Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
He nodded.
I kept going.
“I’m not close to where I’d like to be to catch up, so I’m going to need to work to get to that place. That means I wake up at four o’clock, and often, if not every day, I’m not done until six, or even seven at night. And I work weekends. That doesn’t leave me a lot of time to concentrate on a new relationship.”
“You just said you’re going to take breather,” he remarked.
“Yes.” I leaned toward him. “A breather.” I leaned back. “Not a break. Six weeks, but I have Willow’s Good Stuff orders during those six weeks. I’m just not adding more in that time.”
“Okay,” he stated immediately. “For my part, I need to stay fit because it’s a prerequisite of my job, and because I enjoy it. I’m at the gym by five every day, if I’m not doing something for work, not including Sundays. I take Sundays off. And my job is not eight to five. Not even close. I could be gone all night. I could be called out in the middle of the night. I could have an assignment that takes me to Tucson, Flagstaff, Payson, even into New Mexico, and I could be gone for days or weeks. Each day that comes, I’m not sure what it will bring.”
All righty…
Safe to say, first, I found every little morsel he shared about him or his life captivating (yeesh, did I have it bad).
And it was safe to say his seizing my tactic to keep us apart as a tactic to explain how we fit together was unexpected (to say the least).
So, it was safe to say, this wasn’t exactly going as I’d planned, and it was just starting.
I didn’t miss this was a bad sign.
Gabe kept talking.
“I understand my body needs rest and downtime, and I find those things. But I prefer to be busy, on the go, and, as I already told you, challenged. The woman in my life will have to understand that about me and roll with it. Obviously, since that’s the case, if she’s the same, I’m not gonna pitch a fit because she is. I’m gonna give her the space to do what she has to do.”
Unh-hunh.
This was not going as I’d planned.
At all.
It got worse when Gabe said, “And it’s far from unattractive in a woman or anybody that you’re financially responsible. Nor that you’ve got an abundance of hustle and go after what you want. Just so you know, I’m the same. With both.”
Gah!
Right, so I hadn’t planned for this to go so poorly so quickly.
But all wasn’t lost.
Because I wasn’t done.
“I think you missed the part where I shared I allowed Kevin to get me in a financial bind. That’s on Kevin, but it’s also on me. It was a poor decision, and one I need to process. However, it’s left me with trust issues.”
“I can see that,” he retorted. “But what you need to see is, normally, in a healthy, functioning relationship, partners look after each other. That ass was not healthy or functioning. That isn’t on you. But you know as well as I do that shit happens, and if one side of a partnership isn’t willing to kick in and cover if the other has taken a hit, it isn’t a partnership. What you did is what you’re supposed to do when her man takes a hit. So what you did was the absolute right thing to do. He just took advantage of it.”
Annnnnnd…
This hadn’t gone good from the start, but it was still managing to go downhill fast.
“Just to say, that is not unattractive either,” Gabe concluded. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, he added, “Far fuckin’ from it.”
Lord, deliver me!
As far as I could tell, the only thing that was going well with this was how much I’d prepared for it.
So I kept at it.
“Okay,” I said. “You know about Kev, obviously, and Trev. And my dad. And I know you think you’ve figured me out, but even if I’ll grant what you said last night makes sense about my choices in men…”
He smirked.
It was sexy as all hell, and just as infuriating.
Grr.
I powered through it. “That does not negate the fact that I’m still processing all those things, and I shouldn’t be processing that while entering into a relationship.”
“Bullshit.”
I blinked.
Even if it was.
Totally.
It was bullshit.
Dreamer was right about that.
It had been months since Kev disappeared, and Kevin and I were over for months before that. I knew he was a mistake. I knew how he was a mistake. And I was so over him, it wasn’t funny.
I don’t think so, Logic butted in.
And Logic was wrong.
Well, thanks so much, Logic griped.
“You can’t forget I was there when you took that last hit,” Gabe continued. “And I didn’t miss you’re a fighter, not a survivor. In the midst of that fiasco, you extorted a marker from a United States Congressman after he kidnapped you, for chrissakes.”