Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [82]
“You’re mad at me.”
“No, I’m not.” But his eyes were smoking.
She said, “I’m sorry I made you talk about it. It wasn’t any of my business.”
“I’m not mad.” He was very pissed. “It’s just that it wasn’t . . .” He grew sulky. “After I did it the third time, the sister-in-law asked me how old I was. I should have told her fifteen ’cause that was my friend’s age. But it caught me off guard. So I told her I was fourteen. Then she said, “Fourteen? Man, you really don’t count.” And I know she said that to make her feel less guilty. But it still made me feel very small. And at that point, I said to myself, ‘Gabe, you’re not your dad. You really need to raise your standards.’ ”
He looked at Yasmine.
“And then like a few weeks later, my dad beat the crap out of my mom and we wound up in California. And then six weeks later, my mom deserted me and went to India to have a baby. She accidentally got knocked up, which seems to be a pattern with her. This time it was by some rich old Indian doctor and they moved to Uttar Pradesh. Then my father moved permanently to Nevada. And I wound up with total strangers. So there’s the whole sordid tale of my life. Happy?”
She touched his shoulder. He was a ball of coiled muscle. “I’m sorry.” She kissed his shoulder, and he felt a tear drip onto his skin. Her voice was plaintive. “Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.” He was still pissed but tried to shrug it off. “It was sex, Yasmine. No emotion.” He turned to her. “Not like if we did it. I’m not saying we should do it. But I am saying if we did do it, it would be different.”
“Different, but not special because you’ve done it before.”
“Of course it would be special!” He tried to hide the irritation in his voice. “It would be the most extra special thing that has ever happened to me.”
“But you’ve done it before.”
“But not with someone I love. You know what the sex was, Yasmine? It was like eating a bad meal when you’re hungry. The drive is there and you know you’re gonna do it. But you feel lousy afterward.”
“It’s just . . .” She didn’t finish.
“What!” he grumped out.
“It’s just if we did it, I want it to be something you’ve never done.”
A thought floated into his brain. He quickly tamped it out.
“What?” she asked.
“What?” he asked back.
“What were you just thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
Gabe didn’t answer.
“Gabriel, whatever your middle name is, Whitman, you are lying. What were you thinking?”
“My middle name is Matthew.”
“Mine is Tamar.”
“Tamar?”
“It means date in Hebrew.”
He started kissing her shoulder again. “I can see that. You’re brown and sweet and I want to eat you up.”
“Gabriel, what were you thinking?”
“It’s not important.”
“It’s important to me.”
He was getting increasingly exasperated. It was a bad idea to come over. “Yasmine, there are things that you tell someone you love because you love them. And there are things you don’t tell someone you love because you love them.”
She waited, drumming her fingers.
“Like . . . this is theoretical by the way . . . but like if I saw a hot girl, I wouldn’t turn to you and say, ‘I’d like to do her.’ That would hurt your feelings. So I’d keep it to myself.”
“Is that what you were thinking a minute ago? That you want to do another girl?”
“I said it was theoretical, okay! Do you know what theoretical means?”
“Yes, I know what theoretical means!” She stroked his cheek. “Please tell me, what were you thinking?”
“You’re just asking for it.” When she didn’t say anything, Gabe shook his head. “You know the saying: some girls are bitches but all guys are dogs. Well, it’s true.”
“My father is not a dog.”
“I’ve seen your mother. He’s a dog.”
She hit him.
“We’re all dogs, but it’s not like we can’t be trained.” He paused. “There’s this small percentage like my dad who are simply hopeless. If my dad were a dog, he’d be a vicious pit bull and have to be put down. And there’s this other small percentage like the airport drug dogs. You put a steak in their faces, no matter what, they’ll resist. And then there