Page 34 of Scoop Me Up
I chuckled and ducked my head with pleasure as heat rose inside me. “Thanks. Same.”
“Your turn,” Gabe said after a few quiet moments. “Tell me your scar story.”
I bit my lip and thought for a second. “I don’t know if I have any scars to tell stories about.”
“Bullshit. You’ve got to have something. Broken bones maybe?”
“Actually, I don’t. I was always a careful kid. Careful enough not to break anything, anyway.”
“Broken hearts, then.”
My own heart skipped a beat. Did I want to get into this? “Only if you promise to tell me yours.”
“You already know mine. Even though it was, you know, mutual, the divorce still broke my heart.”
My chest ached for him. “I think I understand. I don’t have many of those either, though.” I thought for a moment, searching my brain for anything that would be safe to tell him. I didn’t want to risk tipping my hand and showing my crush, so I had to be careful. “Okay. There was this guy in high school.”
Gabe glanced my way. “You broke his heart?”
I snorted and shook my head. “Hardly. Senior year, we were hooking up. Classic story. You know how it goes—the straight jock messing around with someone in secret. That someone happened to be me. It was great for a couple of months, until one of his jock buddies caught us together. We’d been so discreet, but we were in his bedroom, supposedly for a math test, when the basketball captain walked in. After that, he didn’t wantanything to do with me.” My stomach churned, acid rising in my throat as I recalled the day we stopped seeing each other. “It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. He didn’t bully me after or anything. Just… disappeared from my life. Entirely, without warning or anything. One day we were supposed to meet and he didn’t show up, and that was that.” I swallowed hard, the memory going down like a baseball in my throat.
Gabe took hold of my arm, his hand warm on my bare skin. “What an asshole.”
I didn’t have anything to say right away. Eventually, I shrugged and sighed. “Teenagers aren’t always the most thoughtful creatures.”
“Neither are adults,” he murmured, squeezing my arm a little tighter before releasing me. We walked in silence for a bit. As we walked, I glanced over at him, trying to sneak a discreet peek. His face was soft and relaxed, a half-smile on his lips. The green in his eyes was dark in the dim moonlight. He looked genuinely happy. My chest tightened and my crush intensified. I wanted to reach out and touch him again, to put his hand on my arm, or in my hand, to feel the heat of his body. I cleared my throat and looked away from him, back to the path in front of us, just as he looked in my direction.
At that moment, Gabe tripped over something on the sidewalk, stumbling forward a few steps. I reached out and grabbed him by the arm, preventing him from hitting the pavement. Gabe spun to face me, his cheeks burning red in the darkness. We stared at each other for a second before I let him go, both of us chuckling awkwardly.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay. They really need to fix these sidewalks. I’ll talk to Mayor Axlerod about it.” A second later, a shiver hit me, racking my body despite my efforts to suppress it.That’s what you get for going sleeveless,I chastised myself.
“Cold?”
“A little,” I murmured.
Gabe veered closer to me, until our shoulders were touching. “Better?” Again, his tone was soft, a husky whisper.
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Thanks.”
He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you ever wonder how your life would be different if you’d made different choices?”
“Not really. I don’t want to dwell on what could have been. I just focus on building the future to be as bright as I can.”
He was silent for a moment. “Okay.”
Before I could ask what had spurred the question, a cat darted across the street in front of us. Gabe’s face lit up. “Cat!”
I couldn’t help but laugh—it was such an innocent, genuine reaction.
“Man, Ellie would love a cat.”
“Jennifer doesn’t like cats, then?”
“No, it’s not that. She’s super allergic. There’s just no way Ellie could have one living with her mom.”
“Makes sense. Maybe one day. But… why don’t you get one, then? She could at least see it when she’s at your house.”
