Hustling down the porch steps, I half expected to find Gale gone, but he was there, at the end of the driveway, seeming lost in his head as he peered down the road. Under the wash of the streetlight, he looked almost ethereal, blond hair nearly white and face pale and drawn. Troubled.
I recalled his white-knuckle grip on the bathroom counter at CineVision, water sluicing off his nose and lips. The tortured way he’d met my gaze in the mirror.
Gale didn’t respond to the front door slamming, so I quieted my footsteps. My first order of business was to empty my stomach, and I didn’t need an audience or the questions that would surely follow.
I aimed for the side of the house to vomit out of sight, but slowed my pace, unable to tear my gaze away from Gale. Not for the first time, something about the guy captured my attention.
Olivia’s girl-next-door vibe had been a mystery for months. Vern called my obsession anattraction, but I wasn’t so sure. Her personality drew the eye. It was larger than life. In your face.
Gale was fucking with my brain in a similar way.
Like his sister, nothing about his appearance was particularly noteworthy. Ordinary, yet I found myself entranced, more so than with Olivia. On our way back to Elk City, I’d caught myself staring, searching, and trying to sort out how the twins could be so similar yet completely different at the same time.
Olivia was verbose, the definition of an extrovert. Gale seemed uncomfortable in his own skin.
Olivia’s demeanor demanded,Look at me. See me. Pay attention to me. While Gale’s body language begged to go unseen, unheard, and unnoticed.
Yet I saw, heard, and noticedeverythingabout him for reasons I couldn’t explain.
A quiet storm raged in his core. It tore him apart from the inside out. I felt it in my bones. Under my skin. It hummed with the same raw intensity I often felt during real storms. A current ran between us. It had literally sparked in the car, startling us both. Okay, fine. It was a static charge and nothing more, but still.
The whole thing unsettled me. I knew nothing about Gale, whether he was straight or gay or bi or ace, and I wasn’t the type of person who sought relationships. Then why did I have an impulse to flirt? To make him smile. To get his muscles to relax for even a fraction of a second.
No. It was a stupid thought. My life was complicated enough without introducing that sort of mess. Plus, when it came to baggage, I was practically a hoarder, and no one wanted or deserved the shit that came along with Ozrik Devereaux. I was a one-man show, and unless I broke the chain that bound me to my mother, I would never be free.
Before he caught me staring, I rounded the house and walked far enough to be out of sight of the road, hidden in shadow, then I stuck my finger down my throat and forced those fucking pills back up before I really was sick.
By the time I returned to the car, Gale was beside it. He looked at me with concern that telegraphed how much he’d heard.
“Are you throwing up?” he asked.
“No.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and aimed for the trunk where I keptsafebottles of water. I dug one out and drank it down before locating a pack of gum among the mess ofuncontaminatedsnacks I kept on hand.
Gale watched.
I slammed the trunk and sized him up. “Ready?”
He nodded, but getting in the car looked like the last thing he wanted to do.
Before I could aim for the driver’s door, something drew his attention. I followed his gaze as a dark form emerged from under the neighbor’s front porch and strutted across the lawn in my direction.
“Slickster! What are you doing here, baby girl?”
I crouched and petted her as she weaved through my legs and nuzzled my palm.
“Is that your cat?” Gale asked.
“Nah. She’s a stray, but we’re best buds. I take care of her, and she takes care of me.” I picked her up and scratched her ear, peppering her with kisses and butting our foreheads. “You’re such a princess, aren’t you? Your timing sucks. I was just leaving. Meet me at Noah’s, okay? I’ll stop by the store and grab you a can of food.”
She yowled as if she understood. When I put her down, she weaved between my legs before doing the same to Gale. For the first time all night, his shoulders came down from his ears. He loosened his grip on the camera and crouched to pet her.
“Her name’s Slickster?” he asked.
I chuckled. “No. Oil Slick. Slick, for short, and Slickster, because all cats need ten nicknames. It’s stupid. Her fur shines like a slick of oil, and she’s sneaky, so yeah. It stuck.”
A shy smile turned the corners of Gale’s mouth, and I soaked it up.
“Why not adopt her?”
