Olivia laughed, shaking her head as she walked out of the apartment. She walked to the elevator and hit the down arrow, walking into it once it arrived. Once she was away from her friend and her support, Olivia started to feel a sense of nervousness building in her stomach.
Was she too dressed up? It was just a lame dive bar… It wasn’t like it was a date, or was it a date? Gabriel hadn’t really given any indication as to whether or not it was a serious affair, heck she didn’t even know much about him other than his name and that he had only been in town for a few months.
She found herself questioning why she was even going, even though she knew good and well it was because he was gorgeous and she wanted to get to know the mystery behind the man. She walked out of the apartment building and headed for the bar. She found her head swirling with doubts and insecurities.
What if she was far too overdressed and it made him uncomfortable? What if he thought she was trying too hard? Was she trying too hard? Why did she care about what a stranger thought of her, and why did she feel as though she needed to impress him? Her mind was reeling, making her palms sweat a bit. Olivia was freaking herself out.
In high school, Olivia had always been a little shy but never so insecure; it was Kent who had destroyed her self-esteem. During the time they were together, he had beat it into her that no one else would want her but him; and while Olivia had always told herself he was just full of himself, on her walk to the bar she actually started questioning if anyone would.
What if Gabriel was just being friendly and she showed up looking foolish in a black dress with her makeup and hair done?
Her racing thoughts had distracted her all the way to the bar, Olivia looking up at the sign and completely froze as she tried to decide whether or not to even go in.
She didn’t want to be rude and stand him up… But would he even care? They had only spoken for about twenty minutes in total the night before… Yet every time Olivia grew close to convincing herself that she should just go home, something in her would persistently tell her not to.
No matter what Olivia told herself, her mind was still burning with curiosity about Gabriel; and her mind wasn’t going to let her back down. Taking a deep breath, Olivia grabbed the door handle and pushed the door open.
CHAPTER FIVE
Immediately upon walking into the bar, Olivia spotted Gabriel sitting alone in a booth by himself. None of his biker buddies were in sight. Gabriel’s eyes fell on her as the door closed behind her. He stood from his seat, watching her with his intense stormy eyes as she made her way over to him. He wore a slate gray button down with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and black slacks; considering his attire the night before, he was dressed rather nicely as well. Olivia couldn’t help but smile at herself at the realization, butterflies soaring through her stomach.
She slid into the booth across from Gabriel. “You look stunning,” He spoke to her, his voice low and husky.
A light blush came over her cheeks, looking away bashfully for a moment; she couldn’t believe a man of his appearance would even find someone like her even remotely attractive or interesting.
“Thank you. You look handsome,” she managed to get out, though the words only made the blush on her cheeks deepen in intensity and color.
He gave her a lopsided grin, “Do you always blush so much?” he questioned.
“Not at all,” Olivia spoke softly.
One of the waitresses of the bar walked over, a welcome distraction to take the attention off of her for a moment.
“What can I get you guys?” the lady asked, giving the gum in her mouth a pop after she spoke.
“Whiskey,” Gabriel told her tersely.
“Uh, I’ll have a cranberry vodka, please,” Olivia gave her a polite smile.
The waitress nodded and walked off to the bar.
“You’re so polite,” Gabriel noted.
Olivia gave a bit of a shrug, “Well, I try. I work in hospitality, so I try to be nice to other servers while I’m out hoping that karma will work in my favor.”
“Hospitality? Where do you work?” he asked her.
“Maison Blanche, it’s a French café a few blocks from my apartment,” she explained to him.
“So you moved to a new town to take a lucrative job offer at a French café?” Gabriel asked her, an amused look in his eye.
“Well, no definitely not. Emily, my roommate, works there and helped me get a job there. I came to live with Emily.”
The waitress came back, handing them their drinks before walking off again.
Olivia took a sip of her drink before lifting her eyes to him, “Where do you work?” she asked, looking at him with curious eyes.
