Page 61 of Battle Scars

TWENTY-FOUR

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Gabe

San Diego, California

What the fuck was that? Adrienne’s flying around the track like a pack of demons are on her ass and won’t let up. She’s driving like she has a death wish and I’m a fucking idiot.

I’ve seen this before on the battlefield—soldiers who no longer care if they live or die. Hell, I was there myself after Macy died and if it hadn’t been for Manny, I would have followed her.

With Adrienne, I thought God was giving me a second chance at life, but that was just what I wanted to see. I wanted her and I wanted to believe that she was mine for the taking. That we were right and real and that it would all work out.

But I know I can’t do this again. I can’t love someone else who’s on the fast track to dying and if she keeps acting the way she is today, she will.

I’d watched the sweetest girl I’d ever known wither before my eyes and die and there was not one goddamn thing I could do to stop it.

But this? This is a choice.

Without a doubt, she’ll rip my heart out one day if we keep going down this path, but it won’t be cancer this time, it’ll be these toxic levels of bullshit that tear us apart. The smart thing to do would be to walk away, be done with her once and for all, but I can’t. She calls to me like a siren, and it’ll be on the rocky cliffs where she’ll leave me battered and broken, if I let her.

I watch her come rolling to the side of the track and hop out of her car in time for one of the mechanics to rip her a new one. Honestly, I want to do the same. What the fuck was she thinking?

The harsh truth is she wasn’t. Because if she was, then she wanted to die and I can’t wrap my mind around that.

She looks spitting mad when she walks away from her friend. I get it, sometimes it’s hard to hear things we don’t want to hear.

I’ve heard everyone say that I didn’t die with Macy, that I could still have everything I’ve ever wanted, but that wasn’t the hard truth. I can’t have it all. And this isn’t healing, this is only hurting, both of us, and I can’t do it anymore.

But as I step into her path as she comes into the garage, trading more barbs with her, I realize something else. I might not be able to have her forever, but I can have her one more time. I can take one last hit of my drug, one last drag of that cigarette, and savor my addiction before I give her up for good.

I let out a breath and mutter, “Fuck it.”

“What?” she asks, taken off guard.

Good, I’m off plan too.

“You already hate me,” I tell her.

“I don’t hate you.”

Surprising because lately, I hate myself. And I hate her and how out of control she makes me feel, how reckless she can be with her safety, with my job, with our whole fucking lives.

“So it won’t matter if I fuck you now,” I tell her. “You can go back to hating me after.”

I kiss her, not giving her the chance to ask after what, because that issue is one we’ve been dancing around for days, weeks.

After.

After us.

She can, and most likely will, hate me when I’m gone and that’s fine. She’ll move on then and find some nice guy who will follow her around like a sappy puppy and pump her full of little race car loving babies.

I hate the thought of her with another man even though I’ll likely be drinking myself into an early grave back in Texas, while she’s making those babies with some boring halfwit. So, with a growl on my lips still pressed against hers, I hoist her up, wrapping her legs around my hips. I can feel the heat of her pretty pussy pressed up against my heavy cock, and she moans when she feels me between her legs.

That’s right baby, I have what you need, not some nameless dickweed.

I touch her all over, up and down the sides of her body, like a man possessed because that’s exactly what I am. That’s what she’s made me. She puts her hands on my face to return the kiss, to deepen our connection like she can’t get enough of me either.