51| Murmurs
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According to Gabe, I've been here for at least two days.
That was two days too long.
I stopped in my tracks, holding my fist up for Gabe to halt. We stuck to the wall. The door opened, we made eye contact. Before he could do anything, I struck him down with the end of my gun. Gabe grabbed him before he could fall, gently lowering him down on the floor.
I slipped inside room seeing another man, this time younger, with his back to me counting stacks of money. I crept up to him, the nuzzle of my gun jammed into curve of his spine.
He froze.
I fisted the neck of his shirt, pulling him down and shoving him face first onto the desk. A good thing he was light too, otherwise it would have been a complete fail.
"You try sh't and I'll shoot your sh't." I threatened.
Gabe came in, dragging the body of our welcomer in with him and shutting the door.
"Please! I just count the money!" The boy pleaded.
"Shut up." I warned.
"Wait." He eyed me. "Are you guys Feds?"
"No." I answered. "Why does everyone think we're Feds?" I asked Gabe who just shrugged. I turned back to the boy. "What's your name?"
"I ain't saying sh't!"
I pressed his face deeper into the table. "How about now?"
"Mmnmn" he murmured barely.
"Hhmm. What if, we take the money, and you get to explain how you lost it?" I offered. There were stacks. Towers even. I'd guess about one million on the desk - I don't even know if I would be able to count up to the rest in the floor.
"You wouldn't." He eyes bulged out, he tried to push against me once more. I grabbed his arm, bent his elbow, and pushed it up.
"Ahh ahhh!! Okay! Okay! Stop woman! F'ck, man!"
I released him hesitantly. "What's your name?" I nodded my head up as he slowly rose.
"I'm not going to tell you my - Charlie!" He muttered through clenched teeth. "Can you let go please?" I dropped his hand. "The ladies love this arm." He chuckled nervously before squirming under my unimpressed glare. "You know, if you weren't so mean, I'd take you on the Charlie train."
"I'm sure your caboose goes at full throttle." He eyed me with his pretty blues, unaware of my sarcasm. Then he caught sight of my extremely tight, and extremely falling apart dress, his eyes waving a little too long. He smirked, opened his mouth then shut t again when he looked up.
"She was being sarcastic." A dry tone emerged from behind me. He stood close, not touching, but close enough for me to feel his heat on the right side of my back. It grew stronger and more intense the longer he remained. Even if it was just for a couple of seconds. It made me tingle in places I wish not to discuss. The more I didn't think about it, the better-
"Oy!" Charlie's long pale finger stuck out, pointing at Gabe. "You're that f'cker who stole my car!" He accused.
"I don't know what you're on about." Gabe said casually, the dry tone saturated in innocence. That scheming son of a bacon!
Charlie stood fully, sizing up Gabe. The poor guy didn't even know that he wouldn't have had a chance if I wasn't standing awkwardly between them.
"Okay," I pushed at both their chests, my hand melting under Gabe's warm touch. "We can sort this out later, but for now," Charlie pushed further into my hand, bracing his chest out. "I'll beat the crap out of both of you if you don't calm the f'ck down." Their staring and scrutinising glares continued. I looked at Gabe who seemed to have a little bit more than hate in his eyes. Dare I say it was jealousy?
Men.
"Ow!" Charlie screamed rather highly and jumped back into the table.
Gabe just held my hand in place.
"Did you just pinch me?" Charlie asked soothing his chest.
"Yes," I said without a paused. "We did you a favour taking that piece of sh't off your hands."
"Hey!-"
"Shut up." I interjected. "Charlie, we need your help, can we trust you?" I asked. I knew he wasn't to be trusted in terms of keeping his mouth shut - but that didn't mean he couldn't be threaten to keep it shut.
"What's in it for me?" He asked.
"Nothing -" Gabe muttered before he clamped his mouth shut. I glared up at him then casted my gaze down to our joint hands.
I should probably let go, or he should - at least.
I looked back up into his eyes which seemed like they hadn't left me. Or was he challenging me? As if he was gloating the fact that I had noticed we were still holding hands. So what? It didn't mean anything... he held my hand first!
Yet you're still holding his. That little voice who always seems to be right said.
"Are you guys going to keep doing that or get into some action?" Charlie's distant voice said. "I wouldn't mind joining in, you know." At that point his voice became clear as day. Our hands released each other at the same time. Before I could even turn around to scowl Charlie, Gabe had him up against the wall by the collar of his shirt.
