Wild Forces: A Friends to Lovers Romance (O-Town Book 2) by Karen Renee (summer reads .TXT) 📕

I grimaced. “They lost me after the second one.”

He scoffed. “How are we friends, again?”

With a side eye, I muttered, “You’re lucky you’ve got friends, G-Rock.”

He nudged my shoulder with his, then whipped out his phone, saying, “Whatevs. You need to listen to the song.”

A heavy metal guitar and a steady hi-hat beat filled my car, and it was sexy as hell. Then again, nearly every song Gabe introduced me to held sexy undertones. Four bars into the song, a deep male voice sang, “Mother.”

I tapped the pause button on the YouTube video running on Gabe’s phone. My eyes lit up, and I grinned at him.

“My God! Tell me that’s available as a ringtone. Do not introduce me to a song that isn’t available as a ringtone I can assign to my ‘Mother,’” I declared, while imitating Danzig.

He chuckled. I loved making him chuckle, but I had to push that aside.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s available as a ringtone, and if it isn’t, I’ll get a buddy to make it one for you.”

I wanted to kiss him for that, but that wouldn’t do. I sighed. “Thanks.”

“So, you named a cat Mom, because you couldn’t call your mother that?”

I shook my head. “No, it was because when she kept coming to our house, I talked Dad into letting me keep her. That very night, she had kittens, and I hadn’t named her, but I was nine at the time and struggling to come up with a name for her. Dad said, ‘You’re only keeping the Mama-cat, honey.’ And I knew, her name would be ‘Mom-cat.’”

Telling him that made me smile, but then it made me cry because I had so many good memories of Mom.

“Weird,” Gabe muttered.

“What’s weird?”

His lips twisted wryly. “My brothers call Dad ‘Pop,’ but he never blinked at me calling him ‘Dad’. Hell, I wonder why I do it, now that I hear about your mother.”

I tilted my chin to give him a look. “How about because your father, unlike my mother, doesn’t resent you or your existence?”

His brows drew together. “What?”

I shrugged. “She loves me, but I wasn’t planned, and she wasn’t pleased being saddled with a child again. Especially since Serafina was fifteen by the time I was born. I don’t know if my sister’s teenage angst fed my mother’s feelings toward me or what, but they both love to gang up on me. Hell, Sera’s the one who called to tell me about Mom, and she did it off-handedly. Can you believe that shit?”

Belatedly, I realized saying all that exposed too much and forced more tears to stream down my face.

Gabe frowned, and got out of the car. Next thing I knew, he opened my door and made an upward swatting motion in the air for me to get out.  When I was clear of the door, he slammed it closed, took my keys and bleeped the locks.

“You’re comin’ up to my place.”

My head reared back. “Why? You’ve got things to do, you look like you just worked out, and I have to study—”

“You lost your cat of fourteen years, and your bitch of a sister’s the one who told you about it. You’re comin’ to my place.”

I put my purse strap on my shoulder, and my hand went to my hip. “No, Gabe. I’m not.”

A devilish grin he never aimed my way appeared. He crouched, put his shoulder to my belly, and my ass went in the air.

“Gabriel Sullivan, put me down!”

He chuckled! As much as I wanted to smack him for it, I loved it even more than usual because I could feel it, since his shoulder jostled under me.

My purse succumbed to gravity and fell. It was a bag with no zipper, and I flung an arm out to keep it from going upside down and spilling all my things. I growled in a high pitch.

“Gabe! All my shit’s gonna fall out of my purse. So, put me down! Now!”

My feet suddenly landed on concrete and I righted my torso to see Gabe standing a step down from me on the stairwell. It was the only way for me to be face to face with him since he was five inches taller than me. Looking in his mischievous blue eyes, I wondered for the one-hundred-and-ninety-seventh time why I tortured myself this way. I wanted him so badly. Standing here like this, I wanted to kiss him more than I ever had, but I couldn’t. Not just because of our friendship, but because I’d probably launch myself at him which would make both of us tumble down the concrete staircase.

Gabe’s question proved he couldn’t read the thoughts in my head. “You gonna argue with me about comin’ up?”

I pouted for a moment. “No. As long as you let me ambulate to your place on my own.”

He chuckled again. “‘Ambulate’. You’re such a nerd, Cassie.”

I turned on my heel for the next flight of stairs. “Like you didn’t know.”

14 Rules to Day Drinking

Gabe

I CLOSED AND LOCKED the door behind us, wondering why I was doing this. Then I saw Cassie’s puffy eyes and pink nose, along with the tear tracks down her face and I remembered. We had finally set things back to rights after I fucked up and seeing her so distraught pissed me off. Hearing the fucked-up way her sister told her about her cat especially pissed me off.

After she told that story about her mother, I felt happy my mother left me as an infant. But that feeling was short-lived. Even though my mother had recently attempted reconciliation, I still harbored a fair amount of ill-will toward her. Many people gave me grief about that. Dad, Rainey, Marnie, Cecilia, and even Clint, said I was being too harsh. Cassandra knew all about it, but had never said I was out of bounds. Part of me reflexively said she was lovable for that alone, but another part of me said