Page 125 of Fierce-Gabe

She’d always been so fearful of being judged or told she needed to change the way she looked or acted.

She was dressed the same as the women here tonight. Nothing different in her eyes.

Jeans, a nice shirt, and shoes. Maybe some of the women had spiky heels on and she had flats, but no one was looking at their feet.

Nope, Gabe had been looking at her face the entire night.

Their eyes had been locked and their smiles were infectious and contagious.

When they got off the stage and were walking back to their table, Megan leaned down to her, “Someone is getting lucky tonight. I can see it in his eyes watching you up here.”

“The minute he opened his mouth on this stage I was ready to drag him off and go home,” she admitted.

Her sister-in-law laughed with Megan. “No one would blame you,” Chloe said.

They got back to the table and within twenty minutes everyone had finished their drinks, settled the bill, and were all walking out the door.

“That was the best night I’ve had in a long time,” Elise said in the truck on the drive back. She was driving and Gabe hadn’t even questioned it.

He’d had three beers in the almost three hours they’d been there and tossed her the keys and that was the end of it. She knew he wasn’t drunk by any means, but it just showed that he was open minded and mature about things.

Some things weren’t worth the risk.

“You’re going to have even more fun when we get home,” he said.

37

PROFOUND WORDS

Gabe couldn’t believe that Elise put him on the spot like that.

But damn, it did feel good to get up there and sing. And though he’d felt rusty, he knew it was better than anyone else that had gotten on stage.

“I had such flashbacks,” she said to him in his truck on the way back to his place. They seemed to be spending more time there than her house and he wasn’t sure why.

It was probably the same distance to her office, just in a different direction.

“Good or bad?” he asked. He didn’t think about that. The last thing he wanted was any negative thoughts tonight. Not when he had such a good time with the group of people they were with.

He’d never known Elise to let go like that around friends and it just proved to him how much she’d changed.

“Great,” she said. “And sorry I did that to you. Had you get on stage. But damn, I could see it in your eyes when you were there. You were loving it.”

No one seemed to get that about him back then.

“Not like you think,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “You love it but don’t want to live it. There is a big difference.”

“There is,” he said. “And you understand that more than most.”

“I think I get it because there is a big part of my life that someone tried to put me where I didn’t want to go.”

Oh no, back to her mother and this night could turn in a heartbeat.

“But you’ve moved past it,” he said. At least he’d thought she had based on the last conversation with her mother.

“I have,” she said. “And I feel really good about it and how I can put interactions with my mother behind me. They can annoy me or make me laugh. Or I could choose to just have short term memory after I hang up.”

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