Page 12 of Good Guy Gabe

Cora gives me a look I can’t fight.

But I don’t think I want to after that proclamation. “I’d love to go with you, Gabe.”

“Awesome,” he says on a big exhale. “I’ll be back in an hour. Does that work?”

I cringe. Tilly’s pulling a seam apart; Cora needs to stitch the hem. That’s the better part of an hour right there, and I still need hair and makeup.

“I just saw Sherry Hunt in the shop,” Tilly says. “I’ll drag her up to do your hair.”

Chapter 5

Gabe

THE GOOD NEWS: Joss agreed to go to the Kick-Off Gala with me and does seem to agree that it’s a date.

The bad news: her friends bullied her into it.

A win is a win. And it’s certainly not the biggest dating disaster I’ve ever had. I kept the same girlfriend throughout most of high school and college even though my sisters all hated her and, admittedly, she was kind of mean to me, until one of my high school football buddies sent me pictures of her sucking him off.

He apologized because he didn’t know until after the fact that we’d never broken up. It was good intentions on his part, I get that, but she almost never gave me blow jobs, and that stung as much as the cheating itself.

Oh, another thing that I’m not sure how to rate because I could argue that it’s both good and bad? I touched Joss’s boobs. I didn’t mean to. I’d already seen them by that point and wish I hadn’t — because that made my dick get really excited about life — and I wanted to be a gentleman. The best solution seemed to be holding my hands in front of them. I just forgot how long my arms were for a second, and squash.

Super squash. Warm and soft. A nice round shape to them. And no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, this little voice in the back of my head — possibly the voice of my dick — had to keep pointing out the fact that the longer we stood there, the moreher nipples prodded at my palms. So yeah, I really wish I hadn’t grabbed her tits in a gentlemanly way, but her nips and my dick were on the same page there, and that’s gotta mean something.

Okay, what it means in the immediate moment is that the hour I gave her to get ready?I run home and rub one out.

I’m not proud, but you do what you gotta do.

Even following that up with a cold shower, the moment I think about Joss’s nipples again, my dick starts seriously considering things. I need a long-term solution: a minor but critical wardrobe change.

I feel even better about this decision when I return to her place and discover that the top of her dress is one of those form-fitting, waist-tucking bustiers that puts her breasts in cups that only cover so much. Now that she’s in five-inch heels but no platform, it’s clear that I’m going to be staring down at soft, jiggly, porcelain flesh all evening, and it’s going to be inviting me to touch it at every opportunity.

Most of her soft blonde hair’s been pulled back in a ponytail and left to hang in wide curls that bounce between her shoulder blades as we walk to the car. What’s been used for a hair tie is the wrist corsage I got her after asking Huang if this is the sort of event that requires corsages. He’s got a girl; he should know this stuff.

“I didn’t make us a reservation anywhere,” I have to admit sheepishly when I realize we’re in the sort of fancy dress that calls for fancy restaurants. “I’m sorry, I should have done that. I don’t even know what you like. If I’d asked you that, you would have known I was inviting both the quilt and you to this.”

Her laugh is light and sweet. Her elegant fingers, with their simple, white-tipped nails, wrap around my bicep. It helps calmme, although my thoughts immediately stray to the other places her hand could go. “I’m happy anywhere. I even brought my lipstick to freshen up.”

She holds up her purse, and I say, “It’s crazy how quickly your friends threw that together. It looks like it came from the store.” Seriously, they must have grabbed one of the framed orchids from her workroom and slapped it onto a purse.

“What, this? Nah, I made it years ago. For one of Cora’s shows, actually.”

“Wait, you make purses?”

“Don’t get any ideas. I loathe making purses.”

“And you make your own patterns, too?”

“Not the purse pattern. Just the orchid.”

“You’re amazing. I am absolutely amazed by you.”

She’s flustered by that. I get the idea that she’s not one to handle compliments well, but that’s crazy. She’s got this whole business going on here. Yeah, she’s got the actual shop, but she also has an online store that has hundreds of items and thousands of ratings. She’s got that subscription content, and the streams I’ve watched live have gotten at least fifty viewers each time. Some of the replay videos have thousands of views, and again, they’re all paid subscribers. She’s making big money just teaching people how to quilt.

She’s amazing.

“You’re a professional athlete!” she counters. “A starter. I know nothing about sports, so I didn’t really know who you are, but Cora and Tilly do.That’samazing!”

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