Concealed - A Hiding From Love Novel #2 (11 page)

Inside my apartment, I spend a few minutes frantically grabbing underwear off the kitchen counters and shoving dirty socks in the closet. I’ve never put much stock in trying to impress chicks when they come to my place, the bed being the main thing they’ll be seeing, but I’m smart enough to realize that being a disgusting pig isn’t going to score me any points with a woman I actually give a shit about.

Once I’ve heated up a plate for Alexis, I crack open a beer. “You want one?” I offer, holding mine up to show her it’s a
Fat Tire
.

“Sure,” she says from her seat on the sofa. God, she looks good on my furniture. She’s wearing those same black cowboy boots with her little cut-offs, and the mile of fucking outrageously sexy leg between the two is about to undo me.

I bring her plate and beer over and set them on the coffee table before I take a seat, careful not to crowd her. I sense she might flee if I push too hard.

“So.” I watch her as she eats. “Does this mean we’re calling a truce?”

She looks up from her plate but keeps chewing. She’s methodical when she’s hungry like this. She’ll keep shoveling it in until she can’t eat another bite. I just love to watch her sweet lips curl around the fork, so I don’t care how long it takes her.

She takes a swig of beer and swallows. “I don’t know. What does a truce entail?”

I sigh and settle into the pillows farther, propping my feet up on the coffee table. “Look, I didn’t come here to make your life miserable. I came here… I came for a chance. A chance at something I’ve only dreamed about. I don’t
only
want you…” I level a look at her that I hope conveys just how much I
do
want her. She blushes, so I guess it worked. “I want the whole package. A job I love, the woman I love, a place to be my home.

“I’m done, Alexis. I’m done with the random hook-ups and the college classes I don’t care about. Done watching out for Nick and my mom. I’ve spent every minute since I was eighteen taking care of business. The Army’s business, Nick’s business, my mom’s business. And I know I chose it, but I’m tired now, and the only business I want to take care of is the business of getting myself a life.”

She looks at me so seriously then. I hope I’m not screwing things up. I might never get another chance.

“I sat on a beach in Hawaii every day for eighteen months and thought about what the hell I wanted to do with my life. Each and every time it started with you. You and me and what we had in Afghanistan.”

She opens her mouth to protest.

“I know. I know you don’t think it was based on the
real
us or whatever. I don’t want to argue with you anymore. I don’t want to be pissed anymore. I want you to understand why I came. What I feel when I look at you, Alexis. What you mean to me. You’re the start of my life. The beginning of
me
. The core of who I’ll become.”

She bites down on her bottom lip and raises her eyes to mine, her expression one of utter misery.

I reach over and cup her soft cheek carefully. “I don’t want to make you unhappy, and if you don’t want to talk to me or see me, then so be it. You gotta understand though – I’m not staying to fuck up
your
life, babe. I’m staying to save
mine
.”

Alexis

Quien bien ama, tarde se olvida.

True love never grows old.

G
ABE
Thompson – soldier, womanizer, Harley-riding, tattoo-sporting, hot-ass piece of man candy – pledges his love and devotion to me and a small piece of my soul takes flight. I look at his face, look into his eyes, and there is none of his usual cocky snark. Just Gabe. What did he say to me? The ‘naked, pure, essential’ Gabe. I’m so emotionally poleaxed that I start to shake. And there I am, shaking like a
maraca
while I sit on Gabe’s sofa in his messy little apartment.

“Hey,” he says as he reaches his arm out and wraps it around my shoulders. “Come here.” He pulls me in to his side and encloses me in both arms. Everything that has been brewing for the last two weeks, maybe for the last two years, bubbles up inside of me, and I hurt. I hurt so damn bad that I think it might tear me in two.

He doesn’t say anything to me. He simply holds me while I shake and my heart breaks into a thousand tiny splinters of glass. I know, in that moment, my life has changed. The me my parents and Marco saw, the girl I was before Afghanistan, isn’t here anymore. She died in that cave while scary people blew up trucks and shot guns at one another and a brave, brave boy stood guard over her body and her heart. Now that boy is a man who is asking me to be his, to share his life with him, to give him a home. But who am I? If I’m not the girl my parents raised, if I’m not Marco’s girlfriend, who am I?

