Breaking Rules (18 page)

His eyes shifted around, focusing anywhere but on me,
and there was a hazy uncertainty laden in his stare.

I didn’t like it. Something was wrong.

“Maybe we should just go back to the van,” he said, dropping his hands to his side. “It’s too cold for you to be out here in this wind, and the next few hours will be torture if you try to tough it out.”

“I’m okay,” I said, slipping my arms into the sleeves of the jacket. “It’s just a little breeze. I’ll survive.”

Hoping I hadn’t done something to upset him, I simply stepped forward and let my hand fall on his arm.
He turned back to me, and for a moment I swore there was a single tear welling in his eye.

What happened?

“
Gabe, what’s going on?” I asked. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” he said,
reclaiming his stick to stab another piece of trash. “It’s nothing. I just got something in my eye.”

“Right,” I said, still not moving my hand. When his stare trailed down and watched my fingers grip his arm, I
remembered the way Bailey held me like that just the night before. I remembered the warm sensation of comfort I felt from her touch, from the simple knowledge of knowing that she was there, holding on to me, no matter what happened.

The memory of Bailey’s grasp sparked thought
s of Gabe’s protective hold on Monday night—the way he’d taken my purse, set it aside, and just wrapped his arms around me until we literally couldn’t hold on to one another anymore. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t wonder how long that embrace would’ve lasted had Dad not come back in and all but forced him out the door. And then there was the way he’d kissed my fingers… and every moment we’d shared the day before.

I knew there was only one thing I could do.

I dropped my litter stick and my bag on the ground right where I stood. I reached forward, took Gabe’s from him, and tossed them to the side along with mine.

I slid in next to his body, wrapping my tiny arms around his thick mid-section. Gabe
’s arms hung limp at his sides, and then I felt them gently wrap around me, returning the hug I’d initiated. Just like the last time we’d held each other, Gabe held tight, and I prayed that he would never let me go.

Unlike that first time
we’d embraced, neither of his hands found the backside of my head, caressed my hair, nor moved from around my shoulders. He held onto me as if letting go was never an option. He never relinquished an ounce of his strength or let me slip away for even a moment.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” I said into his shoulder, and in spite of how muffled my words were, I knew that he heard and understood every one. “But I hope that you know you can talk to me, Gabe. You’ve done nothing but listen to me from the moment we met
. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t return the favor?”

Gabe half-laughed, and then his hand finally found my head.

“Let’s not pretend we’re friends,” he said, repeating only what I’d said to him once before, and then he finally pulled just far enough away to look down and meet my stare.

He was hiding something, masking something behind that joke—just like he’d accused me of doing. I wanted to know what was wrong. I had to know why he was hurting, but Gabe wasn’t letting me in. If anything, I felt that he was shutting me out.

“You know, you’re right,” I said, taking a chance. “I like to think we’re not friends at all. There’s something here, isn’t there?”

He didn’t say a word
. Our gazes met, and I felt something shift. I knew Gabe was about to say or do something that would change the dynamic of our ‘friendship’ forever.

He moved
his hands across my back, holding me closer as I sank into his warm chest. His strong hands moved all the way up my spine and into the back of my hair, and his fingers buried deep in my soft curls. His forehead landed gently against mine, and our noses brushed for just a moment. As his mouth inched closer to mine, I could taste the warmth of his breath tickling my lips. I found myself falling closer to him, pulling my body against his, praying that he would just kiss me already.

But after a few
, long seconds of standing there, holding and touching, so close to finally tasting his lips, Gabe closed his eyes and simply backed away.

“Mandy, you’ve got to go,” he said, his gaze no longer sweeping over me, but now fixed on our feet. When I searched his expression for something, hoping for some kind of explanation
as to why he’d pulled away, he shrugged and finally looked at me. “You need to be with your sister. Go back to the kitchen and spend the evening with her. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

I blinked a few heavy times, watching his pale eyes as they locked on mine, seemingly never blinking, nor needing to.

“You said you wanted to spend time alone with me,” I said, hearing an unexpected catch in my voice. “You said that.”

“Right.”

“But why?” I hoped that if I could just get him to tell me the truth, then maybe I could understand what was going on with him. “Why would you want to spend time with me, Gabe?”

Of course, a
t that point, I knew as well as he did. But I wanted to hear it, no matter how much I knew it would hurt in the long run. I wanted the truth from him, probably as much as he wanted it from me.

