The Favor Read online

  Gabe looked at Janelle, who hesitated, but nodded. “Okay. But we can’t be out here all day, Bennett. I’m sure Gabe has other things to do.”

  He did not, as a matter of fact, unless you counted cleaning up after the old man and arguing with him over what to watch on the television. Andy was working until closing, and Gabe had promised to pick him up, but that was hours away. He wasn’t going to tell her that, though.

  “I need to set up the cans again, right?” The kid looked at Gabe. Without being told, Bennett made sure the gun was both unloaded and had the safety on before setting it on the card table and running across the clearing toward the railing.

  When he was out of earshot, Janelle turned. “I mean it, Gabe. You’re a good teacher. You’re patient, and you know what you’re doing.” She paused, tilting her head to look him over. He hadn’t seen that expression in a long, long time, but he recalled it all too well. “Remember the day you took me out here?”

  Gabe busied himself with arranging the ammunition on the table. “Yeah.”

  Janelle stepped around the table and pressed her fingertips on the edge of it. “You showed me all those things that you just showed Bennett. It was a long time ago, but I remember a lot of it.”

  He looked up at her. “You want to take a crack at it?”

  Her slight smile didn’t fool him. She was still looking at him as if she could see right through him. “No, that’s okay.”

  The kid was certainly taking his time setting up the next round of cans and bottles, pulling them from the box where everyone dumped their empties, and inspecting each thoroughly before setting it on the railing.

  “C’mon, kid, you’re not decorating out there. Set ’em up so you can knock ’em down!”

  “Gabe,” Janelle said quietly. “I was thinking about that time when you showed me how to shoot. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things....”

  He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to talk about it. Most of all, he didn’t want her to think about it.

  “C’mon, kid! I’ve got stuff to do!”

  Bennett turned from his careful arrangements. With a grin, he ran back toward them, slipping in the mud onto one knee. Janelle let out a low groan.

  “Bennett. Your clothes...”

  “Boys get dirty,” Gabe said. “That’s what they do.”

  Janelle looked at him again. This time, she didn’t smile. “Yes. I guess they do.”

  FORTY-TWO

  Then

  MOST OF THE time, Gabe moves like a cat—sleek and silent and sort of ripply. As if he’s full of coiled energy that could burst out at any time. Janelle’s seen him running, fists and feet pumping, and that was what she thinks it might be like if Gabe ever lets himself really go. But not quite.

  Mostly, he moves smoothly, but not today. He jitters and paces and jiggles his foot restlessly when he does finally manage to sit on the couch next to her. He shakes it so much the couch’s wooden feet squeak on the floor. At last, she can’t stand it anymore and puts a hand on his knee, pressing his foot down.

  “Enough.”

  He goes still. Silent and motionless, his gaze fixed on the crappy TV’s snowy picture. She’d only been pretending to watch while she waited for him to push her back against the cushions. Janelle lets her hand travel a little higher on his thigh, her fingers squeezing muscle. She watches his profile, his unblinking stare and the curved-down corner of his mouth. She takes her hand away.

  “What the hell’s going on with you, Gabe?”

  There’d been that small graduation party at her house. Nothing for Gabe; his dad was such an asshole she’d bet he didn’t even care. She knew what that was like—no matter how much you thought you’d get used to it, you never really could. And even though Nan had made sure Gabe had his own cake, with his name on it, Janelle knew it wasn’t the same.

  In a softer, gentler voice, she says, “Are you okay?”

  He kisses her.

  All the times they’ve fooled around, he’s never kissed her. Janelle’s imagined his mouth on hers a thousand times, maybe more than that. Soft, sweet, slow, hard, fierce, fumbling...a thousand different ways he would kiss her for the first time, and this is nothing like any of them. Gabe takes her face in his hands, holding her still. His lips slide against hers, parting them with his tongue—or maybe she’d gasped with surprise and her mouth was already open. She can’t tell. All she can do is kiss him back.

  She’s on his lap before she knows it, straddling him. Her fingers dig into his shoulders. He hasn’t let go of her face. She can’t move away, but doesn’t care, not even when his kiss becomes bruising. She rocks against him, wanting to feel him get hard, and that’s when he breaks the kiss.

  Breathing hard, Gabe looks into her eyes. His mouth is wet and open. When he slides his tongue across his lower lip, she imagines him tasting her. The thought is huge and sudden and powerful. They’ve been fooling around for months. He’s made her come, and she’s done the same for him. But this feeling is somehow adult and terrifying.

  Janelle pushes back from him a little, but Gabe lets go of her face to grab her upper arms instead, holding her in place. “Hey!”

  “Janelle.” His fingers tighten.

  Something is so wrong about all of this...and yet it’s Gabe. Gabe, who Janelle thinks loves her, though they’ve never even gone on a date. He has to love her—why else would he look at her the way he does when he thinks she doesn’t see? The way he looks now? She could lose herself in those blue eyes and never find her way out, because Gabe Tierney is nothing if not made of secrets.

  She stops struggling. She puts her hands on his face, mirroring him, though her touch is more of a caress. Her thumbs stroke along the edge of his cheekbones. She leans in to kiss him, and at the last second, he turns his face just enough that she’d end up kissing the corner of his mouth if she kept on. She stops. His breath fans over her lips. She doesn’t move away, and when she speaks, her mouth brushes his. It’s nothing like a kiss.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  He pushes her away, too hard. He goes to the dresser, pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Fumbles with his lighter. Watching him, Janelle thinks she should get up and get out of this room, because whatever’s going on is bad.

  Really bad.

  His lighter sputters but won’t flame. Gabe mutters a curse. He throws it, just a cheap plastic thing, onto the floor, so hard it cracks and breaks. He grips the dresser, his head down.

  Janelle crosses to him, but stands out of his reach. She’s cold, suddenly, in front of the open window, despite a warm spring breeze. Her arms hump with goose pimples, and she rubs them. She says nothing.

  Eventually, he turns, still gripping the dresser, to look at her. “Go away.”

  “No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Gabe shakes his head. He lets go of the dresser and stalks toward her, but he’s aiming for the bed, not her. He tosses back the pillows and covers, searching. Muttering a curse, he yanks open the nightstand drawer so hard it flies off its rails and the contents scatter on the floor. Coins, miscellaneous junk. No lighter. Gabe curses louder and pounds his fist against the nightstand hard enough to rock the lamp.

  She’s seen him angry before. When he and his dad go at it, it’s like watching two bears in a ring, circling, ready to attack. To the jerks at school Gabe always shows a different face, colder and somehow scarier because of that. He doesn’t even have to throw a punch to make people run away. And of course, with his brothers he’s mocking, snide and sneering. A condescending big brother who grabs them in headlocks and rubs their hair to make it stand on end.

  Janelle’s never seen him cry, and she thinks that’s what he’s doing when he sinks onto the bed and puts his head in his hands. All she can do is shift from foot to foot and rub at her bare, cold arms. If she takes a step away, will he look up at her? She doesn’t want to see tears. She’s not sure what to think or do or say, or how to feel about the fact that Gabe might really...