Page 50 of Undercover
And all I’d been was used.
Alec
Everything in me screamed to chase Gabe down, grab him, hold him, not let him go until I could make him believe me.
Trust me again.
Instead, I let him go.
Brown staring me down like I’d kicked a puppy right in front of him didn’t help, but in the end, Gabe had the right to tell me to fuck off. I had to respect that. I had to respecthim. I already did, of course—a lot more than he knew or believed.
Jesus, watching him clock Whipley with a drug-filled yoga mat was going into my mental-replay greatest hits. I wished I had it on video so I could pass it around the field office. It’d be an instant classic, Gabe all wild-eyed and purple-haired, fierce and brave and wonderful, knocking that asshole in the face.
With his hands taped, to boot.
I should’ve told Gabe how proud I was, and how grateful.
I wouldn’t get the chance now. And that was a hundred percent my own fucking fault.
Heading back to the motel sounded grim, but not as grim as staying here at the Shelburne police station. And I’d done what I could for the night. I’d interrogated Whipley. I’d made sure the crime scene was secure, and that forensics were doing their thing. I’d talked to everyone who needed talking to, sent all the emails I could stand.
I was done.
The drive back to the motel felt dream-like, or maybe nightmarish. The moon shone down on Lake Champlain, a black-and-white gleaming mirror. Not much traffic at this hour, and the roads felt too empty. The transition into Burlington, with its all-night businesses and glaring streetlights, felt jarring.
And I kept fighting the urge to yank the steering wheel hard to the right and head up the hill to Gabe’s place.
I was too old to stand in front of his window with a boombox over my head, right? Or hang around the front of his building getting drunk and maudlin—I’d do that alone in my motel room, like a grown-up. Or write him bad love poetry.
Not that any poetry I wrote wouldn’t be bad. My one attempt in high school had gotten me a C plus and a lifelong hatred of anything that rhymed.
Gabe deserved better than my efforts at poetry. Gabe really did deserve better, full stop. I’d realized that early on. It’d just taken him a little while to figure it out for himself. I hoped he did know it, and that he’d kicked me to the curb out of self-confidence and not simply anger. Not that I hadn’t earned his anger, but being furious with me wouldn’t keep him from trusting another shady asshole down the line.
And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no matter how much Gabe blamed me, he’d blame himself even more for trusting me.
I pulled up in front of the motel and turned into one of the guest parking spots. Two hipsters with yoga mats and lots of glinting piercings in their faces were standing in my assigned parking spot and smoking a joint, the plumes of smoke drifting hazily in the motel’s floodlights.
Weed was legal in Vermont now, right? I couldn’t remember, and I also couldn’t give less of a shit.
Usually I’d have rousted them out of my spot and scowled at them until they slunk away.
Tonight, I simply couldn’t muster the energy.
Fuck, I hated Burlington.
And myself. Mostly myself, honestly. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel, closed my eyes, and tried not to see Gabe’s glistening eyes, pale cheeks, and downturned mouth as he’d told me he never wanted to see me again.
I had a feeling I’d be seeing that every time I closed my eyes for a long, long time.
16
Alec
“Are you fucking stupid or something?” I flinched and pulled the phone away from my ear. I could still hear my sister. I could’ve heard her from space. “What the hell is wrong with you, Alec? What the hell! You didn’t eventryto make up with him?”
“He said he never wanted to see me again!” What the fuck did she want from me? I should never have told Amanda about Gabe. Rookie mistake. I should’ve gotten drunk alone again that day, like any self-respecting thirty-one-year-old man with a broken heart, instead of caving to the longing for some sympathy and driving the twenty miles to see my sister. “I’m not going to harass him, okay? He made his feelings clear.”
“No,” Amanda barked at me. I’d cautiously brought the phone back to my ear, but I gave it a couple of inches of space again. I’d put her on speaker, but in the nearly empty cavern of my desolate bachelor apartment, her voice would only echo too much for me to hear her clearly. “Okay, yes,” she said, a little more quietly. “He made his feelings clear. But maybe those weren’t all his feelings.”
