Wild Forces: A Friends to Lovers Romance (O-Town Book 2)

by Karen Renee

Grabbing my cell sat from my desk, I called Gabe. It rang three times, and I realized I probably should have texted instead, but then he answered on the fourth ring.

  “Daughtry, you never call. You always text, but never call.”

  I grinned. “Well, I have to go pick up Mom’s ashes—”

  “You want me to come with you?”

  I smiled a little. “That’s sweet of you, but no. Besides, afterward I intend to drop by your place.”

  He scoffed. “Why? Brock’s here and Cecilia’s gonna be home in like two hours or some shit. I’ll come by your place, baby.”

  I steeled my resolve against his use of the term ‘baby.’ “No, Gabe. I’m coming to your place. And your brother better be there, when I get there.”

  “What?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “You heard me, Sullivan. Love you, see you soon.”

  Compliments of decent traffic, I picked up Mom and knocked on Gabe’s door an hour and a half later.

  “Hey, darlin’,” Gabe greeted, holding the door open for me to come inside.

  I walked in and saw Brock on the couch with an X-Box controller in his hand.

  I stalked into the living room. “You! What’s up with sitting inside Kres Chophouse and not even acknowledging me? Huh? And then, when I look back... poof! You disappear.”

  Brock’s head tilted, and he did a long blink while he sighed. “Cassie, I was working. My subject moves, I have to move with them.”

  My posture deflated, since that made sense.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Lunching with mother-dearest at the fancy chop house, eh?” Gabe asked.

  My close-lipped smile was supposed to be demure. “Command performance, you might say.”

  “Nice to have millions is what I really might say.”

  I glared at him.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” Brock asked, looking over his shoulder at Gabe

  Gabe looked at him questioningly. “Thought I told you. Cassie’s family has millions.”

  Brock’s jaw dropped, and I hung my head, muttering, “Gabe. Didn’t I mention my family doesn’t advertise that?”

  Gabe moved to me, cupped my chin to tilt my face up. His remorseful eyes were all the apology I needed, but he said, “Sorry, baby, but he’s my brother. He’s not gonna advertise it. Well, except to Cecilia, but that’s pillow talk, not advertising.”

  “Pillow talk,” I scoffed. “Now who’s the nerd, nerd?”

  “That’s totally a common term.”

  “No, she’s got you there, numbnuts. I’m older than you and I don’t even use that term,” Brock said, turning back to the TV.

  Gabe looked over his shoulder. “Whatever, Brock.” He turned back to me. “You’re here. I don’t know what’s in the fridge since it was Cecilia’s week to shop, but you want me to cook for you?”

  I shook my head. “It really isn’t necessary. I ate so much at lunch, I would normally just have a can of soup or something for dinner.”

  “Soup? No way, woman!” He hooked an arm around my neck and guided me toward the kitchen. “You’re with me, you got to eat. Come on, I’ll show you how cooking is really done.”

  I chuckled at him, just as Brock said, “God! I think I’m gonna be ill. Go to Cassie’s place, would ya?”

  Before I could tell Brock we would do just that, Gabe spoke. “Not a chance in hell, Brock. Time for you to get a taste of your own medicine.”

  Over an hour later, we ate dinner with Brock and Cecilia at the dinette table. I couldn’t help but envy Brock and Gabe’s close brotherly relationship. They goaded one another, but I could tell they still cared about each other with a fierceness Sera and I never had.

  I glanced up from those thoughts and caught Cecilia’s eyes on me, but the look on her face said she knew what I was feeling. She gave me a slight smile and the tiniest of nods.

  Gabe

  CASSIE MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT she pulled one over on me, sharing a look with Cecilia, but very little got by me where she was concerned. Part of me couldn’t wait to meet her sister because someone needed to set her straight about how to treat Cassie, but another part of me could wait because I damn well didn’t trust myself not to throat-punch the woman. That look on Cassie’s face told me her sister treated her poorly, even beyond the sick and twisted way she shared the death of Cassie’s cat.

