Page 71 of Sinners Atone
His eyes are still fixated on the sky, but I’m close enough to see a muscle flex beneath his beard. He flicks the butt on the grass, then runs a hand over his mouth.
“Neither did you.”
My chest concaves with the weight of my next breath.
Of course I didn’t. I couldn’t. Uncle Finn was still furious with me, and I couldn’t go to him with yet another drama, and certainly not so soon after the first.
Silence brews between us, and it’s louder than the relentless howl of the wind. I’m fascinated by how Gabriel seems to melt into it, as still as a statue. Unaware of the restlessness in my legs or how hard my heart is beating.
The conversation has died; I know it’s time to go, but I also know I don’t want to. Standing here, side by side with a man like him in the dark is making my blood hum with excitement. I feel like I’m doing something I shouldn’t, like I’m a teenager who’sshimmied down the drainpipe in the middle of the night to meet a boy too old and too wrong for her.
I run my palms over my puffer, for once at a loss of what to say. Sure, I have a million questions I want to ask—like how he got that scar and why the cold never bothers him. Why he’s here at all. Instead, I glance up at dark house again, and something clicks.
“You’re behind the power outage.”
“Tell me why.”
I pause. Then the realization sprouts andsparks, lighting up my core. It’s the same reason he never told anyone about that night.
“If it happens in the dark, it didn’t happen,” I whisper, a tremble in my tone.
The words feel sordid coming from my mouth. Exhilarating. The feeling heightens when Gabriel slowly turns his head and his eyes warm my lips again, as though he likes what came out of them.
“Smart girl,” he murmurs.
Christ.
My pulse is pounding. Other parts of me too. Because Gabriel Visconti wants to keep this a secret. This.Us.Here, alone, under the stars. I’d think I were hallucinating if my body wasn’t having such a visceral reaction to him staring at me.
I look up at him through my lashes, wrestling with every breath.
“Why’d you teach me how to get out of a trunk?”
“Because you piss me off,” he bites back, too quickly. He swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, as though trying to erase the remark that just shot out of it, and rolls his shoulders back, recalibrating. “You’re too close to my family for comfort. If someone wants to get to Rory, they’d go through you. You need to learn how to defend yourself from these things.”
Oh, right. He’s responsible for his family’s security, so of course having to rescue Rory’s best friend from a creepy guy in a phone booth would get his back up. Him being here in the middle of the night isn’t anything strange or secretive in his book, he’s just doing his job.
A brick of disappointment wedges itself between my ribs, though I don’t know why.
Before I can pick it apart, he shoves a gloved hand out between us. “Keys.”
With a small tremble, I unzip my pocket and hand them over. He curls them into a tight fist and nods. “Consider lesson one complete.”
My heart leaps an inch. “There’s going to be another lesson?”
He glances toward the house. “Your mains switch is outside in the white box on the porch. Just flick it.”
“I know how to do it,” I huff.Lie.
Seems like I can’t stop telling them around this man.
He smirks like he knows it too, then turns on his heel and stalks over to his motorcycle.
“Wait. When’s lesson two?”
The wheels hiss under Gabriel’s weight as he throws his leg over the seat. He tugs on his helmet and checks his mirrors. Then his gaze slowly crawls back to mine, as though answering me is an afterthought.
“When you least expect it.”
