”
Her voice almost cracks, but I can tell from looking at Gabby that she’s tough. It’s the quiet kind of toughness that might now always get the recognition it deserves, but I see it for what it is – true quiet strength.
Even if she’s a total stranger, it’s hard not to reach over and take her hand.
“You don’t have to be fine,” I tell her, and then meaning it with every fiber of my being. “He’s an idiot to hurt you like that. Any man who breaks his vow of loyalty to a woman and hurts her after she puts her trust in him deserves the worst.”
There might be tears welling in her eyes now, but Gabby does her best to push them back. She takes a neat sip of her whiskey. I catch myself staring a touch too long at her lips. I sip my own drink, hoping to stop something fucking stupid from coming out of my mouth.
“It doesn’t feel that way right now. It feels like… I’m never going to find someone again,” she says, glancing over at me vaguely apologetic. “Sorry if that’s too much.”
Too much? This woman doesn’t know the kind of shit I’m dealing with and this is far from too much. I have worse baggage than she could ever imagine. Not like it would make much sense to tell her.
Doesn’t change the fact that I understand Gabby more than she recognizes. I can’t imagine a woman in her right mind who would want the type of baggage I’ve got right now. Tylee and I aren’t officially divorced – she won’t sign the papers until she gets more money. That’s just the start of the bad shit.
My situation with the kids is a mess. I have a debt to pay off, which is why I’m out here in the first place. Everything about my life is too fucked up for me to torture a woman like Gabby with it. I would be lucky to get a shot with her – and even luckier that my dad, Randall, is dead and couldn’t lose his mind over it.
The other club members used to tease me that I never had to worry about my taste in women because I kept my marriage in the club. At forty-one years old and freshly single, I wonder if I would have been better off cutting my losses earlier.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her. “Any guy would be crazy not to hold onto you.”
She laughs like she thinks I’m just telling her a line that she wants to hear. I can’t remember ever being the type of man to do such a thing and wouldn’t start now with her even if I was.
“I’m serious.”