Thankfully, I hadn’t finished the whole drink, so the effects of whatever had been in it have mostly worn off, though I still felt faintly nauseous and dizzy.
I strip off the dress with shaky hands and pull on my pajamas before quietly making my way to Gabriel’s room. I knock softly on his door, but when there’s no answer, I nudge it open. The room is empty.
Dammit.
I pad down the steps to the living room to find him sprawled out on the couch, his eyes sealed shut, one large, tattooed and muscled arm tossed over his forehead.
For years after our parents passed away, Eden would have nightmares that would cause her to sleepwalk. One time when she was twelve, she’d opened the front door, still completelyasleep, and walked out onto the front lawn. She’d been dazed, confused and in tears when she woke up out there.
After that incident, Gabriel had been so worried she’d walk into traffic that he’d started sleeping on the couch every night until she was much older. A few years later she’d stopped, and he’d gone back upstairs to his bedroom. Now I’ve noticed that he only sleeps down here when he’s worried about us or stressed.
And seeing him here tonight, stretched out, long legs swallowing up the space, another wave of guilt floods my conscious.
I try to dig through my memories, searching for the last time I found him down here. It takes me a moment, but then it hits me. It was seven years ago, after his new marriage abruptly ended.
His wife had left him, unable to accept that Gabriel had chosen to take care of his sisters alongside her after the loss of our parents. He’d moved her into our house so that he could manage being a new husband and care for Eden, but she’d said she didn’t sign up to be a mother and promptly filed for divorce.
It’s another thing that’s weighed heavily on my conscious. And though Gabriel’s reassured me that it was for the best; they were young, and if she didn’t accept his family, he wasn’t interested, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to accept it without feeling some guilt that we contributed to the destruction of his marriage.
“Gabriel?” I whisper.
He lets out a sigh before pushing himself to sit upright. “Hey sis. How are you feeling?”
I pad over to the living room couch and sit down next to him shaking my head in embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry.” I lunge my body forward into his open arms that squeeze me tightly in a hug.
“It’s alright. I’m just glad you’re okay. I’m sorry if I was a little too hard on you on the train.”
“I don’t remember anything you said to me so it’s all good. Maybe you should repeat it.”
He laughs and releases his hold, searching my eyes before raking a hand through his short, dark hair. “It’s probably for the best. I’m just glad that woman was the one to find you and not whoever you were on a date with tonight.”
I want to clarify that it wasn’t a date, but at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter. I’m never going to see Rebel again.
“I feel like a fool.”
“You were drugged; it’s not your fault.”
“Yes, but I shouldn’t have gone out with him. Cain had warned me that the guy has a reputation.”
“Look…” He sighs heavily. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you for a while now.”
I sit up straighter.
“When mom and dad died, we both had to step up to take care of Eden. Seemingly overnight, we became parents to a ten-year-old. We both suffered the loss of our parents and the dissolution of our personal lives in separate ways. I lost Amber, and you lost the chance to just be a young, twenty-year-old who could go on dates and not stress about things like bills.”
“It was a good thing. I wasn’t on the straight and narrow path and look where my recklessness got us.”
Gabriel shoots me a look, reading my mind. “What happened to mom and dad wasn’t your fault, Rhiannon. Getting drunk and going out in the city is what everyone did in their twenties.”
I shake my head and try to change the subject before we gothereagain. The place I don’t want to go. The place that I’ve refused to go for eight, long years. The night of the accident that took my parents away from our family all because of me.
“I’m just sick to myself that I didn’t see it coming tonight. I thought it was a business meeting. Plus, he’s famous. I didn’t think the possibility of a date drug would even cross his mind.”
Gabriel nods, listening carefully. “You’re alright now. You’ll be more careful next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
