by Lara Adrian
~ ~ ~
The thirty-minute drive to Bayside takes less than twenty.
Maybe I should have insisted that Evelyn stay behind at my apartment, but I feel better with her beside me. Not only because her well-being is still my primary focus and concern, but for the simple fact that I want her with me. I need her.
We get out of my car and approach the front door of my parents’ mid-century brick Cape Cod house where my mother waits behind the screen door, watching for me to arrive. She’s petite, but she looks even more so today. The stress of my father’s stroke is wearing on her. I’m sure his explosive temper hasn’t helped the situation.
“Are you all right?” I ask my mother, after hastily introducing the two women who matter the most in my life. This isn’t the way I would have preferred for them to meet for the first time, but since when has my father ever made a damn thing easy for me? “Where is he?”
“In the master bedroom,” she says, her doe-brown eyes red-rimmed and weighted with puffy shadows beneath them. “I think he’s okay, but he can’t get up. Stubborn man. He just won’t listen to me when I tell him he has to take things easy.”
I squeeze her shoulder. “It’ll be fine, Mom. I’ll handle him.”
Evelyn gives me a reassuring nod. Leaving her to look after my mom, I pivot and stalk down the central hallway to look for my father.
I find him lying in a heap only a few paces away from his side of the old queen-size bed in the master bedroom. He’s always been a big man, solid muscles on a tall, substantial frame. Now all of his bulk is dead weight on the floor. No wonder Mom stood no chance of lifting him.
The old man knows I’m in the room, but he doesn’t even attempt to look up as I step inside. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I came to help.”
As I near him, I smell the ammonia punch of urine. The front of his faded blue cotton pajama bottoms are soaked with it.
His thinning, copper-and-gray hair is matted and damp. His silver beard has grown in even more since he was admitted to the hospital, but it is unkempt and patchy. His jowly cheeks sag, in particular the left one.
My chest tightens at the sight of him like this. I grew up seeing a man with an immutable pride. That he’s been reduced to this, even temporarily, blunts some of the anger I feel toward him for his disregard of me all these years.
I hunker down beside him and put my hand on the rounded hump of his shoulder. He shakes off my touch as if I’m diseased.
“Do I look like I want your help?” His voice is hoarse, some of his words slurred.
“No, Pop. I don’t imagine you want my help. But it looks like you need it.”
“Linda!” He bellows for my mother as if I’m not in the room. “Goddamn it, did you call him?”
She comes to the open doorway, panic in her face. “Is everything all right?”
I nod, telling myself to treat this situation like I would if he were an injured comrade. No emotion, taking nothing that is said or done personally. “We’re fine,” I reassure my mom. “I’ve got this, I promise.”
Once she’s retreated back to the living room with Evelyn, I turn a flat look on my dad. “You’re scaring Mom. You need to take things slow for a while. Do it for her, at least.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do.”
“Someone has to. You obviously don’t want to listen to your doctors or Mom.”
He glowers up at me, those narrowed, light hazel eyes shooting pure venom. “I want you to leave.”
“I will,” I tell him tonelessly. “First, I need to get you cleaned up and back in bed.”
He grumbles but starts to move. I take him under the arm and try to support him, but it’s clear that my once formidable father can’t even stand up right now.
He sags back down to the floor on a grunted exhalation. From the other end of the hallway, I can hear Evelyn’s soft voice talking to my mother.
My father hears her too. “Who’s out there?”
“Her name is Evelyn. She’s with me.”
I’m not sure how to introduce her to my parents. To call her my girlfriend after only a couple of weeks feels abrupt, and yet the affection I hold for her in my heart makes the term seem inadequate.
No label I’d give her right now is significant enough to describe what she means to me.
Not that it matters to my father right now. He curses tightly. “Christ, you brought an audience with you? You think I’m some goddamn sideshow?”
I ignore his rancor. God knows, I’m experienced enough at dealing with it that it no longer intimidates me. It hasn’t since I was a boy.
“Come on, old man. Stow your pride for a minute and let’s get this done.”
I heft him up to his feet and quickly place my shoulder under his arm. I walk him into the bathroom and sit him down on the closed toilet seat. There is a metal bar running waist-high along the wall now, an update installed sometime after he had the stroke.
“Hold on to the rail,” I order him, shocked to see him comply. He slumps there, looking haggard and beaten down. “Where do you keep your clean underwear and pajamas?”
He jerks his hand in the direction of the bedroom bureau. I go there and retrieve what I need. As I walk back into the bathroom, he is struggling with the buttons of his pajama top.
“I’ll get that.”
He drops his arms and I unfasten the shirt and push it off his rounded shoulders and the spongy muscles of his once powerful biceps. He watches me work on him, rage simmering in his eyes even though I can see that he’s losing steam.
“I’ll bet you like seeing me like this,” he remarks weakly. His breath wheezes out of him on a bitter chuckle. “I’ll bet you couldn’t wait to see me lying in there unable to do a damn thing for myself. Like some pitiful, lame--”
He stops himself from saying the rest, but I hear it anyway. “Like me, Pop?”
