Page 81 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“No. The ice cream arrived at JFK. Then I had it put on a private plane up to Stewart Airport. I drove there to get it.” He shrugs like it’s nothing. Like he just stopped at the corner bodega to pick up a loaf of bread.

Who is this man? And how does someone like this want to sleep withme? How has any of this even happened?

“You chartered a private plane for a quart of ice cream?” I hold up the tub on the palm of my hand. “A whole plane for this little guy seems a bit extravagant.”

Gabe pushes off the counter, pulls two spoons out of a drawer and holds them up. “How about we stop talking about airports and taste the damn stuff?” He offers me a spoon. “It was the strawberry one, right? The one your mom always talked about?”

“Yes.” The surprise of it all suddenly hits me and morphs into an emotional lump in my throat that’s the size of one of these large strawberries. “You remembered perfectly.” The last word cracks as I fight the sting of burgeoning tears.

Perfectly. He remembered fucking perfectly and had ice cream shipped here from Italy for me. Forme.

Has anyone ever gone to such incredible effort to do something so generous, kind and thoughtful for me before? Nothing on the scale of sweet European treats, international flights and private planes, obviously. But no, I don’t think so.

Todd once booked us a surprise weekend away in the Hamptons on Long Island. I thought he was making an effort to be romantic, until it turned out there’s a pine barrens preserve there and he wanted to see how it was being used to purify the local drinking water.

And now this is happening. One day I’m decorating the Sullivans’ house like usual, then a week later a walking sex dream of a sports star is flying ice cream in for me from Florence. What the actual fuck?

“Seems to me you do a lot of things for a lot of people,” Gabe says. “But maybe not many people do things for you. And I had it in my power to make this happen. So I made it happen.”

He shrugs again, this time with just one shoulder. “It was really just a couple of calls.”

I swallow hard and sniff as I blink back the tears. I can’t let him see me being all weepy or he’ll think I’m getting attached. And I’m sure that’s the last thing he wants.

“Come on.” He taps the side of the carton with his spoon. “No time to waste. Hurry, before it melts and it was all for nothing.”

I pry off the lid and peel away the protective film underneath to reveal rich vanilla ice cream with strawberry chunks so large I can smell them already.

“Oh my God, Gabe, look at it.”

“To hell with looking at it—dig in.”

As carefully as if I’m taking part in an archaeological dig, I scoop out exactly the right amount of ice cream to go with a strawberry chunk.

The moment it hits my lips my whole body goes weak. It melts on my tongue and slides down my throat, soothing the emotional lump.

“If it induces a noise like that, I am going to start getting jealous of this ice cream,” Gabe says.

I open my eyes to find him scanning my face. “I made a noise?”

He nods and shifts his hips, as if adjusting himself inside his pants.

“I take it it’s good then?” he says.

“Out of this world. It’s like the richest, creamiest, vanilla-iest cream and the freshest most strawberry-tasting strawberries.”

“My turn.”

I expect him to do the thing that every man would do and just stick his spoon in and take out a huge random chunk, probably from the middle. But he doesn’t. He takes half a spoonful from an area around the edge that has no strawberries in it.

“Oh, that is fucking good,” he says the instant it hits his tongue.

I put another spoonful in my mouth and realize I never want this sensation to end. Not just the sensation of the deliciousness, but the sensation of having Gabe standing next to me, right after giving me the most beautifully considerate gift I have ever received.

He could have flown in anything he wanted from anywhere in the world—jewelry, exoticflowers, a dozen puppies. But no. He remembered I’d mentioned it was my dream to taste this ice cream, so he went to all the time, trouble, and effort to find it and get it here for me.

It’s not about the expense of the gesture. It’s about the thoughtfulness behind it.

What have I done to deserve this?

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