Page 32 of Sticks and Stones
“But if I let him get too close—”
“You risk getting hurt again, I know.” She smiled sympathetically. “I had the same issue with Colt. He’d hurt me before. Twice, in fact, and I was determined it wasn’t going to happen again.”
“Yet, you guys are happily married now, so how did you work it out?”
“I learned to trust him and he gave me the time to do that.” She swiped a finger across her phone and smiled at the screensaver of her husband. “He was my first love, but no way did I think he would be my last. It seemed every chance he got he hurt me. I was done with it and him.”
Gianna could relate. She’d felt the same way when she left Gunnar. “What convinced you to give him another chance?”
“He did.” She laughed. “He wore me down, I guess. He said he’d changed and that he wanted to prove it. I wouldn’t let him at first, but over time, the changes became obvious. I fell in love with him all over again and this time I trusted in his feelings for me.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust in Gunnar’s feelings for me,” she said, wishing she could count on the kind of happy ending her friend described. “I just don’t think he’s capable of feeling as deeply as I am. I know it has a lot to do with the way he was raised, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Maybe he still has a bit of a guard up too, huh?”
“I think so.” Gianna knew she wasn’t the only one who’d been hurt. She’d abandoned the man who’d been terrified of being left alone and she knew that must have scarred him. “And I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to let it down, not fully.”
“And can you live with him if he doesn’t?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.”
She told herself when she left Gunnar that she’d find a man who was open and honest, affectionate and transparent about his feelings. While Gunnar was certainly more open and honest than he’d ever been with her about his feelings, he still had a long way to go. And a short time to get there, if the number of times his phone blew up every day was any indication.
Gianna turned when the bell over the door rang.
“Hey, ladies,” Billy said, smiling. “I was hoping I could steal you away for a coffee break, beautiful,” he said to Gianna.
“Go ahead,” Gabby said to Gianna as she gestured toward the door. “The delivery guy will be here soon and I just have to fill him in on the plan today. I’ll be fine by myself for a while.”
Billy had texted her about dinner a couple of times since their last date and she felt guilty she hadn’t responded. She knew it wasn’t fair to leave him in limbo while she sorted out her feelings for Gunnar, so she linked her arm through his, intent on letting him down gently over coffee.
The café was just next door, so they exchanged pleasantries while they waited for their order and found a table by the window.
“I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you about dinner,” Gianna said when they were seated. “Things have been a little crazy lately.” And by things she meant her. She’d been a little crazy ever since Gunnar strolled back into her life.
“No problem,” he said, smiling. “I can see how that would happen, trying to hold down a job and raise two teenagers on your own.”
“I haven’t exactly been on my own lately,” she said, knowing she had to come clean with Billy if she hoped to maintain a friendship, or even a cordial relationship with him when they passed each other on the street.
“Yeah, I heard your ex is still in town.” He shrugged when she raised an eyebrow in question. “Not every day a rock star rolls through town. It seems Gunnar is all people want to talk about these days.”
She knew Gunnar liked to jog in the mornings before he started writing, and he told her he’d made his rounds through the town, chatting with people and signing a few autographs as he went, but she didn’t know he’d become the talk of the town. Not that she was surprised. Gunnar drew people to him like a magnet, and not just because of his celebrity status. It was his magnetic personality, and in the case of women, his raw sexual energy made it impossible to ignore him.
“I’m sure you must have questions about where we stand.”
“Hey, you don’t owe me any explanations. We only had one date. I just didn’t want things to be weird between us when we saw each other.” He covered her hand with his. “I’m not gonna lie. I like you a lot, Gianna. But if you and your ex have unfinished business, I get that.”
Gianna could feel someone’s eyes on her, and as soon as she looked up, a ripple of awareness passed through her. Gunnar. He was standing on the street in front of the café, surrounded by a group of teenage boys who must have been on their lunch break.
They were thrusting papers at him, which he signed, before crowding around him for selfies. His eyes only strayed from hers long enough to smile for the camera before they drifted back to her. And her date.
She wanted to run out there and explain to him that it wasn’t a date, but even before she could withdraw her hand from Billy’s, Gunnar was gone.
***
Gunnar swore softly as he set his guitar aside and scraped his hands over his face. Seeing Gianna with another man had stirred up something in him. Jealousy. Possessiveness. Rage.
He’d been so good at repressing those feelings when they were together. He could literally stand in the same room and watch a man hit on her without reacting. Sure, he’d been seething inside, but he never revealed his weakness to anyone. Not even Gianna.