He glances away quickly, his lips pressed flat, his jaw quivering behind the tight line of his mouth. “It’s not what I meant.”
“Sure it is.” I was wrong when I told myself his disdain didn’t hurt. I can see the shame in his face, and it sears me to think my injury has given him the excuse to think even less of me than he did before. “You want to know the truth? My life got infinitely better after I lost my leg.”
His head slowly swings back to me, disbelief in his glassy eyes. I give him a cold smile.
“It got better because I got away from Bayside, away from this house. Away from your contempt for me. I made a better life for myself.”
He swallows, his scowl deepening, a mottled redness filling his sallow cheeks. For one perverse moment, I wish he had better control of his motor skills, if only so he would strike me. God knows, I’ve wanted to bruise him too.
And now that I’ve torn the dressing off this wound, I have to let it bleed out.
“You know, it shouldn’t have surprised me that you never came to see me--not even once--while I was at Walter Reed. Sometimes, I actually think it helped. Your absence during those months of my recovery. Your total disregard for me, even before my injury. I got better just to spite you, because I knew you didn’t give a shit if I lived or died.”
He stares at me. “At least you give me credit for something. All this time, I assumed you only blamed me for fucking up your life.”
I take a step back from him, blowing out a sharp breath. I push my hand through my hair and curse, low and bitter, through my clenched teeth. “You don’t know a fucking thing about me. You never even tried. Why the hell should I care if you’re lying in a puddle of your own piss on the floor? Why should I lift a goddamn finger to help you? I shouldn’t give a damn what happens to you, old man.”
He’s trembling now, whether in humiliation or futile rage, I have no idea. “You think I want pity from you? Of all people, you think I want you feeling sorry for me?”
He tries to stand up, but only stumbles back down. His ass drops onto the toilet seat, the stench of urine and sweat
invading my nostrils as I reach for his pajama bottoms and ruthlessly strip them off. I throw all of it into the tub beside us.
I wet a washcloth with warm water and soap and hand it to him to clean off. He really needs a shower or a bath, but Mom told me when we arrived that a visiting nurse was coming in the morning to look after him. He’ll survive a few hours until then.
And the way my blood is seething in my veins, I can’t get out of his house fast enough.
When I see that he’s finished with the washcloth, I take it from him and rinse it out, then make quick work of dressing him in fresh underwear and pajamas. I know he’s spitting mad. I can feel his depleted body vibrating with useless anger. But he’s too weak to fight back.
I hoist him to his feet and shuffle him back into the bedroom, easing him down onto the mattress. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes as he lay there, glaring up at me.
“Go back to the city,” he orders me in a low, raspy voice. “Do us both a favor. Don’t come back.”
I nod as if it’s a reasonable request. As if it’s exactly what I want to hear, I start walking away. But I’m angry too. I’m hurting, which only worsens my rage.
I pause at the threshold and lower my head on a curse. Then I glance back at him, my calm belying the furious storm that’s lashing me from the inside.
“I know I must be a terrible disappointment to you. You sure as fuck never hid that opinion of me. But I want you know that my life on the other side of that bridge out there is damn good. In spite of your low expectations of me, I’m doing fucking great. Better than you can even fathom.”
When he shows no reaction, I feel a jab of spite pricking me. I have the need to wound him the way he’s wounded me, but I know the only soft target on my father is his Noble pride. As a provider, as the head of our family, and as a man.
“You want to know why I never wanted to be a cop like my brothers and you? Because I wanted to be something more. I didn’t want to live in your shadow or that of the rest of the Nobles.”
“And how’d that work out for you, son?” His flat reply hits me like a fist.
I feel the blow, but damn it, it’s not enough. I wish he and I had let this fight happen years ago. Would have saved us both a lot of time and grief.
“You tell me, old man. With the promotion I got a couple weeks ago, it won’t be long before I’m pulling down more in a year than you made in twenty busting your hump behind a badge.”
My father looks at me for a moment, seeming intent on denying me the satisfaction of his anger now. He simply nods. “Congratulations. I guess I had you pegged right all along, Gabriel. You always were too good for this family.”
I scoff sharply. “Everyone but you, right, Pop?”
I don’t wait for him to reply, not that he would.
As soon as I step into the hallway, I am met with the shocked and saddened stares of both my mother and Evelyn.
Fuck. It’s one thing for me to show such a humiliating lack of control in front of my old man. For my mother to see it--to have heard probably every demeaning word that he and I exchanged--shames me even more than anything my father could ever say or do.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my voice low and clipped. “I’m leaving now.”
I hate that I’ve hurt her tonight when I only came to help. I want to reach out for her, but I don’t have any gentleness in me right now.
I’ve hurt Evelyn too. But her pain is for me.
And that only makes my self-directed contempt burn even more intensely.
I want to punch something.
More than anything, I need to release the pressure of the rage that’s swirling inside me.
I know where I would go if Evelyn weren’t with me. But I haven’t stepped foot in one of Jared Rush’s anonymous sex clubs since I met her.
I can’t do it now, even though it would be the easiest, safest outlet for the volatility churning inside me. All I do know is that Evelyn won’t be safe with me tonight.
