He poured coffee into a mug and brought out the milk without asking if she still liked milk with it.
She poured it into her mug. Guess she still did.
Declan crisped the scrambled eggs at the corners the way she liked it. Whether he did that consciously or not, he didn’t know.
There was tension in what was familiar.
Existing beside each other was weird as fuck right now.
Declan grabbed the other stool and sat facing her.
“Guess no green shit for you today, huh?”
“Stop calling it green shit.”
“Where’s the girl who liked her medium rare burger?”
“That girl still likes her burger medium rare. She just reserves it for cheat days.”
“That’s health nut mumbo-jumbo.”
She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee.
“I still like my food, but I am getting older. I eat all the junk food when I’m around Kelso or at Division, so I call it balance.” Gabby primly cut at her waffle and forked it into her mouth.
“Junk food like donuts?”
“Yep.”
“That’s so cliché, Gab.”
“It’s the stress.”
Declan shoveled the scrambled eggs in his mouth. “You close to your partner?”
Her brows furrowed. “What kind of question is that?”
“It’s a simple one. He married?”
“He’s single, and if you’re fishing to see if I’ve fucked him, the answer is no. Not that it concerns you.”
“Just wondering.”
“Kelso is family. We have a close-knit team. Even the wives. Captain Mitchell’s wife is like our mother hen. They’re the family I’ve always wanted,” she whispered that last statement wistfully.
Something twisted in his chest. An unexpected pain. He and Gabby were supposed to be family. Guess she didn’t want what they had. His fingers tightened on his fork as he forced himself to finish his breakfast, which tasted as bitter as his thoughts.
Her gaze dropped to the corner of the countertop, her finger circling the rim of her mug as if in contemplation, then her eyes lifted. “I need to ask you something.”
His body froze, but he nodded.
“We made a big mess of our marriage and it took me a while to get my life on track and I really don’t want to re-hash things about the divorce. You’re clearly in a better place and so am I.”
If she only knew he came straight from jail to California. And was she delusional to think that this lifeless apartment she lived in was a better place? But who was he to judge? Declan thought of his own condo. Was he in a better place? Were they in a better place?
He called bullshit.
“I need to know,” she whispered. “Do you still blame me for Claire’s death?”
His eyes slid shut. “No, Gabby.”
“Really?”
Opening his eyes, he gazed at her steadily. “Claire was sick. She’d always been on borrowed time with the Cystic Fibrosis.” Seventeen years ago, the drug that would have given his sister a real chance at life wasn’t available yet. “She wanted us together.”
“But I made you stop working—”
“You didn’t make me do anything. The only way we could be together was if I stopped working as a male escort.” He had other jobs, but the high cost of Claire’s medical treatments made him resort to desperate measures. Competition was steep in LA for modeling and acting jobs, and he also worked construction, but the compensation was abysmal. His sister’s life mattered more than his self-respect.
“I told you I had money, but …” Her voice trailed off.
Declan clenched his jaw. A typical Hollywood story, they met at a party and hooked up. Their relationship became tabloid fodder, but they didn’t care. They were in love. Six months to the day they met, they eloped to Vegas and tied the knot. Then reality and bills hit them. His pride took a beating when he couldn’t be the main breadwinner, but the desire to be with Gabby trumped all that. Or so he thought. Cracks in their marriage started to show, became harder to ignore. Gabby’s father thought he was a gold-digger, so the bastard cut off his daughter’s finances, even withheld her paycheck from acting. “You underestimated how much your dad hated me, that’s all.”
“We could’ve gotten better treatments for Claire!”
“We managed as much as we could.”
Gabby’s smile was sad. “But that time … You really blamed me, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he said shortly. “Claire’s death was sudden. She was doing so well and I thought …” He shook his head and pondered how he could have fucked up everyone’s life by putting his heart first. “I thought I deserved to be