Back To Us (Dare With Me #4) - J.H. Croix Page 0,2

I guess my ex-friends-with-benefits or some other bullshit.

“Elias wanted to get back earlier to have dinner with Cammi,” Gabriel added.

That detail felt like a twist of the knife buried in my heart. Not only did Gabriel not love me, but it seemed everyone around us was falling in love. My eldest brother, Flynn, who I’d never thought would fall for anyone, was freaking in love and so content with Daphne it was almost a joke. I was happy for him. I really, really was. Then there was Elias, who’d fallen in love with Cammi, the best barista in town. Even Diego, who wasn’t as much of a surprise because he was such a softie, was in love. That left me, Gabriel, Tucker, and my younger brother, Grant. I found a minuscule amount of comfort in the fact that there were still more of us not paired up.

I absolutely did not need to dwell on this. I let my backpack slide off my shoulder. “Can you help me unload that last pallet?” I pointed at the open compartment on the small plane.

“Of course.”

For a moment, we studied each other. My eyes soaked him in greedily. Because I’d been so carefully avoiding being alone with him, I’d hardly let myself look at him in the past few months. Whenever we were together, we were with our nosy friends and family. I loved all of them, and I didn’t want any of them picking up on the tension simmering between us.

Gabriel’s mossy green eyes searched mine, and I swallowed, willing myself to be numb to him. The sun glinted on his auburn hair, illuminating the flecks of gold in it. At the right angle, it looked like he had a freaking halo. I definitely knew he didn’t.

He had strong features—cheekbones cut at clean angles and a strong jaw. Of course, because life felt incredibly unfair when it came to Gabriel, he had a smoking hot bod. He was tall with a rangy build, muscled shoulders, and arms that could make a girl weep.

My gaze dipped down, tracing over the way his T-shirt clung lovingly to his muscled chest. He had a hand in his pocket, and my eyes traced the flex of his forearm from where his thumb curled over the belt to his jeans. The distracted moment snapped when an eagle screeched again. That sound was followed by the chatter of a crow, probably trying to annoy the eagle. They were good at that.

Gabriel strode past me. “You get the other side,” he said after he dragged the pallet halfway out of the back.

Within a few minutes, we had it inside against the far wall of the shed, protecting it from the elements if any weather came through. Deliveries here could wait a few hours, or even days, depending on the schedule for whomever planned to pick them up.

“Looks like your tire blew out,” he commented as we walked back toward my plane.

“No shit,” I muttered.

Gabriel glanced at me, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t have to be angry every fucking time I’m near you, Nora.”

“Maybe I don’t have to, but I want to.”

His nostrils flared before he let out a breath. Spinning away from me, he rounded the back of the plane to look at where the wing scraped against the boulder.

“Not bad. I can come back tomorrow with some supplies and patch it up,” he commented as he returned to where I was waiting. His eyes skipped down to the blown-out landing tire and back up.

“You’ll need someone to come with you.”

“I assumed you would. This is your plane,” he replied.

I suddenly felt crowded. I was between the door and the wing and felt hemmed in with Gabriel standing right there.

“It’s not specifically my plane,” I corrected.

My neck was hot, and my skin felt prickly all over. Longing pierced me, and I tried to shove it away, but I was helpless to my body’s reaction to him.

“I know it’s not yours, but it’s the one you usually fly,” he countered.

The moment fell quiet, silence spinning out between us. He stepped even closer, and I thought my entire body might go up in flames. Even worse, I didn’t want him to move away. I wanted him—to the point of desperation.

Chapter Two

Gabriel

A few hours earlier

“What?” I barked into my phone.

“I’m rerouting this afternoon to pick up Nora,” my friend and fellow pilot, Elias, repeated.

“Is she okay?” Worry churned instantly in my gut.

“As far as I know. I’m sure they’d have mentioned if she