Was he strumming Eden with those hands?
The thought was literally agony, and nothing relieved that sort of agony—temporarily, anyway—except acting like a dick.
“Look, I think I get what’s going on here,” Jasper said soothingly, as if he was in the business of humoring plebeians like Gabe all the time, “beautiful women have a way of getting under a guy’s skin, brother. You didn’t expect to find her here withme, of all people. I know people like me can be pretty intimidating. Sorry if I wandered into your territory, but you know how it goes.”
This was many things: hilarious, insulting, condescending, annoying (brother?), and so wrong Gabe was very nearly tempted to laugh.
The “me of all people” was nearly farcical; it ground against his nerves, because (let’s face it), Gabe was already kind of thinking that: Jasper Townes, of all people.
Eden listened to this with her jaw dropped.
Then she clapped it shut again.
“I’m notanyone’s‘territory.’” Eden was getting more and more furious by the minute. Her jaw was white with tension.
Gabe, at the mercy of testosterone at the moment, longed to beg to differ regarding the territory bit, though he was pretty positive she wouldn’t enjoy that argument, and he knew in his rational mind that it wasn’t remotely true.
“Nice necklace,” he said instead, and pointed at the leather thong around Townes’s neck.
“Thanks, man,” Jasper said kindly.
“When I was a navy SEAL I learned not to wear the kind of jewelry the enemy could use as a garrote.”
Townes’s magnanimous plebeian-humoring expression froze.
And then gradually, his eyes got hard and speculative.
“Good word,garrote,” Gabe mused. “Maybe you should use it in a song. Rhymes with throat, bloat, high note, turncoat, showboat—”
BAM. Eden thumped her iced-tea glass on the table hard. “Gabriel. A word, if I may.”
“Wow, you used every syllable in my name. You sure we have time for that, Eden? Isn’t ‘brief’ what we do?”
He seemed to be channeling some glib macho monster. Every word that exited was both delicious and painful, as if he had a gut full of them, all icy and jagged, and saying them out loud brought a momentary relief.
Both Gabe and Jasper gave a start when Eden leaped from her chair, seized Gabe by the bicep with a surprisingly strong grip that owed some of its persuasion to fingernails, and frog marched him over to the corner by the currently silent jukebox. Frog-marching Gabe anywhere was not an easy feat.
She had the element of surprise on her side.
“I would ask you why you’re being such a dick, but we probably don’t have time for the answer.”
He stared at her, stunned.
“Damn,” he said, finally, impressed. That was some opener.
Despite himself he ferociously admired it. He admired fighters. And it was all the worse, because it just, perverse fool that he was, made him like her even more.
She barreled into that moment of stunned silence. “Gabe, I’m genuinely sorry I had to cancel on you andmeantit. And I’m sorry you had to run into me here with all your buddies, and for however you’re feeling now. I have a very good reason and I will explain it to you. But I’m not going to explain it to you now. I can’t.”
Her words were rushed and terse, only very faintly placating. She was furious and tense and on edge. Was it just about being caught with Townes?
Their gazes locked. He had a million questions, it felt like.
Suddenly he knew the right ones to ask.
“Would you have ‘explained it to me’ if you hadn’t run into me today?”
It was both the right question.