"You're really starting to piss me off." Gabe said in quiet whisper. And I knew he was pissed, but he wasn't pissed off at Charlie - more so at the girl that keeps on rejecting him. Could you blame this? This wasn't the time to start canoodling and playing some Ed Sheehan songs about how deeply we love each other. Not when Charlie and the Cocky Factor had other things he'd rather do or say.
"Okay... let's keep him alive a little longer, shall we?" I rested my hand on Gabe's shoulder, squeezing the muscle in a massaging manner he seemed to calmed down and let go of Charlie making him drop to the ground.
"I," I empathised causing both focus to be on me. "Have a plan, boys." Both men raised their eyebrows. "But first," I pointed to Gabe, "Take those off." I waved absently at him.
I caught the mischievous glint in Charlie's eyes. "Are you gonna take yours off too?" He asked me grinning. I didn't even bother to stop Gabe's fist from colliding with his face, nor help him when he stumbled into the table, money flying everywhere.
Charlie was a piece of work.
I walked over to him, brushing the money out of his face. "Great!" I threw my hands up then turned to Gabe. "You knocked him out."
"Did you not hear the things he was saying?"
"And did you not see that I wasn't affected by him? You can't protect me forever. What are you going to do when you're no longer around? Watch me from my house? Or follow me around? It's not exactly a difficult task though is it? - you've had plenty of practise."
"You know-"
"I know what?" The anger simmering. "Was this all some sick game to you-"
"No-"
"Pretending that you understand - to get me - to act like the perfect f'cking hero!-"
"I wasn't pretending -"
"Of course you weren't pretending - you knew how to act and what to say because you knew everything!"
"I don't!" He raised his voice slightly. Instinctively, I meticulously raised an eyebrow and he seemed to find the right pitch. "I don't know everything. I respected your privacy. All I did was made sure you were safe!"
"Are you going to shout at me, again?" I folded my arms.
"Are you going to listen to me?"
Our angry eyes beamed back and forth with as much intensity as that of the hot sun. Both preferring to go blind than to look away and give up. Have you ever seen two stubborn people try to convince the other that they are the most stubborn.
"Damnit! Why are you so stubborn?" He asked frustrated.
"Why are you?" I asked with as much frustration.
"You're both stubborn."
We snapped our heads to the side seeing Charlie rise.
"At first, it was entertaining, but know it's a headache."
"Shut up!" Gabe and I both said at the same time.
"Jeeze!" Charlie held up his hands in surrender. "Why don't you both just tell each other how you really feel?" He looked between the both of us.
I turned to Gabe. "How hard did you hit him?"
He looked down at me. "Clearly not hard enough."
"Come on, guys!" Charlie stood, massaging his jaw. He stepped between Gabe and I, resting his arms around our shoulders. "It's pretty clear." He looked down at me. "He wants to smash you, and you want to smash him. There no harm in that." He smiled down. Meanwhile Gabe's nostrils flared dangerously.
"Charlie?" I smiled almost too sweetly.
"Mmhhm." He purred.
"Remove your hand from my ass."
And he did.
Gabe's jaw also got a good work out with the amount of clenching he was doing, along with his fists.
"Charlie, go clean up the money." I pushed him away from us and stretched out my hand at Gabe. "Give me your clothes."
"See!" Charlie said from behind the table, "Charlie is the doctor of love." He sang.
Gabe scoffed. "How many GCSE's did you leave school with?" He undid the buttons of the suit as he peered at Charlie mockingly.
"Enough to count what you don't have." Charlie fired back, holding up leaves of cash.
"What?" Gabe chuckled. "Your lack of common sense? Or all the f'cks I'm currently not giving?"
Charlie grinned. "Do I count her or...not?" He held his hand up to his mouth and fake pouted.
I slammed my palm into my face. Then quickly grabbed onto Gabe's body before he jumped over the table and knocked some sense into Charlie.
"Calm down, he's only winding you up and you're letting him." Gabe fixed his eyes dangerously on Charlie who just smiled as he smelt the money. I squeezed his sides and he hesitantly gave me his attention. "Can you do that for me?" I searched his eyes.
"One more word..."
I lowered my voice. "And what?" I shook my head at him challengingly. "We need him, and we're wasting time with this petty fight." I gave him one last look and he seemed content. Until...
"Man, she gave you blue balls didn't she?" Charlie said from behind us.
"Please don't kill him." I pleaded with Gabe.
"I can't guarantee that I won't."
"Yep! You definitely got blue balled."
