Chapter 23
Gage
I didn’t need to know Bree well to figure out she was pissed-it was evident every time her eyes cut across the space between us. And not just pissed. No, the fury was laced with something else, something that hollowed me out worse than any glare could: hurt. Her blue eyes shone with it, a kind of betrayal that twisted my gut until it was nothing but knots. They glistened with the sting of backstabbing, and I knew damn well I had been the one to put it there.
“Bree,” I tried, my voice low as I followed her out of Rachel’s cabin, trailing after her like some desperate shadow. She was heading straight for ours, her pace quick, but it didn’t matter-my legs devoured the distance in a heartbeat. “Bree, please.”
“Not right now, Gage,” she seethed, the words slicing sharp enough to sting.
The tone was one she had never used with me before, a sound that made a shiver ripple down my spine-and not the good kind. It wasn’t warmth, wasn’t teasing, wasn’t the laugh-filled banter I
craved from her. It was cold, clipped, venom edged with pain. That was when I knew just how badly I’d f****d this up. I had told them. I had gone against her wishes. I had broken her trust wide
open.
But I hadn’t done it out of malice. I’d only been trying to protect her, to do the right thing, to keep
her here, to keep us here. Still, none of that mattered to her. None of that was enough.
I dropped my gaze to the ground, too ashamed to meet the fury in hers, but still unwilling to stop
following her. I would walk with her every step of the way, no matter how much she hated it. I
would help her carry every bag, every pillow, every scrap of her life from our cabin to her new one. I
might have screwed up, but I wasn’t going to abandon her now. We were still friends… weren’t we?
She had to come around eventually. She had to. We’d still run together every morning. We’d still
sneak out for late-night walks. She’d forgive me. She had to.
I jogged past her and pushed open the cabin door. She stormed inside without so much as a glance at me, heading straight into the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind her. I blew out a
long, heavy sigh and pressed my palms into my face, dragging them down until I felt my jaw
clench.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. I hadn’t wanted to make her
look at me like that. There was nothing I wanted more than to keep Bree here, nothing I wanted more than to keep her beside me every night, to wake up with her pressed against me, to spend
every second we could snatching pieces of time that felt like ours.
But camp policy was camp policy. Rules were rules. Parents trusted us with their kids under those rules, and breaking them wasn’t something that got overlooked. Bree’s mom hadn’t sent her here
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to end up exiled to some bench in the middle of the night. No one had. No one should have to endure that just because Gabriella carried a god complex big enough to rule her world like some damn queen.
The bathroom door opened, and Bree stepped out with a small bag hugged tight to her chest. I recognized it immediately-it had been sitting on the counter yesterday, a bundle of her life crammed inside. Toothbrush, perfume, makeup, the little things she needed to feel human. She clutched it like a shield, her jaw tight, her face unreadable.
“Bree, you gotta talk to me,” I said, my voice dropping, my shoulders sinking under the weight of her silence. It killed me that she wouldn’t even look at me, killed me that she couldn’t see this was for her own good.
She rolled her eyes, a sharp flick of dismissal, before brushing past me to the bed. Our bed. The same place where she’d been curled against me all night, her body soft and warm in my arms, her head resting against me like she belonged there. My chest ached at the memory, at the cruel reminder of what I wanted so badly but couldn’t have. I wanted to keep her wrapped up in me, to promise her she’d always be safe, to swear she’d never have to face anything alone again.
“Why did she kick you out?” I asked finally, trying to take another route, my voice steadier now, more insistent.
“It’s complicated,” she muttered, tossing her things into her duffel without looking at me.
“Then explain it to me,” I pressed, stepping closer. “Bree, you can tell me anything.”
“No, I can’t!” she snapped, spinning on me, her voice breaking under the weight of something deeper. Her eyes shimmered with pain, with tears she didn’t want me to see. “You’ve just proven that I can’t tell you anything, Gage. That I can’t confide in you.”
Her words cut deeper than anything Gabriella had ever spat at me.
