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His voice sounded tired and distant. “I keep thinking he might poke his head around the corner. It will never happen, but sometimes the heart doesn’t listen to the mind. I haven’t been up here since …”
His beautiful lips were downturned and shadows haunted his eyes. His expression was miles from the joyous karaoke performance. An ache speared my chest. I moved to the window to stand next to him. His slender, beautifully proportioned body exuded power and confidence.
“Why come up tonight?”
His intense gaze roved over me. “I don’t know. Maybe you make me brave, Forster.” He lifted his glass to rest against his lips and I couldn’t take my eyes from his beautiful mouth. “Tell me something about you that no one else knows.”
“Why?”
He took another sip of whiskey. “Because I need to take my mind off the way it feels when I’m in this room.”
My heart sank. Should I tell him? What would he think if he knew it was me that had been grinding over him in a strip club? It was a betrayal. I knew about an intimate moment that we’d shared, and he didn’t. What if my admission jeopardized my spot on the team?
I swallowed. “Okay. I’ll tell you something, but it’s bad.”
He raised an eyebrow, set his glass down and rubbed his hands together. “I think I’m going to like this.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Shit. No. I couldn’t do it. Not now. After tonight, meeting the girls and talking to Claire, I’d never wanted to join this team more.
“I don’t have anything interesting. I’m quite boring.”
“There must be something.”
“Fine. I kissed three boys in one night once.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“It was at Laura Mayhew’s party. We were doing truth or dare, and I kept getting dared. I was thirteen. I have no regrets. It was an incredible night.”
He put his hand on his heart, his smile bemused. “Nope. I want something juicier.”
“More juicy than kissing three people at one party?”
He shrugged and raised an impish eyebrow. “That sounds like a typical Saturday night.”
I laughed. “Maybe for Gabe Rivers.”
Silence fell between us. He chewed his lip and raked a hand through his hair. “You want to know my darkest secret?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
He set his whiskey on the desk. “My dad died because of me.”
A knot tightened in my stomach. Holy shit. What? Was it true? He’d pushed his dad? It couldn’t be.
“We were arguing and he grabbed his chest … then he fell. It was the stress … it must have brought on the heart attack.” The animation left his face and his voice cracked. “I tried to grab him, but I couldn’t …”
A pain squeezed my heart. What a terrible burden of guilt to carry around. “It’s not your fault, Gabe. If his heart was weak then it could have been anything that brought that on.”
A look of tired sadness passed over his handsome features. “But it wasn’t anything. It was me.”
His eyes slipped away. I cupped his face with my hands and forced him to look at me. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Everyone thinks it is. There’s a whole podcast about it, for fuck’s sake.”