Gabriel played with the little black straw they put in each of the drinks, giving his whiskey a stir.
He seemed to be lost in thought before speaking finally, “It’s not important,” he answered.
Olivia opened her mouth to challenge him but he spoke again, “How long do you plan to be in town?” he asked her.
Olivia blinked, not understanding why he wouldn’t tell her where he worked. Her mind immediately jumped to the worst conclusions, pondering on the idea that he was a criminal of some sort. Did he traffic drugs? Involved in a gang? Something she couldn’t even think of?
She forced the thoughts away, not wanting to work herself up over nothing. After all, Gabriel hadn’t been very forthcoming with information before so why would he about his job?
“I don’t know, really. Maybe long term? I’m just trying to get by, right now,” Olivia gave a shrug.
“Get by? Are you struggling with money?” he asked her, his eyes locking onto hers.
Olivia blinked at his boldness. Typically speaking, people didn’t outright ask people about their financial situation.
“No, I have the money I need to get by. I don’t have any plans for the future yet, so it’s hard to say how long I’ll be around,” she shrugged.
“How come you don’t have any plans?” Gabriel asked, looking to her as he raised his glass of whiskey to his lips.
She looked away, taking a gulp of her drink, her posture stiffening a bit.
His eyes raked over her, examining every little move she made. “I’m sorry, have I over stepped?” he asked, his voice a bit softer than before.
He didn’t seem to want to offend her.
After another long gulp of her drink, she shook her head and looked back to him, “No, it’s fine. I just don’t talk about it very much…”
“About why you don’t have any future plans?”
“Yeah,” Olivia nodded softly. “I was in Ohio, going to college there. But, I went through a disaster of a breakup and I decided to get a fresh start here with Emily. And I decided to take some time away from school to rediscover myself and to find out what it is I wanted to do with my life—as cliché as that may sound.”
Gabriel sat, watching her for a few long minutes.
He looked relaxed, his back leaned against the red leather seat and a muscular forearm rested against the edge of the table with his fingers wrapped around his glass.
There was something so strange about the way he watched her. It was like she was almost scary to him, like a mutant in a laboratory—but completely fascinating at the same time. Never once did she detect any malice from him, but she couldn’t read him well at all. He was certainly enigmatic.
“What were your plans?”
While she should have seen that question being a follow up, she hadn’t expected it.
Her long pale fingers tapped against her glass softly out of nervousness, “Well, I was going to school to teach early education. But now that I’m away from that life, from the area I had always known… I don’t know if that’s what I want anymore.”
Something shifted in his eyes. The tall, muscular man gazed at her with softened eyes, even appearing to be a bit glossy.
His jaw clenched for a moment, “You like teaching kids?” he asked her, taking in a deep breath and
sitting up a little more.
Olivia looked at him curiously, a little shocked by the sudden glimpse of emotion.
“Well, I like teaching and I like kids, so I figured why not put them together,” she gave a small giggle.
He chuckled as well, his eyes bright with a sense of longing. “Why? Do you like kids?” she asked.
Gabriel cleared his throat a bit, but didn’t look away from her, “I suppose so. I would never opt into teaching them though. I think it takes a certain kind of… altruistic heart that I do not have. I think it’s beautiful, though, to hold such a heart.”
Her cheeks turned rosy in complexion, “Thank you… that’s very kind of you to say. But like I said, I don’t know if that’s what I want to do anymore. Did you go to college?” she asked, desperate to get any shred of information on him.
Olivia would turn every question around on him until he felt compelled to answer even one of them.
Gabriel’s eyes were still a bit soft, but less intense. “I didn’t have any formal education, but I’ve learned plenty during my travels to consider myself a bit of a worldly person.”
“So you travel a lot?” Olivia asked excitedly, her eyes gleaming.
“I suppose you could say that,” he said, wiping his face. “I’ve been to many of the large, popular areas. I’ve also seen a whole lot of nothing in small, dismal towns.”
