to enter the bed. One second I was standing there, the next Gabe knifed up, his big hands were on my hips, then I was up and over him.
“Damn, you’re strong,” I muttered.
Gabe didn’t answer. He rolled me to my side, tucked me close, my head landed on his pec, then he pulled my arm over his stomach.
“First, you said something earlier and I need you to know I feel the same.”
I’d said a lot of things earlier, so I wasn’t sure what Gabe was talking about but I didn’t get to ask before he started again. “I think you already get I’m falling for you, but just in case I wasn’t clear I need to be now. No fuckin’ way would I ask you to take a chance on us and explore what’s between us if I wasn’t already sure. I did fight it, Evette. I tried to do right by you and keep my distance. When that was no longer going to work, I tried to bury how I feel about you. And I was doing a bang-up job reminding myself of all the reasons why we couldn’t be together. But I can’t do it. And not because of what Zane said, or Cooper. Because I know to my soul letting you go will be my biggest mistake. I’ll go to my grave regretting it. There’s no explanation, no way to rationalize it, no logic. It is what it is. I feel how I feel and I’m not going to give any headspace to wondering how the hell I fell for you with a look. I just need you to know that I did and it means a fuckuva lot to me that you’re taking a chance on me.”
There was so much there—all of it filled me up with happiness. But I didn’t understand why he felt that staying away from me was the right thing to do.
“What do you mean do right by me?”
Gabe was silent for a good long while. His arm around me had gone stiff and his hand on my hip had stopped skimming. He was holding himself perfectly still and I didn’t understand that either.
“You understand I’m falling in love with you?” he asked in a whisper.
I closed my eyes and savored those words. I let them settle and permeate, infuse and take root.
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“I also think you understand by what Zane said I have issues with money. But, honey, I have serious fucking issues.”
“Oh…kay. What kinda issues?”
“I spent years homeless and that’s not something you ever forget the taste of. I was young and powerless and watched my mom struggle. She did everything she could and it still wasn’t good enough. Not because she drank, injected, or gambled her money away. Not because she didn’t work hard. So on top of being homeless and powerless, I was also taught that life just plain sucked. You could work hard, be a good person, and still get fucked. My dad died, my mom couldn’t hack it, and shit spiraled.
“I didn’t play sports in school, didn’t go to a dance, an afterschool club, barely graduated high school. Not because I wasn’t interested or stupid but because I was dog-assed tired, falling asleep in class, and had no time for homework. I would’ve failed out if I hadn’t passed every test put in front of me in every subject. When I could I got a job to help and that happened when I was thirteen, working under the table at a pizza place grating cheese in the back and cleaning up after closing. It was shit money seeing as I was underage with no work permit. The owners could pay me well below minimum wage but at least it meant I could eat every day.”
Gabe stopped talking and I had a thousand questions. The top of the list was that I wanted to know more about his mother. There was something rough in his voice when he said she couldn’t hack it yet soft and gentle when he said she did everything she could but it wasn’t good enough. Angry but not. Disappointed but understanding. And Gabe feeling powerless in his youth explained a lot. He wasn’t overly controlling—it wasn’t like he cuffed me to the bed so he could whip me but he certainly demanded I follow his lead, which luckily worked for me in a big way. I understood his need to dominate in the bedroom, giving himself a slice of something