A quick peek shows the same three girls who confronted me earlier going white then red as they peg Gabe. Mouths pop open then firm into frowns.
“I’m not even on your team,” I breathe.
His nostrils flare, and I tremble as his hot breath hits my ear. “No. But I’m always on your team.”
My barriers crumble a little more. They’ve been wearing down in inches since he walked away from me the last time.
Slowly, Gabe retreats, peering over his shoulder to be sure it’s clear, then there’s feet between our bodies instead of inches.
He gives me another charged look before he makes his way to the time out zone, and my face must be steaming from my blush.
Taking in my surroundings, I catch Greyson again, watching me with a knowing smile before he nods and runs off toward the Lodge.
He’s got their flag in hand twenty minutes later and our team wins, which means everyone crowds into the first floor of the Lodge, filling the front three rooms with people eating and drinking the snacks we prepared.
More whispers are spreading, and they’re harder to ignore as I hear my name paired with the guys’ names.
This is exactly what I didn’t want. What I’d been trying to avoid in returning home.
But it’s not like I can stop the town from talking with how discrete those three are being.
I’m halfway through my cocoa and grabbing a fresh cookie as the gossip grows louder. It’s hard to tune it out, but I try.
“Did you see the way Gabe grabbed her?”
“Greyson must be fuming.”
“Adam’s not even hiding it anymore.”
The cocoa’s suddenly too sweet, the air too warm, and the walls too close.
Then, it’s impossible.
A middle-aged woman I don’t recognize shakes her short hair from her face and spreads her feet to stand off with me as I turn from the refreshment table.
“Girls like you don’t last long here,” the woman says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You’ll stir up trouble then leave someone’s son in pieces.”
Something in me snaps. The cocoa flies before I can think twice, splattering across her fur collar. I point at her with an accusing finger. “You’re the real problem with small towns. But I can’t expect your son to have any respect when you don’t have any to teach him with.”
The room freezes. Gasps spread like wildfire. I should be mortified, but I’m not.
I’m angry. Fuming.
Gabe’s hand closes around my arm, and my feet are moving under me before I can catch up mentally.
He drags me off, down the hall to our offices. I peer behind me to catch Adam stalking his way after us, a stern frown on his face.
Greyson’s voice carries, “Alright, everyone take a breath. Let’s remember it’s been a long day, and hot cocoa’s for drinking, not dueling.”
I don’t get to hear the rest of it, but I know he’s doing damage control.
Gabe takes me to Adam’s office, and being closed in with them both doesn’t help settle the fury raging inside me. I pull free of Gabe’s grip and run my hands through my hair, grabbing fistfuls to redirect my emotions.
“I am so sick of everyone treating my life like it’s something for them to be entertained by. That they’re allowed to voice their criticisms like that. It’s my life. And people shouldn’t be privy to every piece of it. I’m a person, damn it.”
God, I hate that Gabe’s looking at me like he did when I was a kid. Like he wants to fix it, like he wants to take my sadness away, but he can’t. That it destroys him inside knowing there’s nothing he can do. But there is.
There always has been.
