He laughed. "Whose side are you on? Are you trying to turn me against you?"
"I'm just trying to make sure you stand up for yourself."
"You're always worried about that. Don't worry. I'm not a complete doormat."
"I didn't mean that. I just . . . I don't know. I'm not very good at this dating thing."
"I know that. Neither am I. I've done plenty of stupid things in my past relationships. I deserve a few karmic turnabouts. Of course, that doesn't mean I want this to become an ongoing thing, but one mistake . . . one mistake I can forgive. If I haven't had much practice dating, you've got to be even worse after, what, how many years of casual, uh, flings?"
"A lot," I replied vaguely. For some reason, I was reluctant to tell Gabriel my age.
He picked up on that, his eyes narrowing ruefully.
"And right there. That's another thing. Almost worse than what happened. You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
