Page 57 of Dirty Pool

It just was.

“That’s good to know,” she told him.

Michel winked, and dropped one more quick kiss to her lips. He couldn’t afford much more because if he did drag her back to bed, the risk was too high that someone might see her leave later in the day. God. He wanted to keep her here, though. So badly it made his fucking heart ache like nothing else ever had.

Gabbie didn’t miss the shift in his mood if her lowering gaze was any indication. That soft smile slipped from her lips, and she patted his cheek with a gentle palm. “Next time, right?”

“Yeah, babe, next time.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“You know it.”

Her smile was back.

He liked that better.

“I better get going,” she said, slipping out from under his embrace. “But call me later, aye?”

Michel nodded. “I will.”

He was fine with turning to watch her open the front door of his house, and step out on the stoop. He only started to turn away when the door began to close behind her, and she was almost out of his view.

Then, the shooting started. Bullets peppered the side of his house as tires screeched somewhere outside. Glass shattered.

She screamed.

The first thing Michel ran for was her.

TEN

All Gabbie had to do was close her eyes, and she could hear the bullets again. She could smell the crisp air that suddenly tasted bad, dirty, and wrong as she dropped to the ground to get out of the way. She could feel the panic swelling in her heart again, squeezing so feckin’ tight that she couldn’t breathe.

Behind her eyes, she saw it all.

Clear.

Painful.

So real.

Because it was real.

It did happen.

“Get out of me feckin’ way before I nail my goddamn fist to your mouth permanently, you absolute gobshite.”

Gabbie knew her father was in the hospital before he ever even stepped a single foot inside her room. She could hear his bellowing all the way down the hallway. She wasn’t exactly sure where Michel was now, but she was hoping he managed to get out of sight. He’d slipped out of her room when people from her family started showing up, and things got a little tense in the waiting room because he was simply there, sitting in a chair.

It pissed her off.

She wanted him.

No one would understand. He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t their people. He was the other—the outsider, and the enemy. They wouldn’t care that all she wanted was for him to crawl in her hospital bed, wrap her in his arms, and hide her away from the rest of the world while she waited for her father to arrive.

She closed her eyes, pain slicing through her heart because she was quite aware of just how alone she was in her hospital room despite the nurse that tittered around. She hadn’t been injured—not really. A few scrapes from falling to the wood of the front porch to avoid the spray of bullets. A bruise on her knee from Michel dragging her back inside the safety of the house as he shouted for her to keep her head down.

Still, the few injuries and stress of the day were enough for the hospital to decide to keep her overnight given it had her glucose levels rising dangerously. Police came in, too. They took her statement—not that she had anything to say because she was well aware of how this life and world worked. She couldn’t speak at all, so she mostly lied when asked for details. They took her clothes; the hospital gave her a gown to wear, and strapped a paper bracelet to her arm that designated her as a patient.