The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(3)
“What are you doing?” he asks roughly.
“What?”
Gabe’s brows pinch together, and he glares behind me, at the truck. “What are you doing, Marley?”
I look around the quiet, leaf-strewn street, trying to figure out not what I’m doing, but why I’m seeing him here. Nothing looks amiss, though. Nothing to suggest I’ve had a mental break.
“I’m moving back to Fate. Today,” I add, my voice a shaky notch above its normal octave.
Shock cocoons me as I look up at his face: Gabe, whom I haven’t seen in twelve years. Gabe, whom I last saw through the crack of a door in an apartment in Las Vegas. His eye was swollen and his nose was bleeding. I remember thinking, He hates me.
He looks like he hates me now. I run my dumb gaze up and down him one more time, and notice his foot tapping the curb. Even barefoot on the sidewalk, he’s commanding. Domineering.
I inhale slowly, bringing my heart-rate down a notch, so my voice is steady when I ask, “Where are your shoes?”
“Why are you here in that truck?”
“Because I’m moving in?” It’s not a question, but it sounds like one. I bug my eyes out in response to his mean stare. “What are you doing here? Did your shoes go in the toilet with your mood?”
His glare deepens. “They’re inside.”
I blink at the porch behind him, where I notice a white dog sitting beside a rocking chair. “Inside where?” I ask.
“Inside the house.” Gabe shakes his head, his jaw locked like an angry sentry.
“What is going on?” My heart begins to pound again. “Are you my nightmare greeting party?”
“I’m your warning party.”
“Warning what?”
Gabe’s jaw ticks. “I live here.” His gaze flickers to my truck again. “That means you’re going to need to find yourself another place.”
Is he insane? My head spins. “You live in New York.”
For just an instant, I feel sure this is a joke: a TV joke.
“Is there a hidden camera?” I ask lamely.
“Of course not. And I’m serious. You can’t stay.”
“I’m on the top floor. I already rented it!”
“I’m sure there’s something else.”
“Are you kidding? I was told the top floor is its own unit. Are you on the bottom? Because you’ll just have to deal with me.”
“Will I?”
I can feel my neck flush at his tone. “Yes, you will. Put on some big boy pants. I hear you’re Mr. Famous now. Go buy a house if you can’t wipe that scowl off your face.”
“Fendall House is mine already. Miss Shorter has me fixing the place up.”
“Is this the Twilight Zone? Just go away, Gabe! No one needs you here!”
He steps down off the curb, so that he’s standing in the street beside me: tall and wide, his thick arms crossed as his eyes narrow. “You were never skilled at confrontation, were you, Marley? You won’t win this.”
“Win what? I don’t need permission!”
“Don’t you?”
I flinch, and my cheeks burn. “I can’t believe you’re being such an asshole.”
“I recall that being your opinion.”
“Good! It was!”
He laughs, a sound I feel between my legs, and shakes his head. “What don’t you understand about this, Marley? No matter how long you stand here with your boxes looking at the place, you’re not moving in with me.”
I throw my head back on a barked laugh. “Don’t you wish. I am living upstairs, Gabe. You are downstairs. That is not together. We don’t even have to see each other.”
“Except…” He gestures to my truck, his blue eyes widened.
“Go inside! Put on a blindfold. I don’t know.” I brush past him. “Excuse me.”
My face—my whole body—throbs with fury. I’m so overwrought, I head down the front walk, toward the white dog on the porch—whom I realize must belong to Gabe.
Shit fuck.
I veer into the bushes, heading across the lawn toward the home’s rear right, where there’s supposed to be a staircase tacked onto the house’s back side.
“Not your walkway,” he says coolly.
“Figured that out,” I snap over my shoulder.
Hurt stings my cheeks and neck, prickles tears in my eyes. I whirl. “You are such an asshole! Always were. The biggest jerk in our class!”
“What was it, then, Marley?” He takes a long stride down the walkway toward me. “Oh, wait, I remember.” He looks pointedly down, and then back up at me with those electric eyes—and I know what he’s meaning.
“Jesus—you’re a pig!”
He smirks. “Only for you.”
“Fuck off.”
With those ungraceful words, I march toward the house I’m sharing with my ex-husband.
2
Gabe
I give the box a hard shake. Hearing nothing, I chuck it aside and grab the next one. With trembling hands, I shake it. Nothing. Motherfuck me! Why I stored this shit this way, under the fucking stairs… I can’t even stand up fully as I fumble through the madness.