He swallowed hard and shook his head.

“Let’s get you back to the kitchen before your sister throws in the towel,” he said, still avoiding my questions. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for causing an even bigger rift between the two of you.”

At that moment, I
’d never felt so disconnected from a person. Not even two minutes earlier I’d been wrapped inside his arms, holding on to him as if I’d never felt anything as comforting as human contact. He’d held me just as closely. I’d been certain he was going to kiss me. I knew he was. So what happened? Why the sudden change in demeanor? Was it something I’d done? Something I’d said?

What was going on with him?

“We don’t have to go back,” I said, but he took a step away, finally separating our grip altogether.

“We should, though,” he said. “I don’t want you to miss out on that quality time with Bailey.”

“But what about quality time with you?” I perked up. I knew it was a risk, but it was one I had to take. He was the one who’d told me to keep fighting. “You asked Lashell to send me here because you wanted us to have that time together, right?”

“Yes.”

“Would you want me to miss out on that?”

For a moment, his expression shut down
.

“No
. I wouldn’t want that at all. But now’s not the time for either of us, Mandy. You need to go. Please.”

Fifteen

Not long after
I handed over his jacket, Gabe walked me to my car and told me—for what felt like the hundredth time—to meet my sister at the soup kitchen. Without a hug, a handshake, or even the slightest brush of contact, he apologized again for tearing me away from her and said goodbye.

H
e mentioned as I dipped into my car that he would try his best to finish the two-mile stretch in plenty of time to swing by before we closed up shop at the church, and I’d never anticipated anything as much as his return.

I returned to the kitchen to find that Bailey hadn
’t needed me there at all; she’d already fallen right into the swing of things, laughing and carrying on with Carla, Fletcher, and the rest of the drama club. When I joined the line, she simply nodded in acknowledgment, got me up to speed on everything I’d missed so far, and jumped right back into whatever it was they’d been laughing about when I walked through the door.

Even if my presence hadn
’t been missed too much, I had a hard time bringing myself to care. I’d spent an interesting and confusing hour that evening with Gabe, and although I had no idea what had suddenly gotten into him or why his mood had shifted so quickly, I was happy knowing that he’d made a point to spend time with alone with me…again!

Back in town,
it seemed as if Carla’s soup kitchen idea was a hit with the locals. And on the most positive note of all, Bailey had fit in, just like I knew she would. It was all because she stepped out of her comfort zone and tried something new.

“We’ve served at least two hundred tonight,” Bailey whispered, looking out over the packed dining hall. There were dozens of families packed at the tables. “There hasn’t been a quiet moment
since we got here.”

“Lashell said that’s how it was
at first at the Desden soup kitchen, too,” Fletcher cut in. “They’d serve hundreds a night for the first few weeks.”

“And then it died down?” I asked.

“Quite the opposite,” Lashell said, stepping around me to collect some dirty trays. “After word got out, we had to change locations altogether. The local church started filling to capacity. We had to turn people away.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Gabe made an executive decision to build from the ground up,” she said. “We constructed a soup kitchen to hold twice the number of the local church.”

“And it’s been successful?”

“For over a year,” Bailey said, and I guessed that this was a conversation that they’d had while I was out. My sister nudged me with her elbow and leaned closer, “That’s some guy you’ve got there, sis.”

Fletcher and Carla perked up at Bailey’s comment, and I rolled my eyes, pretending I had no idea what she was talking about. I wasn’t entirely sure Gabe wanted the whole team to know that something
had sparked between us.

“Times are hard,” Fletcher said, shrugging a shoulder. “You always think you’ve got it bad, but you never realize how much worse
others might have it. I never thought half the people I’ve seen here to tonight would need something like this.”

“I’ve seen a lot of kids from school tonight,” Carla whispered, and Fletcher nodded as if that’s exactly what he’d been getting at. “I didn’t know we were surrounded by so many people who needed the help. It’s just nice to know we can do something for their families, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said, and then I looked at the busy dining hall for a second time.

Carla had really done something great here, and if things continued over the next six weeks, I couldn’t imagine what kind of impact her soup kitchen would have on our community. She’d really outdone herself.

The evening dragged on, slower and slower with
each passing minute. Even at the hour of the lowest attendance, the dining tables were still three-quarters full.

