Page 104 of Sinners Atone
Aside from nearly spilling a tray of drinks on me when I arrived, his only crime was being annoying and yet Gabriel went from zero to one hundred with no stops in between.
“Shesaid,she’ll have a lemonade.”
Under the flashing holiday lights, he rose like sin in stop-motion. A human in green, a monster in red, and as his shadow bled across the felt and swallowed me whole, I discovered what it felt like to be both terrified and turned on.
It wasn’t that Gabriel had lost his temper.
It was that he’d lost it because ofme.
A lick of fire shoots up my core. I’d made such a flippant comment about him having a crush on me on the tender yacht, but Christ, the thought of it potentially being true…
The restroom door flies open.
“Wren?”
I mutter a silent curse at the sound of Tayce’s voice.
“Wren!” She barks again, hammering on the door so hard my bones rattle.
“I’m busy,” I grit back. I brace myself against the cold metal, too, because I’ve seen her kick through doors with sturdier locks and in higher heels.
“No, you’re not. You’ve never used a club toilet in your life.”
“Yeah, well,” I sniff. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
The door opens again, and I know better than to hope it’s her leaving.
“Hi, babe,” she chirps to someone else, sugar in her tone. “You might want to use the other restroom. My friend,Wren Harlow, is in there, currently doing the biggest, stinkiest?—”
A jolt of panic rockets through me. I wrench at the lock and bolt out of the cubicle. “I amnot!” I squeal, cheeks burning.
The girl freezes mid-step, eyes flicking from Tayce to me and back again. Her mouth opens and shuts, then she throws her hands up like I’m holding her at gunpoint.
“My bad…” she mutters, backing up toward the door. “I’ll just, uh—yeah.”
“I swear, I was just fixing my dress?—”
The door thumps shut on my protest. Huffing out a breath of annoyance, I spin around and glare at Tayce. She’s grinning like a Cheshire cat, but when her gaze flickers across my face and down to the flush on my chest, it fades.
“What the hell was that?”
“I told you I was sick,” I mutter.
Her eyes track me as I move to the sink and slam my purse on the counter. I nudge the tap with my elbow and glare down at the water spitting out of it. Anything to avoid her stare burning into my reflection in the mirror.
The faucet hisses. Pipes gurgle. Heels click across the tiles, then Tayce is beside me.
“Wren…” Her hips knock against the counter as she leans back on her palms. “Are you fucking Gabe?”
Her question catches me off guard and my laugh is loud and manic. It echoes off the walls and raises Tayce’s brows. “Me?Gabe? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all year.”
“I mean, it’s totally okay if you are.”
My eyes slide sideways, suspicion crackling through me. “What?”
She gives a careless shrug, her face showing no traces of humor. “Eh. He’s fucking hot. I’ve tattooed him a million timesand I still forget my own name when he takes his shirt off.” Pushing off the sink, she turns around and studies her red lipstick in the mirror. “That body is criminal, honestly.”
Unfortunately, I’ve seen him shirtless too. Only once, then many times over, every time I close my damn eyes.
