Page 73 of This Kind of Forever

“Night,” I mutter.

Once Clara is safely inside, I pull away. Hallie still refuses to look in my direction. I glance at her every couple minutes, trying to catch her gaze, but she keeps staring out the window. I clench my jaw and tighten my hands on the steering wheel.

When I park in the driveway, Hallie is quick to slip out of the passenger seat and head for the front door. She tries the handle, but it’s locked. I watch her huff as she starts to dig inside her purse for her set of keys.

Wordlessly, I come up behind her and unlock the door.

She spins on me, not making a move to head inside. “I can’t believe you did that. Do you have any idea howembarrassingthat was?” Hallie doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Extremely. The whole bar was looking at us, Gabe!”

I pause, taken aback. “You’re yelling at me.”

She crosses her arms defensively. “Yeah, so? I’m mad at you.”

“You never yell.”

Hallie opens her mouth to argue, then closes it again. Because she can’t deny it.

“I know you. You never yell,” I say again. “Because you’re scared you’ll push people away if you’re not so damn agreeable all the time. But you just yelled at me. Why?”

She swallows visibly, taking an involuntary step backwards, into the house. “I don’t know, Gabe. I just did.”

I follow her, not letting her retreat. Not letting her run. “You do know, and I do, too. You yelled at me because you’re comfortable with me. You feel safe with me.” Like Abbie feels safe to express her emotions.

“That…may be true.”

I close the front door behind us, and then I hook an arm around Hallie’s waist. Spinning us, I pin her back to the door, one of my hands braced beside her head.

“Gabriel,” she breathes. She fists the front of my jacket.

This need I have for her has been building for too fucking long, and once I give in, I fear I won’t ever be the same. Shit, IknowI won’t be. I don’t want to be.

“You know what this proves, Hallie?” She shakes her head. “This proves you want to stay with me. You want to fight.”

Her blue eyes are shining, but she doesn’t try to refute me.

“So let me fight with you, Foster.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

HALLIE

All the oxygenin my lungs is sucked out with Gabe’s words.

“You want to argue? I’ll bite,” he says. “Let’s start with how I fuckinghatedseeing you with Deacon.”

Gabe wears his anger well. He doesn’t often let it get the best of him. Now, though, his expression is wild. Unrestrained. I can seeeverythingin his eyes—he isn’t holding anything back.

My heart throbs. It’s all too much, yet… Yet it’s not enough. I’m terrified of what I’ll say if I open my mouth, so I don’t.

“If I thought for onesinglesecond that he was a decent guy, I would have kept my mouth shut,” he continues. “I would’ve watched him touch you. Would’ve forced myself to be alright with him taking you home. But a man like that doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone have you in his bed. And you don’t deserve to be treated the way he treated you.”

“I think I know what I deserve,” I say weakly.

In my head, I’m chanting,You were right, you were right. I was so wrong, and you were right.

From the moment he walked up to me, Deacon gave me this slippery kind of feeling. I didn’t realize I was in too deep until he was winding his body around me, constricting like a boa. But Gabe knew, and I shouldn’t have been so stubborn.

Gabe shakes his head. “If you did, you’d see what’s right in front of you.” His arm tightens around my waist, and when he speaks, his voice is low. “If you want someone to buy you a drink, let it be me. Someone to flirt with? I can do that, too. And, baby, if you want someone to fuck you…” His eyes blaze. “All you have to do is ask.”