“I’m not finished.” My clothes are half on, but my hands are shaking. This isn’t his fault. I suck in deep breaths through my nose and out through my mouth, reminding myself again that I can’t blame him. This is on me. I’m the one fresh out of adivorce. I should have stopped him from falling and getting too attached.
I was the one who blurred the lines. He helped me find my way back, made me feel again—he did me a favor by helping me come, many times, and now by giving me a place to live while my electricity is being fixed. I don’t get to be mad about any of this. I don’t get to be mad about what I’m starting to feel for him too. I just need to stop it.
"I just need—" I pick up my keys from the nightstand. "I need to think. I need space to think, and I can't think in here with you looking at me like that."
“Like what?”
I pause in the doorway. He’s still naked, his strong body stretched out on the top of his bed but he’s sitting up now, and his hands are on his head like he doesn’t know what to say to get me to stay.
“Like you’re not scared.”
“Aly,” he says, reaching for me but I step away from his grip. His hand drops to the bed. That sad look crosses his face again. I hate that I put it there.
“I like you. A lot. And I’m scared too. But not enough to pretend I don’t want this the way that you are,” he finishes.
I freeze. The back of my throat aches like I’m getting sick. Maybe that’s why there’s tears in my eyes.Yeah, right.
Then I shake my head, swallowing hard. “No.” My voice wobbles, but I force it steady. “That’s not what’s happening here. No more of this while I’m living here. We’ve got—what—five more days? We can do that. No more getting naked with each other.”
I shut the conversation down with a firm nod, then walk out his bedroom without waiting for a response.
I need togo.
I need space.
My hands shake around the steering wheel as I start my drive to Hartford.
I did this to myself. I blurred every line I drew and did it willingly.Selfishly. I can’t be angry at him for being exactly who he’s been from the moment I first kissed him in the back of that bar. He’s never once pretended to be someone else.
Gabriel helped me see thatnot all men are bad.But now, I need to remind myself thatnot all men are Gabriel. Not all men are good guys who want to take care of you. Guys who eat pussy like it’s their last meal and check-in just because they’re thinking of you. Ones who make you feel likethis. Like you might be losing something that’s valuable.
Some men are cheaters. Liars. Bastards who break hearts for sport. That’s what I remind myself as I merge onto the highway and turn the radio up louder.
And that’s the part that scares me the most.
Chapter 29: Gabriel
“I think I can get this all done in three days if I don’t take too many breaks,” Travis says, snapping the breaker box shut in Natasha and Aly’s home.?
I nod, shaking his hand. “Appreciate it, man. You’re doing me and my cousin a solid.”
It’s Monday. Which means Aly and Natasha are both at work. My cousin gave me a key to the house so I could let my electrician in and have him take a look around, figure out what it’ll cost to get their power fixed and running again. Not that Natasha will be paying for it. I already know that bill’s landing on me. In exchange, he’ll get some free manual labor when he needs work done at his own place.
For what this house needs, Natasha could never afford it anyway. And I know she already cut Aly a break on rent because she needed the help, which was a hell of a lot kinder than she had to be. This is just what we do for family. Yeah, sometimes it burns us out. But it’s worth it to take care of the people we love the most.
Travis smiles and tosses a voltage tester into his tool clipbefore shutting his toolbox.
I’ve known Travis since college. We both got degrees we hated at NYU, spent years pretending they were worth it, only to find real joy, and real money, working blue-collar jobs. We tossed those expensive diplomas to the side like they hadn’t gutted us financially and mentally and started doing what we loved. We’ve never looked back since.
He’s a solid man. Single dad to a three-year-old with a woman he got pregnant a few years back accidentally. Made the mutual decision not to marry and they’ve both been splitting custody and time amicably from what he’s shared. No drama, no regrets. Like I said, solid guy all around.
“How was your Valentine’s Day weekend?” he asks as he heads into the kitchen to check something else that I added to his list. I follow behind him, my mind instantly flashing back to the night spent with Alessia before she ran away from me like she’d seen a ghost.
That night. That moment when I thought I had her—when she was falling apart in my arms, unraveling like maybe I’d gotten through her hard exterior and she was ready to admit her feelings. That I could finally tell her everything I was feeling and everything I wanted to have with her.
Then she said it.
‘What are we even doing, Gabriel?’