Every time the front doors opened or I caught the sight of a blue shirt coming through the kitchen, I perked up with hopes that it
’d be Gabe. I knew he’d be thrilled at the turnout.

But w
e closed up a little after eight with no word or sight of him.

I tried to
make excuses and wait around, hoping that he’d only lost track of time, but by eight fifteen, everyone else was already saying
goodbye
and pulling out of the parking lot. I asked Bailey if she’d mind hanging around a little bit longer, but she put a lot of emphasis on the words
a
little
. After fifteen minutes of overtime, she lost her patience, took the keys, and settled herself in the driver’s seat of our car.

I
didn’t want to leave, but I knew that if Gabe hadn’t showed up by now, he wasn’t going to show up at all. So I followed my sister out and climbed in the passenger’s seat.

The drive home was anything but silent; Bailey spent the entire drive going on and on about how much Fletcher flirted with her
all evening, and she blushed every time she said his name. When I took the time to remind her of a little someone named Jones, she rolled her eyes and reminded me that she was simply taken, not dead.
If it’s looking and not touching, then no one gets hurt
, she’d snapped at me. I thought to argue otherwise, but I knew that nothing I could say would change her mind. And besides, if Bailey had had a good time volunteering, who was I to judge her for how she’d had fun? She may’ve had a few, flirtatious moments with someone who wasn’t her boyfriend, but at least she’d been doing something helpful and positive in the process. For my sister, progress was progress, no matter how small. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.

“What’s on tap for the night?” Baile
y asked, slinging her purse on the kitchen counter ten minutes later. “I was thinking we could head over to Maurine’s and meet Jones for a sundae or something. You up for that?”

“Thanks, but no thanks.
I have some research I need to get done, and I don’t think it’s smart to put it off any longer.”

“Research for what?” she asked
. “We have every class together, and we don’t have anything due.”

“It’s for
the article I’m writing for the
Herald
,” I said. “I finished the story this morning, but I want to make sure I haven’t missed anything important before I turn it in to Georgia tomorrow.”

“
Oh, so Gabe-research, then?” she asked, making kissy noises.

“Goodbye
, Bailey.” I turned back long enough to give her a mind your own business
kind of look.

Once curled in bed, I pulled my laptop on top of my sheets and waited for
the computer to boot up. I focused all of my attention on digging up all the research I should’ve done a long time ago—and not research for the newspaper, either. I’d lied to Bailey when I’d told her that. It was just easier than telling her the truth. I’d already finished my article that morning before school. I turned it into Georgia with one day to spare, and I knew that it would be in perfect shape to run on Monday’s front page. That story didn’t require an ounce of last minute research or fact checking. But I still had stuff to dig up, and it didn’t take more than a simple Google search to find dozens of articles about the Desden native, philanthropist, and do-gooder, Gabriel Raddick.

I pulled up each article,
focusing with the kind of intensity and attention I knew they deserved.

I was determined to find something
about Gabe, something that I didn’t already know. He’d been generous enough to give me a little bit of insight here and there, but his past was still a huge mystery to me. After the way he’d acted on the street earlier, I was determined to learn something—
anything
. I wanted answers.

Had he really been everything Jones had said—lonely, quiet, socially awkward? Did he have a family, and if so, why hadn’t he ever mentioned them? Why
hadn’t they gone to his high school graduation? The closest he’d ever gotten to discussing his life outside of RI was when he’d told me that Lashell had been like a mother-figure to him, and even then, he’d remained pretty tight-lipped.

I didn’t feel guilty
for wondering. Gabe himself had been the one who told me to turn all of my questions into answers, and the only thing I was guilty of was being too afraid to ask him directly. He had the answers, but I wasn’t certain that he’d ever give them to me. If he was eager to talk, if he’d ever wanted to open up to me the way I’d opened up to him, he’d already had his opportunity out on the street. Something hurt him, and whatever it was had come on fast and strong. I recognized the look in his eyes, and I knew it was pain. I’d hugged him. I’d held him. I’d ask him to talk to me, but he turned away.

Gabe had his chance to tell me, and
he hadn’t said a word. He laughed it off with a joke, and he tried to hide the pain beneath the surface. The Internet, though, wouldn’t let me down. I knew I’d find everything I’d need to gain a better perspective on the man who’d weaseled his way into my heart.

W
ith one search, I got to work.