Maybe not ever, if I am being honest with myself . . . and with her.
I grab her hand. “I need to get you out of here.”
27
~ Evelyn ~
I have never seen Gabe this way.
The terrifying silence that filled the drive back to the city has deepened into a black and expanding void as we exit his car and walk up to his apartment. I can feel the rage that has cloaked him since his confrontation with his father.
I can feel the pain in him too.
I’ve been too uncertain to try to reach him while we were in the car, too afraid he would reject my compassion. Now, as we enter his apartment, all I want is to bridge the chasm I fear is opening up between us tonight.
He walks ahead of me into the darkness, pausing just inside to turn on the light switch. I close the door behind me and move toward him, placing my palm gently on his shoulder. His muscles are tense beneath his dark T-shirt. The firm sinews flinch at my contact, his spine going rigid.
“Are you all right?” I whisper, pressing a kiss to his back. He lets his breath go, a restrained exhalation that only confirms the fact that, no, he is not all right at all. Not even close. I wrap my arms around him from behind. “I’m sorry about what happened with your father tonight.”
I feel him take air into his lungs, but he doesn’t respond. His strong hands cover my forearms where they are banded loosely around his waist. Instead of holding on to me, he opens the circle of my embrace and steps out of it.
“You need to stay away from me right now,” he says, without turning around to look at me. His deep voice sounds wooden, edged with a strange tension I don’t understand. “I don’t need consoling. All I need is space.”
Since he won’t tolerate my hands on him, I wrap my arms around myself. The warmth helps, because staring at his back, I am suddenly feeling very cold.
He doesn’t seem to want to talk to me any more than he wants me touching him, but I can’t let him bear his anger and pain without letting him know that I am here for him. God, he has to know that. I want him to know I always will be.
“I think being alone is the last thing you really need right now, Gabe.”
His answering scoff is barely audible. He says nothing, just walks away from me, heading toward the bedroom at the back of the hallway. Each step he takes feels like a mile to me. I feel empty, confused . . . rejected.
But I go after him anyway.
I enter the bedroom and see he’s got my duffel bag in his hand. He starts gathering my things and placing them inside. The pair of sneakers I wore to the basketball game. The camisole I left folded on the nightstand after our lovemaking moved from the kitchen countertop to the bed this morning.
“What are you doing?”
“You can’t be here tonight. I’m taking you home where you belong.” He walks past me to the hallway bathroom to continue removing all evidence of me from the apartment. My hair dryer and makeup bag. The case that holds my toothbrush.
“I thought you invited me to stay here for the weekend. It’s not over until tomorrow.”
He slants me a regretful look. “This weekend was a nice little fantasy. But that’s all it was. That’s all it can be.”
“What are you talking about?” I am standing in the open doorway of the bathroom, effectively blocking him inside. I know he would never hurt me, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m facing off against a caged tiger. Something wild and dangerous. “Gabe, there is nowhere else I want to be. I just want you to talk to me. Please.”
“Don’t you get it?” His nostrils flare, his handsome face twisted into an enraged scowl. “It’s not talking I need right now. Not when I’m like this.”
Even though I jump at his sharp tone, I take a step inside, shrinking the distance between us because I’m that desperate to reach him. “Then tell me what you need. Show me.”
I can see the desire in his flashing, furious eyes. I can see the jagged need. Not even his anger can hide the fact that he wants me in
spite of what he’s saying.
I glance down and see that he is erect behind the zipper of his dark jeans. On the sides of his neck, veins stand out like cables, pulsing so intensely I can almost hear the drum of his heartbeat in the thickened, electrified air between us.
Right now, he is coiled, dark energy in need of an outlet.
Maybe I should be afraid of everything I see in him tonight, but I’m not.
He pulls my silk kimono off the hook near the towel bar. He’s about to stuff it into the duffel bag, but I halt his hand. I take the garment from him.
“Dammit, Gabriel. Don’t shut me out.”
His gaze bores into mine, the hazel turned stormy gray beneath the harsh slashes of his brows. “I can’t give you what you want, Eve. And you can’t give me what I need.”
“Bullshit.” I shake my head. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“You want me to use you?” His scowl deepens. His voice is rife with torment, but also arousal. I know him enough to recognize the rawness of his lust. “You deserve more than this. Christ, you deserve a hell of a lot more than me.”
I take another step closer. “Why don’t you let me decide that for myself?”
He swears under his breath, then brushes past me, stalking out toward the living area with my duffel bag gripped in his hand.
I should go. If that’s really what he wants, if he’s just going to keep pushing me away, I should leave him to his solitude and save myself the heartache of loving someone who cannot--or will not--love me in return.
Because that’s what this is, this burgeoning sense of yearning I feel for him. Love.
Oh, God. I am so in love with Gabriel Noble, it hurts.
I drift out to the hallway, the kimono grasped numbly in my fingers. I find Gabe standing near the door, waiting for me to concede to his demand that I go. No matter what either one of us truly wants.
He needs this control.
That’s how he copes with pain, be it emotional or physical. He reaches for control.
He needs it more than solitude. Maybe even more than he needs me.