  Again, I understood why Dad kept my mom out of our lives seventeen years ago. My bond with my brothers wasn’t something I thought I took for granted, but seeing Cassie’s expression made me realize, I sort of did.

  Brock and Cecilia finished eating before my girl. Brock took care of Cecilia’s dish while she went to shower after working all day at Walt Disney World.

  When Cassie finally finished, I grabbed her plate to take it to the sink.

  “Gabe, I can do things for myself, you know.”

  After I rinsed the plate, and loaded it into the dishwasher, I turned to her. “I know that, but I also know what you did before you got here. The question is whether or not you need another dose of Crown Royal tonight.”

  She grimaced which made me grin. “No way! That stuff is too strong for me, and I gotta work in the morning.”

  I nodded. “Then let me get some shoes and we’re headed to your place.”

  When we reached the bottom of the stairwell, I stopped Cassie and wrapped my arms around her. “Okay, sweetheart. Did you drop Mom’s ashes off at your unit before you came to see me and Brock?”

  A look washed over her face, and I wished I could take a picture of it. It was a blend of tenderness and adoration, and the hell of it was that the adoration seemed to be pointed at me.

  “You would probably make really great candy, Gabriel, because you can be so damn sweet it isn’t even funny.”

  I pulled her closer. “Caring about what matters to you isn’t me being sweet, Cassie. It’s me being a decent human being.”

  She pressed into me, and rose up to kiss me. It wasn’t my intention to make out with her in front of the building, but no matter how much she denied it, she damn sure knew what she was doing when she kissed me.

  I pulled away from her smiling. “You gonna answer my question, honey?”

  She backed away. “Yeah. I left the ashes in my car, and I’ll need to get them before we go to my place.”

  My eyes widened. “You left your cat in the car?”

  “This will sound crazy, but she loved going for car rides. Until she found herself inside the shelter office, that was.”

  “Only you, Cassie,” I muttered, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

  She put her arm around my waist, and we went to her car. I carried the urn up to her unit. It hit me when I stood in front of her bookcase that I shouldn’t decide where to place her cat.

  She put her purse down, and saw me standing in the living room. That look crossed her face again for a fleeting moment.

  “Do you want to—”

  “She’d have loved you,” she whispered.

  I cocked my head. “Your cat?”

  She nodded and I noticed her eyes were welling. “Honey, get over here before you cry. I don’t want to presume about where you want—”

  “Right in front of you is fine, Gabe. She was never here because it’s against the rules, and... and, my stupid bitchy sister had to rub that in!”

  Her voice had risen, so I put the urn down and quickly moved to her. “C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s lay down or something, so you can let it all out.”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, Gabe, but you should probably go home. I’m not in a very good mood, and —”

  “And you can stop right there, Daughtry. Even if we weren’t fucking each other’s brains out most of the time these days, you know I’d still be here for you. Who made you day-drink after finding out? I did. So don’t you dare think you can push me away because I asked you to lay down and let it all out.”

  “Well, fine. If you insist, but I warned you.”

  “Honey, th
e look you shared with Cecilia at dinner warned me plenty. So enough.”

  Her eyes slid to the side and back. “What look?”

  I chuckled. “Really, Cassie? You know what look,” I murmured while I took her hand to lead her to her bedroom.

  “Seriously, Gabe,” she whispered.

  I stopped and caught her eyes. “I know, Cassie-Cass. From the sounds of it, nothing about this day has been easy for you, so I’m going to make sure you have an easy night. Now, the couch where you can be closer to Mom, or your bed?”

  Her struggle with the decision played out on her face.

  “There’s more room on your bed, darlin’, but if you want to be in the living room, we can snuggle there.”

  Still, she couldn’t decide, so I cupped her chin. “Are we listening to music or are we watching TV?”

  Her breath hitched audibly as she exhaled. “Music.”

  I grabbed her hand again, “C’mon.”

  “But my iPod—”

  “iPod, schmiPod. We’re listening to my music, baby.”

