Page 82 of Battle Scars

I sigh and drop my fork into the bowl with a clank. I just don’t know what to do about Gabe. I feel like everything is coming to a head, and I don’t think it’s going to be good. In fact, I have a sinking feeling it’s going to be catastrophic.

“Don’t give up on him.”

I should let him go. I should move on. Focus on my career and let that be my life. Maybe Mom and I will grow old and be spinsters together. That sounds nice. Hugo would eat all of the food, but my life would be full of family and love and golden retrievers with poor table manners. What’s not to like about that?

But is it enough?

“Don’t give up on him.”

Shit, shit, shit.

It’s not. I want him. I want the way that he makes me feel when he smiles and the way he calls me baby when I cry. I want his broody moods and surly disposition. I want the way he makes love and then holds me afterward.

I want to heal his broken heart.

“Don’t give up on him.”

I’m in love with him.

I’m in love with Gabriel Navarro, and I have a feeling he gave his heart to a woman named Macy years ago. And when she died, he never got it back. I’m afraid that beautiful man doesn’t have a heart to give me because it’s already gone. He said he died when she did and just kept moving among the living until it’s his time to join her.

Until me.

He said I made him feel alive, but most of all, I just made him feel. Whether it’s right or wrong, I make him feel. I’m weak and selfish, and I want him for myself even though he never stopped loving Macy.

This line of thinking is getting me nowhere. I need to relax and get ready for tomorrow’s race. I cover the remnants of my dinner and move into the bathroom. I twist my long hair on top of my head and turn on the taps in the bathtub. Maybe a hot soak will ease some of the tension. Then again, maybe not.

I strip off my clothes and drop them to the floor, not caring where they fall. Usually, I like my space neat and orderly but tonight, I just don’t care. There’s way too much weighing on my mind. My dad always said, chaos in the home equals chaos of the mind—I feel that but backward. My mind is jumbled and it’s bleeding out all around me.

I bend over the tub and run my hand under the tap to check the temperature, letting out a little squeak when a large body wraps around me from behind and nuzzles the side of my neck.

“You scared me.”

“No one is going to get past Eli, and you know it,” Gabe says.

“You did,” I remind him.

“I’m different,” he says. And isn’t that just the crux of all my problems? Gabe is different. If he was just like everyone else, everyone who wants a piece of me or to get to my dad, every man who didn’t really care about me or make me feel like I mattered, then he wouldn’t matter, but he does. Gabe makes me come alive.

And I’m in love with him.

I’m not falling, because I already fell. Isn’t that just a kick in the balls?

He reaches around me and shuts off the tap. “You can have a bath later. Now, I’m hungry.”

“You can have my pasta on the table,” I say helpfully, even though there’s no doubt that’s not what he’s asking for as one of his hands slides up from around my waist and plays with my nipple.

“That’s not what I’m hungry for.”

“Well then, what are you hungry for?” An electric current has taken hold of my body.

“You.”

He scoops me up in his arms and carries me back into the bedroom. He’s turned the lights down low and pulled the curtains. The funny thing about Vegas hotel rooms is if the curtains are drawn, you’ll never know what time of day it is. It’s always dark, because that’s where the sins happen.

He lays me on the bed, and I watch as he strips off his shirt and then his jeans. He already kicked off his boots by the door before he surprised me in the bathroom. I watch him, his beautiful body on display just for me to appreciate. And he is beautiful, scars and all.

It feels like a fist clenches my heart. I’m so in love with this man, and he’s not mine to keep. I can’t let him know I’m not okay. He’ll end things before we come together, and like an addict for him, I will always want one last time.