Page 16 of After All The Wreckage

The nickname flew through me like a match to gasoline. I loved it and hated it. It made me feel seen and special while at the same time it forced me back into the role of a teen girl who idolized him.

I stepped away, and he did the same, and I instantly missed the heat of him. That warmth—that low pull deep inside my stomach—was what had been absent in the touches of other men I’d let briefly into my life. Those interactions had been all perfunctory motion and momentary satisfaction. This was a fire that would brand me, that had already branded me.

Could a person spontaneously combust from years of untended flames?

“Hey, Gage,” I managed to get out, glad when I sounded almost nonchalant instead of like a drooling idiot or the adoring teen he’d last seen.

“Are you here visiting Shay and your grandmother?” he asked.

Surprise filtered through me at the question. With the way the locals talked, I’d been sure he’d heard I’d moved back. Did this mean he hadn’t heard about Mom either?

“I moved in with Nan while I’m finishing my degree at Bonnin.” It was a struggle to keep the bitterness and sadness out of my voice. I didn’t want him to see me as the girl who neededto be pitied—the one struggling to keep her shit together—when that was exactly why I’d stayed away from the bar to begin with.

“What happened to Georgetown?” he asked, brows drawing together.

His question confirmed he’d heard enough to know I’d ended up at the college of my choice, but that he hadn’t heard the worst.

I made a pointed glance around the tavern and said, “You should know better than anyone that life throws you curveballs.”

He glanced away as if I’d struck him, and I instantly wanted to take it back. I reached out, my hand settling on his bicep. “I’m sorry. Not just for my words but about your?—”

“What the hell, Rory?” He yanked my wrist up to his face where he examined the bruises that were now turning an ugly shade of green. “Who hurt you? Was it that guy out front?”

He dropped my hand and strode toward the end of the hall, forcing me to jog after him. I didn’t know if it pissed me off or thrilled me that even now, all these years later, he instantly wanted to protect me. It was wrong, wasn’t it? To have those feelings? Those screwed-up threads that had somehow tied us together?

I grabbed his arm, yanking him to a halt. “No. Geez, Gage. Don’t go all he-man. I just met Luis tonight. He’s Shay’s boyfriend’s friend.”

Gage turned his stormy eyes on me. Eyes that had always seen through me.

“So, some other guy did that to you?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. To my surprise and delight, his gaze fell to the swell of my breasts peeking over the neckline of my tank before it jerked back to my face.

“Just an altercation with a sleazebag cheater,” I told him. “Don’t worry—he ended up looking worse.” And he had. The guy had ended up with a stun gun mark and my boot imprint on hisback. He’d be remembering me for longer than my paltry bruises would last.

“A cheater?” Gage’s face was a furrow of confusion before the realization dawned. “You’re working with your mom?”

I opened my mouth to respond just as two bodies came flying out of the men’s room. Two college kids—one guy with another in a headlock. They rammed into the wall, making the old paintings rattle and shake.

“You fucking asshole.” The one in the headlock grunted, reaching up to try and free himself.

“Stay the fuck away from her,” the other man barked.

“Hey, break it up!” Gage growled, his deep voice booming around the darkened space.

In one smooth move, he pulled the two of them apart and shoved the first one toward the exit leading to the parking lot out back. The guy who’d just been released from the headlock went after them and would have started slinging fists at Gage if I hadn’t stepped forward, grabbed his arms, and twisted them behind his back.

“What the hell?” he said, trying to turn around to get a look at me, but I’d been trained to handle exactly these kinds of situations. I pulled up, putting pressure on his shoulders and propelling him in the same direction.

“Both of you cool your jets and take off before I call the cops,” Gage thundered, giving the kid he’d hauled out of the bar a shove that sent him sprawling onto the pavement.

I let go of my guy, but instead of stepping away, he rounded on me, swinging. The surprise of it hurt more than the fist barely grazing my face.

“Did you just fucking hit her?!” Gage roared. He shoved the guy in the chest so hard his back hit the ancient stone of the building’s exterior. Before I blinked, Gage had his forearm shoved into the man’s windpipe.

“She assaulted me first,” the man choked out.

The kid Gage had tossed to the street got to his feet. “This is fucked up. I’m out of here. Just stay the hell away from Suzie.” And he scrambled away in the dark.