Page 25 of Guarded Knight (Echo Valley #3)

We settle into a far corner on a cracked brown leather banquette.

He slides in across from me, his broad shoulders tense, eyes shadowed under the low light, and I wish he’d decided to sit next to me despite myself.

I want him close no matter how hard I try not to, and this only fills me with more dread about what he’s going to say.

We both look outward; there’s an awkward pause where we know we can’t start the conversation and be in the middle of it when the drinks come.

I scan the bar, with disinterest, but needing to occupy myself. Penelope lets out a girlish laugh and taps the arm of the police officer, who briefly traps her hand and rubs it.

The waitress at the end of the bar loads up our drinks next to another face I know.

Blue Eyes.

Oh shit. I hope he doesn’t come over here now for me to catch his name like I suggested last time because it would be impeccably bad timing on so many levels. And I don’t think Gabriel will be as nice, judging by the tension in his jaw.

And now I’m tense, too, and also so wishing I’d started the conversation in the car instead of coming somewhere public.

The waitress arrives with our drinks, and once we clink our glasses together, Gabriel wastes no time getting into it.

“I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For kissing you.” He clears his throat, and it sounds like it hurts.

“Oh.” My chest feels like it’s caving in. “You’re sorry you kissed me?”

“I didn’t mean I’m sorry for the kiss itself.” His eyes are raw. “I’m sorry I can’t give you more.”

My heart sinks, but I find a joke instead of tears.

“Sorry it can’t be more? I think it was prematurely more.” I laugh lightly.

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” He finally lifts the corner of his mouth.

I’m glad I could make him smile. I want to brush it off, but I know that’s a mistake, so I gaze into his eyes. “It was actually a huge compliment.”

“It says a lot about what you do to me, Firefly.”

The truth slips free before he can stop it. He doesn’t try to take it back, and I’m glad for it. Despite where this is going—nowhere fast—I can tuck that feeling into my chest, save it for a day when I don’t feel quite so pretty.

He always looks at me like I am.

And that makes my nerves climb. But even if he thinks I’m pretty, we’re not kissing again and it kills to think it. So, as usual, I joke.

“If you think Xander would kill you, I think you could take him.” I try to smile, but it lands somewhere between bravery and sadness.

I kind of wish Xander was the problem. He isn’t. Or at least not the only one.

His lips twitch, but the smile dies fast. “I’d take a black eye for you. You know that. The problem’s not Xander, not exactly…” He refrains from explaining what that means. “That was true when we were younger. Now? The problem is more about me. Well, and you… it’s right person, wrong time?”

“I always tried to live my life like now is the only time.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t waste it with me.”

“Isn’t that my choice to make?” I don’t know why I’m saying any of this. I know Gabriel isn’t in a good place even now, he’s told me that much. And don’t I need to… do my thing?

My words are confident, but I only now notice I’m wringing my hands.

He engulfs them inside his strong, warm grip, his calluses brushing my knuckles. “You don’t ever have to be nervous around me.”

I’m not sure it is him I’m nervous about. It’s me. Me wanting to change my mind about my life’s trajectory. Me wanting to take this man and help him out of his dark place. Me thinking I can be the one to fix him. Isn’t that what gets women into trouble?

“I’m not right in the head.” He’s struggling. “After I came back from overseas… I wasn’t okay, as you know, and I’m still not. I can’t ask someone to live with that. Especially not someone who…”

“…might not have a lot of time left?” I finish for him, like I always do in moments like these.

I knew he’d been thinking it.

He lifts his gaze, and it’s full of hope. “But you do now. It’s not like when we were younger. The doctor said those meds…”

“Yeah,” I cut in. “If a person starts them early enough. I didn’t.” I look down at our hands, still intertwined. “But I could get to fifty now…”

His thumb strokes my hand. “When I left you behind the first time, thinking I was giving you years to love and live but sacrificing them myself, never to have what we had again…”

He takes one of his hands off mine and rubs it roughly across his mouth.

“Trust me, I cried in ways that didn’t make a sound.

But I figured you had maybe seven, eight years left back then and I was a dead man walking between PTSD and my mom.

So I tucked away our unkept future in order to keep your laugh safe and my gratitude loud.

” He shrugs. “I don’t think that’s what you got from it, though.

And I understood you needed distance to get over me. Over us.”

“I’m not sure I ever did.”

“Fuck…” he says on an exhale. “Don’t say that.”

I shrug. It’s true.

“I know you have more time now, but I’ve proven nothing to myself about being able to stand still. About coping with these demons, unless I’m running. If you have twenty years left, I don’t want you spending them with some guy in therapy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with therapy.” I mean it as words of affirmation, but it sounds more like I’m begging for him not to take this where it’s going.

He reaches across the table and tips up my chin. “If a man wants an angel in his life, he needs to create heaven for her.”

I don’t need heaven. I need you.

The words echo in my mind, but I can’t say them because Gabriel knows himself, he knows his trauma… and I know mine. I don’t want to put him through hell either and I might have twenty years left, but they won’t all be pretty.

Gabriel lets go of my hands and takes his small glass of tequila between two fingers, staring at it like it’s holding secrets. Secrets he’s never shared with me.

He meets my eyes, and I see that same storm that lives inside me. “I’m not enough for you.”

I lean in, brushing his hand with my thumb. I hear where he’s coming from but I hate it coming out of his perfect, loyal lips. To see worthlessness swimming in his deep-brown eyes.

“You’re more than enough, G. Broken doesn’t mean worthless.”

He furrows his eyebrows, and I’d do anything to take away his pain. Make him smile again. “Hell, look at me. I’m one quarter away from a funeral playlist and I’m out there still catching frogs.”

He lets out a real laugh—short, sharp, but real—and he lets his head fall into his palm. “God, Lara.”

Making him laugh is precious. And I want to do it again but I know he needs more than that.

I don’t know what’s going on here but I don’t want to close the door. I don’t want to name it and define it. I just want to be.

“G, it’s fine that you kissed me and it’s fine that we don’t do it again.” I shift my weight, trying to ease the sting in my chest. “Look at us, a decade older and we’re still a mess.”

A crooked smile plays on my lips, but the sad realization hits my heart.

He reaches across the table and taps my nose. “You’re a mess, all right, Firefly.”

My tension eases just a little. “Yeah? Well, we can be messes together. You don’t need to hide yourself from me any more than I should hide from you.”

His eyes soften. “I do care about you, Lara. All of it.”

“Maybe we can figure this out together,” I whisper. “Not just the mess out there but the mess in here, too.” I touch my chest, right where my heart’s beating way too fast.

He reaches for my hand, his thumb brushing my knuckles. “I’d like to try to be friends,” he says, voice rough. “You know me better than anyone.”

Seeing his raw vulnerability hits me with a sharp, sweet ache of wanting him all over again. It’s the same feeling I had when we were kids, like this is just so damn right.

Shit. He’s right. I am a mess. A pile of bricks and mortar because I let my walls come tumbling down and it’s probably going to hurt both of us to see each other again like this.

But I give him what he’s asked like so many times he’s given to me.

“Friends,” I whisper.

He smiles like it’s a promise, but I can already feel the lie splintering in my chest. Friends was never what this was, not when he’s the only one who’s ever made me feel free in a body that cages me.

But it’s what we’ll cling to until I go. And when I do, it’ll break us both like we were always something more.