  Cassie took her shoes off, and I followed suit. Then she curled into a ball on her bed. I scooped her up and put her in the middle of the bed.

  “Nuh-unh, Cassie-Cass. You can’t be an island by yourself over here. But if you prefer spooning, that’s cool,” I said, as I wrapped her in my arms from behind.

  Her body pressed into me as she took in a deep breath. I rubbed her arms with a hand, and she grabbed hold of that hand.

  “You will never believe what my mother said to me at lunch,” she whispered.

  I clenched my teeth to keep my temper in check. “I’m sure I won’t from what you’ve told me about ‘Mother,’” I said, doing my best Danzig impression.

  It flopped in terms of lightening her mood. I squeezed her with the arm I still had wrapped around her.

  “I had just told her I was picking up Mom’s ashes today, and she stated how surprised she was that I had gone so far in higher education since I couldn’t decide on my cat’s name when I was nine.”

  Yeah, clenching my teeth wasn’t cutting it, and I failed at hiding my disgruntled sigh. She let go of my hand to stroke my forearm.

  “Believe me, Gabe, that’s tame compared to other times. You remember I thought my sister’s marriage might be fake? Well, I don’t know why it never occurred to me, but I really have to wonder about my parents’ marriage. I mean, she’s so frosty and nearly bitchy to me. What—”

  “No ‘nearly’ about that shit, Cassie.”

  Her head moved, and I figured it was as close to a nod as she could manage on the bed. “But, still, what does my father see in her?”

  I sighed. “You know, Dad always said what you see from a couple on the outside isn’t always what goes on on the inside.”

  She turned around to face me. “How on earth would that come up without your mom in the picture?”

  I shot a lackluster smile her way. “My Aunt Sandy wasn’t able to stay married, and I never understood it. That’s one of the ways it came up.”

  “Oh,” she whispered. Then she stroked my beard. “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. Everything worked out the way it should. But what I’m getting at is maybe your mother puts on a different front with your Dad.”

  “I don’t know, Gabe.”

  I nodded. “Well, that’s one of the many reasons I hate the saying, ‘what you see is what you get.’ It’s bullshit.”

  Her eyes darted to the side. “Not always, Sullivan.”

  I squeezed her. “I don’t buy it. Most everyone has something hidden. Everyone gets pushed to extremes and that’s when their darkness comes out.”

  By the firm set to her lips I knew she didn’t want to say what was really on her mind.

  I arched a brow. “Spit it out, Cassie.”

  “Well, from what you just said, you should be more understanding of your mother. Why are you still so hard on her?”

  Any other time, her words would’ve set me off. For some reason that wasn’t happening today. I stroked her face before guiding a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Do you know what it was like to watch Dad struggle? I know lots of people have it harder than we did, but he tried to give us female influences to soften us up some...or whatever a mother figure is supposed to provide to her sons.”

  “Okay,” Cassie replied, sounding more like she was asking a question.

  I felt like I had a lump burning in my chest because I had never admitted this to a woman. “For a long time, I only wanted her to come back. That’s all I ever wanted. Later, I blamed myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe she’d have been around for Brock and Cary if I had never been born.”

  Pain and concern chased across her face while she gasped. Being so foreign on her, the vision was nearly marvelous, but I hated her feeling those things on my behalf.

  “You didn’t try to hurt yourself, did you?” she asked.

  I smiled ruefully. “Not like you mean. Though, picking fights with bullies and guys three times my size is its own kind of self-harm, right?”

  “I suppose,” she whispered.

  The silence between us stretched. It had begun awkwardly, but as it grew, surprisingly, it became comfortable.

  “So, did your dad suspect?”

  “Ha,” I blurted. “Not really. Teenagers are prone to blow-ups and saying surly shit. I said it was always my fault she left and that’s when Dad put it all together.”

  She nodded and watched her finger trace the edge of my tank top. “Your Dad sounds like a really good man.”

  I smiled. “He is. Best man I know. You’re around the next time he does one of his fly-by visits, I’ll make sure you come with us.”

