My father.
My heart pounds in my ears and memories from long ago flit through my head. Fists and blood and arguments and fear.
But of course Gabriel isn’t my father. And so I force my breathing to slow and my heart to calm down, even as I balance lightly on the balls of my feet, poised to run if I have to. I swallow as Gabriel looks at me.
“I hate this,” he tells me. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes are slightly glazed and his hand is still curled into a fist at his side, his knuckles scraped. I eye it and take a step back, because I know what can happen with a fist.
“You hate what?”
Emotion fills his eyes, something dark, something pained. “I hate the way it controls me.”
I definitely feel panicked now. “What controls you?”
But he doesn’t answer. He just walks into his room and drops onto his bed. He’s calm now, quiet. As though he didn’t just punch a hole in the wall.
As though he didn’t just tell me that something controls him.
What the f**k is wrong with him?
Ignoring my still-racing heart, I bend in front of him. I can do this.
“Does your head hurt?” I ask him. When he shakes his head, I look into his eyes. His pupils seem the same size. I heard somewhere that if you have a concussion, it makes the sizes of your pupils uneven.
Physically he seems fine. No bumps, no scrapes, no bruises. I stare down at him uncertainly. He stares back, but it’s like he’s not even seeing me.
I sigh, long and loud.
“Let’s get your shirt and jeans off, at least,” I finally tell him. “Then I’m going to go.”
He stands up obediently and unbuttons his pants, letting them drop to the floor. When he sits back down, I strip his shirt off over his head, then fold down the covers on his bed.
He immediately drops back into it, curling onto his side and closing his eyes.
As I cover him up, I can’t help but glance at his body. It’s sculpted and cut, and it’s apparent that he works out. A lot. He has the body of a triathlete. Or Olympian. Or Greek god, maybe. He’s got a tattoo on his bicep, a skull wearing a beret over a pair of crossed swords. Words are scrolled above and below it. “Death Before Dishonor.”
Hmm. Where would he get that? Is he a marine, maybe? He doesn’t have a marine haircut, though.
I sigh again. This whole turn of events is so unfortunate. If I was gonna have a one-night stand, this was clearly the guy to do it with. He’s freaking hot.
At this exact moment he moans and thrashes, throwing off the covers as he mutters into his pillow.
He’s also apparently crazy because something controls him. God. Just my luck. I meet a hot guy who hears voices or some shit. Or he hit his head and he’s just delirious.
I shake my head as I pick up the covers and pull them back up over him.
I take in his clenched jaw and furrowed brow. One part of me wants to call an ambulance to be on the safe side. But another part of me thinks it’s not my place to do that, especially since I don’t know if he needs it. I don’t even know if he has insurance.
I honestly just don’t know what to do.
Finally I decide that I’ll hang around for a just a little while, to see if he gets any worse.
It’s the least I can do. I wouldn’t feel right otherwise. If he wakes up and acts dangerous, I can be out of here in half a minute.
I find the bathroom so that I can pee and it is surprisingly clean for a guy’s bathroom. It’s decorated in various shades of gray, even a gray-tiled floor. There’s no evidence whatsoever of a woman’s touch, so he must be unattached. Or at the very least unmarried. At least he’s not a scumbag like the married guys who troll the clubs for a piece of ass.
Out of curiosity I open the medicine cabinet. Q-tips, razor, razor blades, shaving cream, and a bottle of sleeping pills with his name on them. There’s nothing that would suggest that he’s crazy. There’s no psychotropic prescription pills or anything.
That’s good, right?
I walk back out into the dining area, looking around with interest. Everything is neat, modern, masculine. On one wall is a mahogany case, as tall as I am. It’s so shallow that it can’t hold much, so it piques my interest. I open it and suck in my breath at the neatly lined-up guns facing me.
Holy shit. Is he expecting WWIII? Who in the world would have this many guns? He’s crazy after all. As I’m backing away from it, unreasonably afraid of the guns, a certificate catches my eye. It’s lying on a short stack of paper at the end of the black-and-white granite kitchen counter.
I stop and look at it and find that it is actually a diploma, issued a few years ago by the United States Army Ranger School, and it’s got his name on it.
Gabriel is a Ranger. Or he was one. One or the other. Either way, that explains the amazingly cut body. And the tattoo. And the guns. Thank God. I feel an incredible amount of relief right now… apparently I’m not in the home of a psychopath.
Unless he was kicked out for being crazy, which seems like a real possibility at the moment.
Yikes. I’m suddenly incredibly uncomfortable being here.
I walk quickly back down to his bedroom, which is decorated just like the rest of his house—gray tones, dark wood, masculine.
He’s still sleeping and he’s no longer muttering. I stare down at him for a second, watching him breathe.
He seems fine now.
Fine enough for me to leave him alone without feeling guilty, anyway.
Before I can rethink it I’m out the door, down the stairs and on the street again, breathing in the cool night air. When the doorman waves at me, I walk over to him.
“Gabriel isn’t feeling well,” I tell him. “I think he’ll be OK, but maybe someone should check on him later. If you know anyone to call, that would be great.”
The doorman nods and assures me that he’ll take care of it.
His assurance makes me feel slightly better, but I still feel like I’ve been bitch-slapped by tonight. It’s all been so bizarre.
But that’s OK. It’s over now. I just have to make my way back to the club, get my car, and then leave all this weirdness behind me. In a few minutes the crazy hot guy will be a distant memory.
* * *
Gabriel
I wake up in a cold sweat.
I’m not sure where I am.
But not to the degree that Gabriel was. For some reason my heart twinges just thinking about it, but I ignore it. I don’t know him and there’s no use wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He’s irrelevant now. I force him out of my thoughts and wait for Jacey to reply.
It only takes her a second.
You should definitely be sorry. I was almost worried. And why didn’t u get some??? Any man would give his left nut to take you home. I’m pretty sure I hate you for that.
I have to smile. Jacey wasn’t worried. I’m sure of it. She probably didn’t even realize I was gone until it was time to go home.
Long story, I answer.