“I would love to travel,” Olivia sighed dreamily, relaxing in her seat a bit. “I grew up in one town, and went to college in the next town over. I’ve always wanted to see the world,” she gave another sigh, propping her head up.
“Why haven’t you?” he asked, his brow lowering a bit.
She gave a shrug, “I don’t know… I guess I always thought it was unrealistic, or a waste of money. Honestly, I would sell everything I owned if it would give me enough money to keep me going while traveling the world.”
Gabriel smiled warmly at the notion, looking deep in her eyes, “Perhaps one day soon, you’ll be able to see the world.”
Olivia’s brow creased at that, even though a smile was on her lips. What did he mean by that? While it sounded like it could have just been warm words of encouragement, there was something in the tone of his voice—almost as though he was offering to show her the world.
Before she could say anything in response, there was a sudden roar of noise coming from across the bar. They both looked up, spotting it coming from the door. In poured the same rowdy bikers as the night before, crowding the bar and tables before some of them took to the booths.
As the last bit of them came through the door, a man with ebony skin stopped in his tracks when his eyes landed on Gabriel.
Olivia looked to Gabriel, who was glaring hard at the man before looking to her.
“Is everything okay?” Olivia asked him, instinctively reaching a hand out and placing it over his.
She could nearly feel the tension in the room between Gabriel and the man.
His eyes fell to their hands before glancing back to her, “Everything is fine,” he assured her as his other hand laid over hers.
But then the ebony skinned man was standing over them, his dark eyes hard on Gabriel. He appeared to be so angry, Olivia was surprised there wasn’t foam coming from his mouth.
“May I speak with you outside?” he asked, a bite to his voice.
“I have company, Mercutio. Be gone,” Gabriel said to him without looking to the man.
Gabriel’s eyes were fixated on their hands, his fingertips starting to delicately trace circles into her skin.
“No. We need to speak,” Mercutio snapped, his eyes wild with rage, his nostrils flared.
“And I said I have company,” Gabriel snapped right back, a growl to his voice.
His eyes went to the man, staring him down with animosity sizzling in his stormy gray eyes.
The black man seemed to weaver for a moment, before finding his footing again and leaning down, “I wouldn’t want to cause a scene in front of your delicious looking company, but I will if you make me stoop to it,” he said in a hushed, venomous tone.
Did he really just call her delicious looking?
Gabriel’s once soft, warm expression was molded into a look of sheer hate and fury as he glared at Mercutio.
After a long moment, he ripped his eyes away and turned to Olivia.
He raised her hand to his lips, speaking to her as his bottom lip grazed against her skin, “I’ll be right back, Olivia. This shouldn’t take long.”
He then pressed a soft kiss into the back of her hand, his gray hues locked onto hers as he did. Then he gently placed her hand down before looking back to the man standing next to them, the anger instantly returning to his expression.
Gabriel was on his feet, grabbing the man by the scruff of his shirt and pushing him towards the door, a venomous whisper hissing from his lips as he led the man away from her.
Olivia sat in a daze, just watching as Gabriel aggressively opened the door and practically tossed Mercutio onto the sidewalk before letting the door shut behind them. What had that been all about? Why had Gabriel been so angry? She didn’t mind if they would have stepped outside for a couple of minutes, but Gabriel seemed agitated at him even asking him.
Olivia let out a breath, taking a big gulp of her drink. Gabriel was so strange to her. He was more interested in her and who she was than anyone she had ever met, yet she knew so little of him.
From their conversations, she had a limited understanding of him. He seemed to be a drifter, traveling around constantly with perhaps nowhere to call home; he also seemed to believe he didn’t have a very big heart, Olivia drawing that from the comment he had made about teaching children. But he seemed to care for her deeply, even with just meeting her.
Gabriel hadn’t failed to leave her spinning in his absence.
