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“And don’t you forget it.” She winked. “Champ.”
Then she walked out of the office with her goal still well in hand.
To find Dane.
And damn his brother for planting more seeds of doubt in her head.
He’ll never love you.
Sadly, she had to agree with that. While Dane gave her his attention, his affection, his devotion while they were together, sometimes she felt like she had to pry him away from his work. It was disheartening. And she didn’t think she’d ever be able to fully compete with his job.
He would never love her like he loved his work.
16
Dane half-snorted at Jaxson’s latest tale. Probably a very disturbing story if he wasn’t so drunk. Hearing about Gabriella chasing suspects and walking into danger wasn’t that funny. Except Jaxson had a way of weaving the story to make him laugh. How Gabriella could take down a brute suspect with her dainty little fingers and not even break a sweat. He could picture it. She had such a fierceness about her.
Yet, such tenderness and vulnerability that she tried to hide.
Like last night when she wanted him to leave and break down in silence and cry tears that she didn’t want anyone to see.
Damn it. He wanted to dry those tears. He wanted to be the one to comfort her and tell her everything would be okay, even though he had no idea if it would be. He wanted to share in her vulnerability and show her his when it scared him to death to show anyone any kind of weakness.
Jaxson paused with his beer close to his lips, but not touching. “You okay? You went from laughing to looking like your mother died.”
Dane twisted the bottle in his hands. His fifth…sixth. Hell, he lost count after bottle number three and the two shots that followed. Something Jaxson insisted on.
He didn’t argue. They were both wallowing in their pain. Why not wallow together? Kind of odd, considering they had disliked each other the day before. But it didn’t feel awkward.
“Dude?” Jaxson nudged his shoulder.
Looking at him, he shrugged. “It occurred to me how dangerous her job is. She could’ve died yesterday. You, too.”
They stared at each other for a second before Jaxson averted his eyes first.
“It’s not something I think about. I can’t; otherwise, it’d be hard to walk out the door. I love my job, though. So does Gabby. We both have our reasons why we do it.” Jaxson inhaled and looked back at him. “Just like I’m sure you have your reasons for working at your dad’s company when you could own your own.”
A strangled chuckle escaped. “Gabriella tell you that?”
“We work long hours together, Dane. We talk about a lot of things.” Jaxson chuckled, then shivered as his features twisted into disgust as if he saw someone throw up on his shoes. “But not everything. I don’t like to hear everything…like sex and shit.”
“Well, if you ever need any pointers, I have a lot of moves that—”
“La, la, la, la,” Jaxson started to sing loudly as he covered his ears. “We’re not going there. I have my own moves that work perfectly fine.”
Hearty laughter bellowed out. Dane took another swig of his beer after he settled down. His belly hurt from laughing so hard.
“Thanks. I needed that, Jax.”
One shoulder tilted up in a careless gesture. “Hell, what are friends for?” Jaxson started to mirror his earlier melancholy as he twisted his bottle. “I never thought I’d be sitting here with you over a couple of beers like we were old friends.” Then he clapped him on the shoulder. “But I like to think we’ve turned a corner and I can call you a friend instead of an enemy.”
Dane released a heavy breath. “Yeah, you can. As long as Gabriella hasn’t officially kicked me out of her life.”
Jaxson squeezed his shoulder, smiled, and picked his beer up again. “She gets pissed all the time at me. She’ll get over it. You two are…I’ve never seen her…your relationship…”
“It’s clearly hard for you to describe.” Dane laughed, yet nothing was funny about that.
But Jaxson’s tripped up words made sense.
