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Gabriel’s hair was more mussed than usual. He’d probably been running his hands through it. His dark gaze somehow darkened further as he locked eyes with me.
“You’re late,” he said, his voice even and cold. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”
“I said I’d come, I’m here,” I told him. “And I’m not late. It’s like what…seven ten?”
“Seven eighteen. You said you would be here at seven.”
“Itisseven.” I shook my head and brushed past him. “This is Morgan. Morgan, Running Man.”
“Hi, Morgan. I’m Gabriel.” His voice sounded less clipped when he spoke to her.
“Hi,” she said, her voice somehow both hesitant and light. She had a way with being personable no matter the situation, which was just one of the many things I loved about her.
I stepped across the threshold and into the heart of Gabriel’s cement box.
The inside wasn’t as harsh as the outside. Next to a simmering fireplace was a sofa and a chair. Even though they were the modern kind of furniture that looked too stiff for actual sitting, they were nice.
I set my coat on one of the hooks by the door and set to exploring. Above the fireplace was actually a kinda cool stained-glass feature with little glass circles arranged in the concrete. Also, Gabriel had a surprisingly HGTV-worthy kitchen.
On the counter sat two trays. One had sliced meats, cheeses, nuts, and crackers. The other was piled with veggies and dip. It was the perfect spread for what we were about to do, and not date-ish at all. The jitter in my hands, the slightly off-kilter feeling that was wrecking my whole nervous system—definitely hunger. I needed a blood sugar boost, stat. I grabbed a couple of pistachios and a chunk of cheese and popped them in my mouth.
The cheese wassogood it should be a crime. Maybe it was. Maybe in addition to being a surly genius, Gabriel Stryker was an international cheese thief.
Gabriel watched me chew with a stoic expression, moving just an inch from invading my personal space. “When you say seven, I expect seven.”
“You’re still going on about that?” I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s time to set up.”
“What exactly do you have in mind?”
“Well, it’s dark, and the exterior of your home looks like a personality-deficient supervillain lives here, so we don’t want to shoot that.”
Morgan shot me the look she did when she thought I was being too rude. I ignored her.
“It’s utilitarian.” Gabriel’s dark eyes seared me in place, melting my shoes to the floor.
A switch flipped in my brain, making my skin hot and my brain fog.
Breath caught in my lungs.
What was wrong with me? Did I need more cheese?
“Utilitarian and unique, especially in this neighborhood,” Morgan said, snapping me out of Gabriel’s evil spell. “You must have used a different builder than everyone else.”
“It’s custom work based on the Earthship project,” Gabriel said without missing a beat. “Sustainability is paramount. Therefore, inside the walls discarded cans and tires are utilized as part of the foundation. If it didn’t violate city code, there would be a windmill on the hill, but I had to settle for solar panels.”
Basically, he was exactly what Morgan had said—a freaking hero trying to save the environment one piece of garbage, and one sustainable energy source, at a time. Now I felt bad for thinking the place looked like a prison. He also seemed not to have felt whatever was in the air a second ago, whatever had fried my system. I definitely needed more cheese.
I popped another piece in my mouth.
Pulling myself together, I told him, “I like the stained glass above the fireplace.”
“Those are wine bottles.”
Of course they were. Did it make me a bad person to hate a saint? Probably. But like Morgan had said, doing good made for good cover for the bad. And Gabriel Stryker had plenty of bad, too. I could see it in his eyes whenever I said something that he didn’t like. I could feel it sizzling in the air.
It felt like the kind of bad that would make a girl’s toes curl. But then again, every time that sizzle appeared, it quickly fizzled. Maybe the whole thing was my imagination. I hated that I’d ever allowed him to affect me.
“Wine bottles. Fancy,” I said about the fireplace, dismissing what really was a cool feature. “Morgan, do you want to eat something before we start?”
