Chapter Fifteen
The Gasoline was relatively quiet at the moment, which meant no one was fighting. Angel almost regretted that. The truth was, she felt obsessed. And nothing took her mind off her obsession like a good fight.
“This way.” Gabe took her by the arm and led her to an empty table in the corner of the bar. It was strange, but that table always seemed to be empty when Angel came here with Gabe and their warden friends.
Gabriel nodded at the bartender as they passed by, and the bartender nodded back, turning to the rack of liquor and glasses behind him to prepare their drinks. Angel tried not to be impressed. Bartenders had really good memories. So did baristas. She would always be impressed with how they managed to remember what people ordered. Or maybe she just drank way too much coffee.
“Sit,” ordered Gabriel amicably. She obeyed, smiling softly.
Gabriel sat across from her. Neither of them removed their jackets; wardens often didn’t. A warden’s jacket normally contained crucial things like cards, money, medicine and even small weapons, but more importantly it concealed the guns they wore in holsters at their backs.
No sooner had they taken their seats than the server was beside the table placing different beers on coasters in front of them. Angel smiled. The bartender had gotten it right. Gabriel’s drink was a DuckRabbit stout from the tap, and hers was an Irish red ale. Hers was still in the bottle, the way she liked it. Better yet, the bottle was very, very cold; miniscule ice crystals hugged the glass. Perfect.
“Thank you,” she told the waiter. Then she leaned forward to wave at the bartender. He grinned and winked at her before returning to his job.
When the waiter left, she and Gabe peered around the room, looking for clues. This was something they always did before accepting opened drinks in a public venue. It was unconscious at this juncture, they’d been doing it for so long. When they didn’t notice anyone behaving in a give-away manner, they turned back to each other and lifted their respective drinks for a toast.
“To the wardens going out of business.”
That, too, was something they always did. And that was their usual toast. A world without the need for police, whether in the mortal realm or otherwise, was something every peace keeper should strive for. And if that wasn’t their goal, then they were in the wrong business.
Angel placed the bottle to her lips, took a big swig, and almost groaned with pleasure. It went down so easy, she continued to drink, emptying half the container before she replaced the bottle in front of her.
When she looked up, Gabe was watching her, an amused glint in his eyes. “Either you dread my company, or you already needed that even more than I thought.”
She laughed. She definitely didn’t hate his company… though sometimes she was admittedly uncomfortable with it. For two reasons.
One, he was Gabriel – a tall, built, strong, fast, fresh from the fight good guy. He was the whole shebang. The entire package. She didn’t hate his company; she was just not indifferent to it, and sometimes that was the problem.
She pulled her eyes away from his and tried to think of something to talk about. Anything to keep him from seeing through her. She found herself looking at his beer. DuckRabbit. Ducks and rabbits combined. She laughed a little. “You drink like a wolf,” she told him, nodding to the beer. “It’s like you got your hunting and your boozing in with one go.”
She turned her smile on him, and his vibrant eyes lit up. He joined her in laughter. “Good thing you like wolves.”
That was true. She’d always been fond of wolves. The natural ones. The ones that were endangered because people were stupid.
That thought sobered her again, and she forced a few more swigs down her throat. Now was not the time to dwell on depressing matters. It would only make her more vulnerable – and that wasn’t good. Because the second thing that made her uncomfortable about Gabe’s presence was that he was a little too perceptive for her liking.
Right now, she was falling for someone she wasn’t allowed to fall for, a warden from a different clan. And if she wasn’t really diligent, then before the night was out Gabe was going to see right through her. The shit would hit the fan.
It had only been a few days since the Vicium case closed, and clearly this was only the beginning with Victor Maze. Everyone was on eggshells where he was concerned. No one knew what his game plan was. In the meantime, warden jobs were popping up left and right like going rogue was the latest fad for supernaturals. Angel also hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d had dreams. They were troubling. And then there was Jacob Crow.
It had been one lousy day, and she already felt starved for Jake’s company. The few short minutes he’d mysteriously spent at the coffee shop with her and her friends had only whet her appetite all the more, making her feel like he was some kind of dealer supplying her with just the right amount of drugs to keep her addicted.
The entire two weeks they’d worked together, his presence had all but shoved her to the deep end of the pool. Every time he came near her, which was quite often, she felt hot. Not unpleasantly hot, just too warm, a little too unsteady. When he accidentally touched her or brushed up against her, which was also quite often, she would inevitably flush, and there was always a kind of electricity.
Whenever she chanced a glance up at him to see if he noticed it or was feeling the same thing, she found he was already watching her. Every time. And she would get caught in the jade sea of his gaze and feel hopelessly lost.
When she took time to consider her reaction to Jake, she realized it made little sense. She didn’t really know anything about him. She hadn’t even had a chance to ask anything about him, much less do research on him. Which would have been rude, anyway. The case the five wardens were tasked with was brutally difficult, requiring help from other wardens as well. In the end, they were professionals on a kind of deadline, and nothing personal got in the way of their work.
But damn. Everything about the man was captivating. There was a chance she was actually smitten. She even thought about calling him. She hated calling people. She hated talking on the phone! But she wanted to hear his voice…. What’s more, she seriously wished he would call her. Or even text her. Just one small text. Just to say “hi.”
“Checking for anything in particular?”
Angel’s head snapped up. She realized she’d been looking down at her phone where it rested in her lap beneath the table. She’d been unconsciously going through her messages. Her cheeks flushed. “What?” she asked stupidly.
Gabe smirked, his light amber eyes flashing. “That’s the third time you’ve looked at your phone since we came in.” His beer was gone, and so was hers. The server appeared just then with two brand new ones.
“Can I get you two anything else? Something from the menu?” he asked.
Angel wasn’t particularly hungry. She knew she should eat, but she was just too preoccupied for food.
“We’re good,” said Gabe. The server nodded, smiled, and left.
Angel looked at her second beer. It was as beautifully cold as the first had been. She started to wonder whether the bartender had a special reserve of the stuff in some case somewhere set for 32.01 degrees fahrenheit.
Angel re-pocketed her phone and picked up her beer. There had been no messages from Jake. She didn’t know what she was expecting. Maybe what she’d seen in his eyes as he’d watched her during those meetings had been an illusion. Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part.
Angel knew better than to let romance jeopardize her job. It was why she’d never pursued anything with Gabriel. Not that he’d ever pursued anything with her either. He was professional, one of the best clan leaders in existence.
I need to get out more, Angel thought. The only guys she knew were wardens. She took a long pull from her second beer just as the first one started to kick in. It felt good. She noticed it when she shifted in her seat, and her bruises didn’t hurt as much. She ran a hand through her hair, and her back and shoulder didn’t scream at her with soreness.
“So tell me about the people you worked with on the Victor Maze case,” said Gabe.
Angel met his citrine gaze. He was fixed, his expression unreadable. It occurred to her that Gabe was very good at “interrogations,” and some tiny part of her wondered whether this was the beginning of one. But the alcohol was loosening her up, and that tiny part of her was getting even smaller, so she didn’t care as much as she probably should have.
“Okay,” she said easily. “What do you want to know?”