“You know it was the right thing to do,” I argued, desperate for her to understand, desperate for her to see this wasn’t betrayal-it was protection. “Imagine what would’ve happened if they found you here. I’d be sent home, Bree. Maybe Caleb, Miguel, Kenneth too. And then who would be left with
you? Who would stand at your side against her? Who would have
your back?”
She folded into herself, arms wrapping around her middle like she was holding her heart together with her bare hands. Her voice came out small, fragile, like she was seconds away from breaking.” I know you did the right thing,” she whispered, and my shoulders slumped under the relief-until she kept going. “I don’t care that you told them. What matters is that you didn’t even tell me, Gage.”
Her words landed harder than a punch.
She picked up her duffel and slung it over her shoulder. I ached to take it from her, to ease her burden, to help gather her blankets and pillow and walk her to Rachel’s. But the look in her eyes
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Chapter 23
froze me in place. It was a warning: don’t touch me, don’t help me, don’t even try.
“You just went ahead and blindsided me,” she said bitterly, her voice steady now, cold, “Your could’ve come to me. You could’ve told me your worries, your thoughts, like you always tell me to do with you. But instead, you went behind my back. You took matters into your own hands, and now I’ve learned an important lesson.”
“Bree-“I started, my voice cracking with the plea, but she cut me off.
“I really can’t trust anyone,” she whispered. A single tear slid down her cheek, glinting in the dim
cabin light before it fell.
That tiny drop of water broke me. It was like it hadn’t touched her cheek at all-it had shot straight through my chest, lodging deep where no one could pull it out.
“I’ll see you around,” she muttered, eyes downcast, before stepping past me and out the door.
Out of the cabin.
Out of my reach.
Out of us.
Before she left me behind.
Bree
The first night with Rachel was awkward-painfully so. She talked a mile a minute, words spilling
like a rushing stream, and I just sat there on the couch, clutching my blanket, trying not to notice
the empty space where Gage’s arms should have been. She didn’t even seem to notice my silence,
just filled the room with her chatter until, eventually, she talked herself out. Somewhere between a
rambling story about her college days and a tangent about summer reading lists, her voice
softened and started slipping, muttering the same name over and over again in her sleep. Anthony.
The name clung to her lips like a secret. I guessed it belonged to the man in the photo on her
nightstand-the one where she was wrapped up in someone’s arms, smiling wide and genuine-but I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t in a position to ask, not when my own heart was twisting in a mess of
longing and disappointment.
I tossed and turned on the narrow couch, the springs pressing uncomfortably against my back no
matter how I shifted. Sleep wouldn’t come. Peace wouldn’t come. All I could think about was how
different the night before had been, how easy it had felt to curl into Gage’s chest, how natural it had felt to be wrapped up in his warmth. I ached for it, for him-for the safety, the weight of his arms around me, the steady rhythm of his breathing against the top of my head.
It hadn’t taken me long to figure out what hurt the most, and it wasn’t the fact that he had told Derek and Rachel. On some level, I understood that part. It made sense. It wasn’t fair for him-or
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the guys-to risk their place here just because I couldn’t stand up to Gabriella. I knew that. My heart knew that. What broke me was that he’d gone behind my back. That he’d kept a secret from
me, made a decision about me without me.
And that, of course, had sent my brain spiraling right back to the place it always went when trust
cracked under my feet. Right back to Oliver. To Jenna. To the sight burned into my memory of her
straddling him, of their bodies pressed together in ways he had promised were only mine. To the pictures. The text messages. To the cruel realization that everything I’d shared, everything I thought was sacred, had been a lie. My stomach curled in on itself just thinking about it, the echo
of that betrayal crashing into me all over again.
My heart fought against it, whispering that Gage wasn’t Oliver. That he wasn’t that kind of guy.
That he’d never do something like that to me. My heart wanted to believe him, to trust that he
would never let me down on purpose, that he would always protect me.