  Her head came up. “What is a ‘fly-by visit?’ I thought he lived in Daytona.”

  With my thumb, I traced her plump lower lip. “Yeah, but Marnie works in Maitland, so he’s closer most of the time. When he feels like it, he drops by and takes us to breakfast or whatever. Seems like you and Cecilia talk, so I’m surprised she never mentioned that to you.”

  She shook her head. “Why would she?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I find it funnier than she does. The night after Brock brought her to our place, Dad dropped by just before Cecilia could sneak out. It was pretty damn funny.”

  “I’m sorry to be such a downer tonight, Gabe,” she whispered.

  I rolled into her. “No more apologies, baby. You sure you don’t want to talk about your cat? Or anything else that’s buggin’ you?”

  Her eyes flared for a moment. “I know I said I wasn’t going to be good company, but I’d rather we communicate in a different way.”

  I smirked, because I could damn sure communicate with her in that way.

  21

  Coffee People Got It All Wrong

  Cassie

  AFTER MAKING SLOW, sweet love to me twice, Gabe spent the night. He groaned when my alarm sounded, but he rolled out of bed with me like a trooper. After I emptied my bladder and brushed my teeth, I opened the bathroom door to see him waiting expectantly.

  “Got a spare toothbrush, baby?”

  I handed him a spare and by the time I came back into the bathroom with my work clothes he was done. Before I could ask him if he needed coffee, he tugged off his boxer briefs.

  “What are you doing, Gabe?”

  His thumbs slid into my panties. “Darlin’, thought you knew by now, the best part of wakin’ up is havin’ you for breakfast. Those coffee people got it all wrong.”

  I wheezed out a laugh. “You are definitely good for my ego, G-Rock.”

  A devilish glint hit his eyes. “I’m good for more than that, Daughtry.”

  My shower took twice as long, seeing as Gabe hustled out of the shower to his pants and came back with a condom so he could finish us both off, ‘properly,’ as he put it. But I had to say, it was one of my favorite ways to wake up.

  WHEN I TRAINED WITH Rhonda,
I saw that someone else had a desk in the room-slash-office, but due to her being on vacation I didn’t get to meet Ryan’s assistant, Wendy, until after Rhonda had left.

  Working earlier hours than I did, Wendy came into the office first and always had her radio blaring when I came in to work. This didn’t bother me since I loved music of all kinds.

  Today, though, Wendy had a mid-morning dentist appointment and she left as soon as I walked in at nine o’clock.

  She had left her radio on, and when it went to a break, there was a commercial for new bar opening this weekend. That forced me to think about how Ryan promoted the club. I saw an invoice for a radio station, but it wasn’t the station we were listening to because the call letters were all wrong. Normally I didn’t pay any attention to that, but this station drilled it home every third song by promoting themselves.

  The commercials reminded me of the journal entries I had flagged yesterday. Looking for invoices we had paid to media vendors, I found ten. Eight of those invoices had either call letters or station numbers I recognized. The other two records had been flagged yesterday. Both were for stations I hadn’t heard of. That didn’t mean much, seeing as I didn’t normally pay attention when listening to the radio. However, my instincts told me I was on to something.

  When I pulled the invoices in the software, they looked like copies of photocopies. The hard copies were kept in Ryan’s office, and Wendy had left. I wouldn’t find out what I needed to know by hiding in my office, so I went to check with Ryan.

  I knocked on his open door, and he glanced over his shoulder. “You need something, Miss Daughtry?”

  I had been on the job for over a month, and Ryan’s continued formality grated on my nerves.

  “Yes, sir. Uh, you have hard copies of our past invoices, right?”

  He swiveled his chair, so he faced me directly. “I do. Why do you ask?”

  I smiled. “I wanted to look at invoices from WORL-FM. They look a little wonky on the software.”

  “Really? Because the invoices ‘look a little wonky’ you need the hard copies?”

  I sighed. “Well, I’ve also never heard of a station with those call letters.”