He was watching me, face blank, guarded, as it always was when we weren’t having sex. “Lauren—” he tried again.
“No!” I screamed. “No more talking and weaving words that distract me. It’s Lauren’s turn now, and yes, I’m quite aware that I’m referring to myself in the third person, but that’s how freaking pissed I am right now!”
His mouth twitched, and I hated how sexy I found it. “You’re cute as fuck when you’re angry, baby.”
I let out a little scream. Both at him for saying the words and myself for finding them so freaking sexy.
“Well, hands inside the ride, buddy, because I’m about to get fucking adorable,” I hissed.
I stomped around the kitchen, forgetting about my need to have a large slab of furniture between us, advancing on him and jabbing at his chest. “You do not get to tell me the one place you consider home, with the people you consider family, is somewhere I don’t belong,” I shouted.
The smile left his face, his body going taut.
I ignored it. “I do not deserve to fall in love with you and then have you slap me in the face with shit like that, Gage. It’s cruel.” My words seemed to actually hit him, and I battled to stop that from affecting me.
I had to continue with this. My anger was a physical, living thing.
“Crueler than you trying to scare me with blood and murder and that darkness you think I can’t handle. Crueler than you feeling like you have to hold back with me because you think I’m a delicate flower.” I glared at him. “Newsflash—the world has already stomped on this flower, shredded it. You’re not so high and mighty that you’re the first person to show me how ugly things can get. The problem is you’re so focused on that that you don’t realize how fucking beautiful I find all your ugliness. You’re too busy telling me I don’t belong. And if that continues, you’ll do what you’re so sure you’re already doing.” I yanked my shaking hand back, Gage still frozen. “You’ll destroy me,” I whispered.
Then I turned on my heel and stomped off, pausing to snatch my purse off the table. And ignoring the fact that I had no idea where the freaking heck I was going.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I whispered to the wind when a heat kissed my back. I didn’t turn as I spoke. Didn’t need to, because I knew it was Gage. His scent—cigarette smoke nearly absent now—pressed into the wind like my words.
I expected him to snatch me into his arms, force me to face him physically like he normally did, but he didn’t. He sank down on the slightly damp grass beside me and stared at the hunk of rock that stared harder than even him.
Only the dead could stare harder than the Devil.
“Told you, babe, I know shit about people,” he murmured, eyes forward, voice gravel. “You’re not people.” He paused. “Didn’t think there would be many places you’d go. Thought about where I’d go. And I come here.”
His words made me jerk my gaze to his beautiful profile. “You come here?”
He nodded once.
“Is there anyone… here for you?” I asked gently, despite my pain and anger, hoping I would finally get a little bit of his pain so I wasn’t drowning in my own.
His body stiffened for a millisecond. “Nah, Will,” he all but whispered. “No one here for me but you.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“But then why do you come here?”
He waited a moment. “’Cause sometimes you need the company of the dead,” he said. “Like to look at the tombstones. Used to be a comfort to me, knowin’ my name would be on one one day.”
I flinched at his words. The way he spoke, it was like death would be a relief.
“I’d walk around here for hours, countin’,” he continued.
I blinked. “Counting?”
That time he did turn and face me. He reached forward to gently push my glasses up my face, since they’d dropped slightly down my nose. The gesture was so tender it hurt. Even when Gage was being gentle, there was pain.
“Counting the seconds left in the day. In my life,” he replied. “The seconds until I’d be here, buried under.” He nodded to the grass where my brother’s skeleton lay.
“You were counting down the seconds until you died?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
He nodded once. “Don’t count when I’m with you.”
My heart didn’t miss a beat then. It freaking stopped.
“You belong, baby,” he growled, snatching my chin in his hands. “Me sayin’ otherwise was me tryin’ to be the good guy. Remembered I’m not that guy. And I remembered that you’re not the good girl the world thinks you are either.” His eyes darkened. “So you belong.”
Tears streamed down my face.