But my brain had won the battle this time, its voice sharper, colder. It reminded me of the pain of trusting the wrong person, of giving too much, of getting crushed. The last time I’d followed my heart, it had ended with my world in pieces.
Still, my body apparently hadn’t gotten the memo. Because the next morning, there he was-
running beside me like nothing had changed. He didn’t say a word. He just stayed at my side, those piercing green eyes sliding toward me, silently begging me to break the silence, to give him a
thread to hold onto. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
It was a battle I thought I had under control-mind over heart, logic over weakness. But what my
brain hadn’t prepared for was my body betraying me too. My chest tightening whenever he was
close. My stomach fluttering when his gaze lingered too long. And, most humiliating of all, the way my body responded when I walked into his self-defense class later that day.
I had forgotten I was supposed to be there. Or maybe I had conveniently ignored it, hoping I could
avoid him. But no, fate wasn’t about to let me off the hook.
And God help me, I wasn’t prepared for the sight of him demonstrating.
Gage and Miguel squared off in the center of the mat, and I sat frozen, watching as Gage moved
with easy, powerful control. Every time Miguel lunged, Gage took him down with barely any effort,
using his strength like it was second nature. Watching him flip Miguel onto his back over and over
again was like watching raw power dressed in discipline. My throat went dry.
Miguel wasn’t small, not by any means. He was taller than me, broader too, his weight more than enough to make him hard to topple. But Gage? Gage made it look effortless. He was all coiled muscle and sharp focus, the veins in his forearms straining as he gripped and threw, his jaw set in
concentration.
And all I could think was that if he could handle Miguel like that, then he could handle me with
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nothing more than a thought. I wasn’t delicate, I knew that. I carried more weight than girls like Gabriella, but none of it would matter in his arms. He was strong enough to catch me, hold me, flip me, control me without ever breaking a sweat.
“Alright,” he said, rubbing his hands together as his voice carried over the group. I snapped out of the trance I’d fallen into, but my body didn’t cool down. It couldn’t. “What we’re gonna do now is team up in pairs. One of you will be the attacker, the other defending. You’ll switch so you both know what it feels like to throw someone around-and to be thrown.”
“Gage,” Gabriella’s voice cut through the air, all honeyed sweetness as she adjusted her sports bra and pushed her chest together. “You wanna team up with me? I wouldn’t mind being thrown
around by you.”
Her smirk made my stomach twist with disgust.
His jaw ticked, his face unreadable as he shut her down without hesitation. “I’m good,” he said
flatly, motioning for everyone to find partners.
The group moved quickly, pairing off in twos until I was left standing awkwardly on the edge, my chest tightening as I realized there wasn’t a single person I wanted to spar with. And, by the looks of it, no one seemed inclined to pick me either.
“You’re with me,” Gage’s voice rumbled behind me, and I felt him before I even turned.
Heat radiated off his massive frame, and instantly, my body betrayed me again. My shoulders loosened, my chest eased. It was like the tension drained away just because he was near, even as my mind screamed at me not to let it. I tried to scold my heart, and now apparently even my uterus, reminding myself not to give in so easily. But my body? My body didn’t care about logic. It only cared that Gage Simmons was standing close enough for me to feel the warmth of him at my
back.
“You wanna throw me around?” I asked, the bite in my tone sharper than I intended. Echoing Gabriella’s words had left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I couldn’t stop it.
His hands moved before I could think, big and firm as they closed around my biceps. He pulled me back into him until my spine aligned with his chest, until his breath was hot against my ear. The sheer size of him surrounded me, caging me in, and every nerve ending in my body went electric.
“I want you to throw me around, Bree,” he whispered, his voice low and gravelly, rough enough to drag a shiver through me. His words sank into my skin, deep and warm, and I swore the air itself
vibrated with them.
His hands trailed slowly down my arms, fingertips grazing my skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. My body lit up under his touch, humming, sparking, betraying every wall I’d built.
“Besides,” he added, his mouth close enough that I swore I could feel the ghost of it brushing
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