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)
I could tell he listened to me, he heard me, but he had to give it all to me, and there was more, so he gave it.
“You should have seen her parents at the funeral,” he said.
Oh God.
“They were nice to me,” he continued. “They always liked me. They had hope when we were together. But I felt their blame.”
“I’m not gonna talk shit about them, I don’t know them, and they lost their daughter,” I replied. “But they did that before she went to Alaska. And I wasn’t there, I don’t know if they were doing what you said, or you’re simply taking it on. But if they did it, it wasn’t right, and they probably know that deep down. But it wasn’t right, Gabe.”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Yes,” I stated forcefully.
He came back to me, gave me a small smile, it chased itself away, and he said, “Day-to-day, what we had, babe, it was good. I was genuinely in love with her.”
“I can’t imagine you’d stay if you weren’t.”
“Yeah, but I came to the understanding it was all surface good. If anything needed to be deep, intimate, that was a no-go zone. It wasn’t that the sex was shit, but it was shit, and I exhausted all the tools I had to get her there with me.”
Of course Gabe was that guy who would try to work with a woman he cared about to get them where they needed to be with intimacy instead of just chalking her up to “shit in bed” and dumping her.
“That’s an important part of a relationship, baby,” I reminded him.
“I know, but it wasn’t just that.”
“I know, you said all it was. And you’re a deep guy, Gabe. You’re intense. Observant. Self-reflective. Ambitious. It isn’t asking much to expect the same from your partner. Maybe not all of that, all you are, but…something.”
“That’s what I thought, until I saw her by the river.”
I pushed my face into his neck again.
His first love.
He found his first love’s dead body by a river.
He ran his fingers through my hair.
“Part of how Ariana could get away with all she pulled was that I was determined to put more effort into following through with a woman I thought was worth it.”
I groaned, because it was the worst already, and it still managed to get more depressing.
“It took me too long to realize I was looking at her like she was a project I could fix, and not seeing she was a pretty girl who grew up to be a pretty woman who’d been given everything she wanted since her first breath, mostly because she was pretty and for no other reason. And that meant she didn’t have to work for dick, and worse, she thought the world revolved around her.”
Oh boy.
I pulled my face out of his neck.
“I’m not a project either, Gabe,” I said carefully, but firmly.
“Yeah, cupcake, I can recognize the way that is now and make sure I don’t get caught in that trap. I don’t want a project. I don’t need to swing my dick by fuckin’ the pretty girl. I need a good, solid woman who works hard, loves hard and gives as good as she gets.” He pushed my hair over my shoulder and grinned. “Doesn’t hurt she’s fuckin’ gorgeous, though.”
There it was again.
“I’m not gorgeous,” I whispered.
“Baby, don’t fish,” he replied.
I was confused. “Fish for what?”
“Compliments.”
He thought…?
I pushed up a little. “I’m not fishing for compliments.”
“You can’t not know you’re gorgeous.”
“Uh, I can,” I retorted. I lifted a finger when he opened his mouth to say something. “And I’m not saying I’m unattractive. I’m just saying I’m not gorgeous.”
He stared at me.
Then he said, “Whatever.”
I studied him and…
Um…
Good Lord, he thought I was gorgeous.
That didn’t cause a heart squeeze.
It caused a spasm.
“You eat dinner?” he asked.
“Are we done talking about this?” I asked back.
“Yeah.”
“Gabe, the way you—”
He rose up, twisted, and came back down with him mostly on top.
“I got that callout to a victim I’d had a relationship with, I had mandated therapy,” he said. “I took it and took the referral to have more of it. Am I over seeing Denise like that? No. Will I ever be over it? No. Have I been given the tools to deal with it? Yes. Where I am now is, I used to have that nightmare a lot, reliving walking up to that body, seeing her hair, knowing who it was before I even got close to her, but because I talked shit out with someone, it comes rare these days. Our brains process crap when we sleep. After I made the decision to take it there with you, it doesn’t surprise me I had it for the first time in, maybe, at least two years.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“So that dream isn’t fun, but it isn’t surprising I had it,” he concluded.