Page 32 of Good Guy Gabe

I roll my eyes, same as I do every time we have this conversation. She was still living in Milan when the vandalism started. She didn’t see the cops taking photos with their personal cellphones to spam the desecration across social media. They hated me like everyone else did. They didn’t care that it was impossible for me to leave with my assets tangled up in the house and a baby on the way.

They didn’t care when I lost the baby, either.

“I just need to fix this.”

Cora hates this. She always has. She glares at the soft grass as she steps onto it, like her boots have depreciated, but she keeps going, heading toward one of the thrown plants. I ignore her, resuming my gardening, until she yells, “You can’t hide forever, Joss.”

“I feel like I was doing a bang-up job of it before!” I fire right back.

She picks up the mum, and thankfully it’s already wrecked because she flings it right back into the ground with a furious snarl. “Then get the fuck out of Wilmington!”

Iris and Rose gasp.

“You know I can’t.”

She flicks an angry finger at the second story, at the corner room with its windows facing both north and west, the room I demanded we make the nursery because I thought it was the perfect amount of sun.

“Because of that?” Cora yells across the lawn.

I swallow the stone in my throat. “It’s not just that anymore.”

Cora finally relents and returns to me, her irritation melting into concern. “The shop can be rebuilt anywhere,” she says, but I hear the hesitation, the finesse.

“You know it’s not just that either.”

“Is it fucking Jerry?”

I roll my eyes at her even though yeah, if I did leave Wilmington, I’d probably have to figure out if there was a way to transport a feral raccoon with me.

Cora blows out a gust of air that fluffs her bangs. “You know Gabe might not be here forever, either, right? He could get transferred.”

He might also not get signed at the end of the season. They’re two and two right now, and the losses have been to teams ranked high enough that Gabe says they’re actually doing well. From what I hear from others, they’re doing great, no reason for himto worry. But he does. And I’m not about to jinx it by saying it’s a possibility, so I shrug and resume planting the next mum. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But I’m not uprooting my whole life and wrecking things with Gabe over some mums.”

Cora’s lips pull to the side as she drums her nails on her thigh. “Maybe he can say something to the press,” she says thoughtfully. “Wilmington likes him. If he asks people to leave you alone or remind them that you had no idea what Fuckhead was doing or–”

“He doesn’t know about Brian.”

Cora shakes a surprised jolt off. “You haven’t told him? You know there’s some locker room beef happening between him and Allore because of this?”

I do know this, but Gabe says it’s not a big deal, he was never that close with the Allores.

But I’ve stalked Keira’s social media. Tons of pictures of him with her baby, and he doesn’t even like kids.

“He told me he doesn’t want to know, and I respect that.”

“He can’t pretend that—what happens when he finds this shit in the morn—what about the nurs—gahh!” Cora flops down onto her knees next to me.

“What are you doing?” I gasp as Iris and Rose crowd around her, likely thinking she’s petite enough they could pick her up if she’s fallen.

“Give me some damn gloves. If you’re gonna be this stupid about this stupid man and his stupid heart of gold nonsense and how seriously perfect he is for you, you don’t get to hide from the public anymore. We’re gonna fix these stupid flowers, and thenwe’re going to go to that stupid game and you’re going to hold your stupid head high.”

“Here you go, dear,” Iris says as Rose gives her a set of gloves.

Chapter 15

Gabe

THE LOCKER ROOMis abuzz with good vibes after the game. A win is always a good thing, but it feels especially nice coming off a loss last week, a late game on the west coast, so we didn’t get home until past midnight. Tonight, we get to celebrate our win all night.

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