Olivia texted Emily while he was gone, letting her know it was going pretty well so far. Emily had been so excited for her to be going on a possible date; she just wanted Olivia to be happy and to be able to find love in someone who wasn’t an ass like Kent. Her friend had never exactly approved of him, warning Olivia that he seemed like a womanizer.
Olivia had been too infatuated with Kent at the time to hear a word of it, saying Emily didn’t know him like she did. In the end, it seemed like Emily had known him better than Olivia ever had—even without meeting him in person.
She tried not to think of it anymore, though, not wanting the thought of Kent to spoil her evening with Gabriel. She stirred her drink, squeezing the lime wedge on the rim of the glass into the drink. Finishing off that one, she waited for the waitress to come back around to ask for another. Letting out a sigh, she glanced to her phone to check the time. They had already been outside for several minutes at that point; surely they would head back in any moment.
The waitress came back with her drink and Olivia began to nurse that one, trying to take her time drinking so that she didn’t get too far ahead of Gabriel. She wondered what had been so urgent that the man, Mercutio, was so insistent on speaking to him right then. The negative thoughts started swirling around Olivia’s head again, but she quickly brushed them off. She was willing to give Gabriel the benefit of the doubt, for now at least.
Fifteen minutes went by, and then thirty.
Olivia was trying her best to stay positive, thinking maybe the man needed help with something and Gabriel went to quickly help him. Her mind quickly poked a hole in that theory, telling herself no one who was in need of help would have shown animosity towards the person they were calling on for help. Besides, why wouldn’t he have requested it when speaking to Gabriel. And if they had gone somewhere, why didn’t Gabriel come in to tell her he would have to go?
With each minute that ticked by, Olivia grew a little more annoyed. He had told her he would be back, and even said it wouldn’t take long. What was his definition of a long conversation?
After two and a half drinks and forty-five minutes, Olivia was convinced he had stood her up. Her m
ind toyed with the idea that he knew his gang of bikers would show up, and had prearranged for the man to come to him and pull him away from her. If he wasn’t having a good time, he could have just told her.
She stood, putting her bag on her shoulder and walking through the loud bar. When she stepped outside, she half-expected them to be right outside. Giving a glance up and down the street, they weren’t anywhere to be seen. Giving a huff, Olivia started to walk briskly towards her apartment.
She felt like a fool. How could she have ever convinced herself that a man like him would have even been remotely interested in her? While Olivia knew she wasn’t ugly or too boring, there was nothing about her that made her pop or memorable. She was probably just another girl in a bar to him, and yet she convinced herself that she felt something between them, something almost electric.
The girl was just delusional.
No wonder he wouldn’t tell her anything of note about him, he didn’t want her knowing anything about him so that she could never find him even if she tried. Well the joke was on him, she didn’t want to find him.
Olivia despised being the butt of the joke, and that was what he had made her. She must have looked downright pathetic sitting there alone for forty-five minutes, waiting for him like a puppy. Well, she learned her lesson and she wasn’t going to put her trust in anymore men at bars, no matter how handsome and alluring. That was how horror movies began, anyways, and she wasn’t about to be another joke or a victim.
Olivia hurried back to her apartment, shutting the door behind her. Emily and Isaac’s heads popped up from the couch, looking back to her.
“Hey kiddo, how’d it go?” Isaac called to her with a grin on his face.
She glanced at him briefly before rushing to her room without saying a word, locking the door so that Emily couldn’t disturb her. Olivia walked to a shelf in her room which held her stereo. Plugging her phone into it and scrolling through to play music, she let the soothing music fill the room at a reasonable volume.
She practically ripped the clothes from her body, no longer wanting to be all dolled up. The dress was replaced with a pair of tennis shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Walking to her small vanity, she removed the makeup from her face and pulled her hair up into a bun. Finally, Olivia sauntered to her bed and nestled beneath the covers.
Gabriel's Secret: A Vampire's Obsession: Book 1 Page 3