This time it was me who knocked some sense into him.
Gabe looked at me shocked as Charlie laid on the floor. I mean, I told him to leave Charlie alone and I ended up being not better than him.
I rolled my eyes when he smirked. He was enjoying this - but not for long.
"Only I get to piss you off." I stripped out of dress and watched as he seemed to struggle to keep his thoughts and reactions at bay. "What?" I asked innocently. "It's not like you haven't seen them before?" I shimmed out the dress, I wasn't completely naked. A thong counts right? - although it was barely covering anything. Creeds sure did know how to dress his girls; he had style too. I would have complimented his choice in fabric and comfort if he wasn't a complete weirdo, and wasn't on my kill list.
He looked down at the floor rubbing his temple. "You play dirty, you know that?"
I smiled, hopped into the janitor suit which was much better than that piece of leather dress. I folded the sleeves and the foot of the pants several times to finally fit.
"You haven't seen me at my worst." I stepped up to him, taking his hand from his head. "I know your pissed, but I said we'd talk later, and we will. As dumb as Charlie is, he had a point. We really need to tell each other how we feel - but right now isn't the place - nor the time."
He just stared in awe and I felt myself sinking further into him he mindless played with both my hands, massaging and soothing it, and boy did it feel good, especially after those chains made them sore and tense.
"Does that feel good?" He whispered with a slight huskiness to his voice. My stomach dropped and I clenched my legs together. Just like that, he had me weak again. We were getting into a habit - our old habit. I knew I was playing dirty when I did my little Magic Amber performance a second ago. I wanted nothing more that to show him how good his hands were and perhaps have him demonstrate his other skills.
Not the time nor place. I reminded myself.
"Don't push it." I shook my head playfully. We were silent for a while. I think just appreciating the fact that things could have gone a lot worst and we wouldn't be standing stupidly in front of each other like we didn't have stuff to do.
"I missed you." He said looking down at my hands, as he continued to work his magic. I was left dumbfounded as he resumed. "When I woke up and you weren't there, I just knew I had to get you back - even if you wanted nothing to do with me - I just couldn't -" he stopped talking but used his thumbs to knead into my palms.
I found myself biting my lip. He really was sorry, even though he couldn't choose he was assigned to, he couldn't help but have genuine feelings for me - for us.
I raised on my tiptoes and angled my head, kissing his cheek. He pulled his head back and looked at me with his red eyes. My chest tightened, becoming a bit harder to breather. The one thing I loved about Gabe was how he was able to expressed what he felt - that was rare and probably why I was so mad that I thought it was all fake. But it wasn't. There was no hating this man - not when he was so genuine.
"I thought you hated me." He whispered, as if he were to speak, his voice would break.
I pulled my hands from his grasps and grabbed his face, squeezing his cheeks together.
"How could I hate you?" I lazily waved his head side to side. "You made me angry - but I don't hate you. I was more angry at myself for not noticing that I was being surveilled by someone trained like me." I let go of his face. "I know what people like us do to get what we want - and that angered me because if it was all a game to you - I would have been devastated." I couldn't even believe the words spewing from my mouth. Was I actually opening up to him? Not only for the first time, but especially when I was purposely trying to avoid the confrontation.
"I meant everything I said - everything I did to show you how I see you - an amazing woman. I didn't play you, Amber. I would never-"
At this point I had to shut him up gently with yearning lips. If we were going to make up later, I wanted him to show me how much he did miss me. He kissed me back softly. A quick sweet kiss before I pulled away and pecked his lips once. I missed his lips, and I missed him too.
"I-I missed you too." I scrunched up me face, then couldn't suppress my smile at what a bunch of pathetic love birds we sounded like. "But we're not done with this yet." I murmured into his lips. "After all, I wouldn't want you to get blue balls." I chuckled, pulling away and looking up at him.
"Too late." He grinned, reaching over and pulling me back into him. His head hovered above mine as he tempted me. "What's this about you being the only one to piss me off?"'
"He was being a d'ck, and you were being a little b'tch. I couldn't possibly let him f'ck with you." I pulled out of his embrace, patting his cheek as I stepped away from him, "That's my job." I winked at him.
I walked over to Charlie and slapped him hard on his face.
"F'ck me!" He cursed grabbing his cheek.
And he was back.
"Get up. We have work to do."
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A/N - I wasn't sure if I should delay the whole forgiving thing between them - but then I thought - what's the harm right? Isn't Charlie a little trooper xD.