It’s two hours later when I wake up with a stiff neck and a wicked headache. I spend a minute trying to get my bearings in an unfamiliar dark room. As I try to sit up, an arm tightens around me and I remember I’m with Gabe.

“Shhh,” he whispers in the dark. “Just stay.” He slides us farther down the sofa until we’re stretched out, him behind me. Then he pulls my body against his tight, wraps an arm around my waist, and sighs like the weight of the world has just been lifted off his shoulders.

“You’re pretty good at this spooning stuff,” I whisper back to him as I feel him nuzzle my hair.

“I learned from the best,” he replies, and my mind flashes to a cave in a desert and a soldier who’d never actually slept with a woman before. “No matter what happens tomorrow, Alexis, I love you,” he breathes in my ear.

“I know,” I answer. “I know.”

Gabe’s alarm goes off at an ungodly hour and I am reminded that life with a full-time job is very different than life as a college student.

I feel his big hot body stretch behind me as he reaches over me to grab his phone and shut the alarm off.

“Good morning,” he growls as he rubs a hand up and down my arm.

“Hi,” I answer, still facing away from him.

“I have to get ready for work, but you’re welcome to stay and sleep.”

“No, I, uh, I should get going. You know, back to my apartment and stuff.” I sit up and turn to look at him. He’s stretched out on his side on the sofa, head propped up on his bent arm. His hair has gotten just long enough to be mussed in the morning, and he has a shadow of whiskers along with a sleepy smile on his face. He’s like six foot one inches of unapologetic sex. You could prop him up in a store window and women on the street would bid their life savings for a night with him.

He reaches his free hand over to my hair and gently strokes it. “Maybe you’ll come have dinner with me again sometime?”

I swallow the giant lump in my throat back down and nod dumbly at him.

“Good,” he says, suddenly springing up from the sofa. “I’m hitting the shower. You want to join me?” he grins as he peels off his t-shirt.

Holy hell
.

“What’s the matter, babe? Cat got your tongue?” He winks at me as he strides to the bathroom, where he leaves the damn door open as he begins stepping out of his jeans.

I run for the exit.

Gabe

Toma las cosas como vienen.

Take things as you find them.

I
saunter into work all sunshine and rainbows. “It’s a fucking beautiful day, man, isn’t it?” I ask Mike as I slap him on the back and thrust a cup of Starbucks in his hand.

“For me?” He looks at me suspiciously. “What’d they screw up your order or something?”

“No, dude. I’m just trying to be a nice guy. I bought you a cup of coffee. Shit, relax.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right, except you’re not nice. You’re a dick.”

I laugh. “Well, it’s a nicer me.”

Suddenly his eyes get wide. “Holy shit, you finally got laid!” he exclaims.

I shake my head at him in mock disgust. “Is that all you ever think about?” I ask in the best imitation I can do of an uptight librarian.

“Like you think about anything else, asshole,” he deadpans.

“Okay, fine, but I only think about it with one chick these days, and while I didn’t get laid, I did have a sleepover with that very beautiful woman last night, so yeah, it’s the new and improved me.”

“No shit? Alexis finally took pity on your lovesick ass?”

“Fuck that. She was just reminded of the incredibly hot commodity I am. The woman’s coming to her senses. Just watch and learn, brotha.”

“Yeah? So she broke up with the boyfriend?” he asks.

I scratch my head, and I can feel my face heat.

“Dude,” Mike says, disapproval in his voice. “She is gonna mind-fuck you like nobody’s business.”

“Unless one of you idiots is actually getting fucked right this minute, get your asses to work,” Ramon hollers from the far bay.

Mike shakes his head and chuckles. “Yeah, I don’t think either of us is getting any for a while, bro.”

“Dick,” I mumble as I head over to the ancient Toyota I have to try to revive. Suddenly the day doesn’t seem as bright and sunny as it did.

After work that night Mike invites me to a barbeque at his parents’ house. We head over after work, each of us carting a case of beer, Mike with a bouquet of flowers in his other hand.