By all accounts, Gage didn’t have to be here anymore. He was done for the day, he made his polite exchanges, and he could just be on his merry way. But there was an anger bubbling inside him, disguised under the facade of uncaring. He was angry with Kinsey, angry with her dumbass boy toy, angry with himself. He had been flirting with this girl, and the possibility that she was taken hadn’t even run through his mind. He would have lashed out somehow, breaking a million things and screaming.Â
But he was a reformed man. Putting reformed in a lot of brackets. He was lashing out in his head, and it would only be a matter of time till it became physical. So with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, Gage smiled at the asshole named Hayes, and nodded. “Yeah man, I get that. She’s an incredible one. And a nice piece of ass, if I do say so myself.” His eyes glancing towards Kinsey, before back at Hayes. “Like I said, you two have a good time tonight. Stay out of the horse house because one of them is feeling very….angsty. Might even kick if spoken to.”Â
Kinsey wasn’t in the right. She knew it, had been knew that she wasn’t in the right, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from doing it. She remembered her first time laying eyes on Gage with a clarity that she could never assign Hayes - it had been early, too early for people who didn’t work there to be around, and she’d been leaving the Big House. Her dad, the only one in their house who’d always be up before Kinsey, was the first one that caught her eye, all broad confidence and bushy blonde beard that she’d seen for as long as she could remember, with his arm around someone else, striding across the yard. The rising sun had hit warm light on the curls of the man her dad was with, and it had caught her eye. Roman nose, curly hair, a bruising eye and sensual lips...Kinsey was hooked.
And now here she was, definitively on the hook, clearly very torn. She knew exactly what Gage was saying, saw that clench in his jaw, knew that the physical manifestation of her boyfriend plus her having to dismiss him was akin to kicking him when he was down. She sucked. She hella sucked. Seeing him turn around, Kinsey sent her attention to Hayes. “Babe, look, I promised my dad I would finish a few things up for him...can we meet later?”Â
“I came all the way down here and you can’t make time for me? C’mon Kinsey.”
“I’m sorry. You know I don’t break my promises.” At least, not to her dad.Â
It had turned into a little fight, between the two of them, and in about fifteen minutes Hayes had left again. When he’d be back, Kinsey didn’t know, but she’d bet it wouldn’t be for a while. In the interest of saving herself time, she put her phone on do not disturb and shoved it in the back pocket of her tight jeans. It was time to apologize. Slipping a lock of dark hair behind her ear she heads to where she saw Gage head, eventually tracking him down. “Hey. So uh. Yeah. You weren’t meant to...y’know.”