Well, thanks so much, Logic griped.
“You can’t forget I was there when you took that last hit,” Gabe continued. “And I didn’t miss you’re a fighter, not a survivor. In the midst of that fiasco, you extorted a marker from a United States Congressman after he kidnapped you, for chrissakes.”
I did do that.
Ugh!
Why was I so awesome?!
“I was pissed as shit after our first kiss that you were letting that asshole fuck with your head. That wasn’t you. I knew it wasn’t, and I said some things I wish I didn’t,” he admitted. “But you didn’t let him break you. You licked your wounds, but even while you were doing that, you got on with it.”
I did that too.
GAH!
“Oh yeah, I really fuckin’ get you’d hesitate and overthink jumping into it again with another guy,” he stated. “But that just makes you a woman who’s got a brain in her head who’s capable of thinking things through, which means you’re capable of maturity and growth. And clue in, Willow, that is far from unattractive too.”
I was totally going to have to start underachieving, and soon.
He leveled his gaze on me. “It’s if you let him cow you. If you let him change you. If you let him define the course of the rest your life, well, obviously, baby, that’s when I’m gonna have a problem.”
I opened my mouth, though I had no clue what I’d say, because I had every intention of letting Kevin do that, but now that Gabe laid it out like that, I wasn’t so sure.
But he wasn’t done, and he’d saved the zinger for last.
“And just guessin’, never met the woman, but even with the little I know, I’d say your mom would have a problem with it too. She took her hits and still found her happy. Though, giving up is not the daughter she raised, of that I’m certain.”
Oh my God!
He pulled The Mom Card!
Dammit, if I hadn’t worked so hard for all my stuff, no matter where it came from, or how cheap it was, I’d throw something at him.
I was not a competitive person.
But it sure sucked to be around someone who was always right when you were fighting a corner that you’d been pretty sure about, but it seemed you were wrong.
Instead of throwing something at him, I changed my mind and thanked my lucky stars I was an overachiever, because I had more.
“Right then, let’s talk about how dangerous your job is,” I said.
He took his arms from the couch to rest his hands in his lap and retorted, “Yeah, and let’s talk about you getting kidnapped because you’re a member of a girl gang of vigilantes with a mysterious benefactor and a headquarters in a storage unit that’s cooler than the Batcave.”
Whoops!
Perhaps that wasn’t an effective maneuver.
“Yeah,” he said softly like he read my thoughts. Then he stated, “But this has to be out there, might as well put it out there now. We’re contractually bound to offer confidentiality to our clients. It’ll be rare I can talk in any depth about my work. Like it’s rare it’s dangerous. But rare is not never, and you gotta know, shit happens. You also gotta know, when that shit happens, it doesn’t come as a surprise. We don’t get blindsided. Ever.”
Not ever?
Interesting.
“So something like that comes up,” he carried on, “Mace and Moses put their heads together, and they plan for every eventuality they can think of. Which means we got plan A, plan B, plan C, and so on. And the team is tight. There are decades of experience working in it. So I’m not gonna try to convince you what I do is like having a desk job. In fact, me and all the men avoid going into the office because paperwork sucks, and the Shirleen/Marjorie feud is ramping up and we want nothing to do with it.”
And ooooooo…
Interesting.
