Page 39 of Good Guy Gabe

It all rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know Joss as well as I want to, but either I don’t know her as well as I think or this is all wrong.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard on it. There are all kinds of explanations. But then, as I wander around, checking out the changing table and the books, the small vase on the dresser, the art on the wall and the mobile, there’s a stagnation that hits me. It doesn’t quite click until I accidentally scuff up the corner of the rug and see the carpet beneath it. The room is carpeted in a pale, somewhat off-putting shade between seafoam and cornflower, but beneath the rug is a distinct baby blue.

The carpet’s sun-faded, which means it’s been here in this spot for years. And it’s got a bunch of bubbly, childish cars on it, so it’s not like it just happened to be here already. This nursery wasn’t recently set up. Joss has had this nursery for years. Probably from a time when she did go for gendered stuff and for whatever crazy reason assumed she’d have a boy. Hell, the pageant life may have done such a number on her she didn’t care what the baby would be, she’d push traditionally boy stuff on them. She’s legit crazy.

Baby crazy.

Thank fuck for that.

Chapter 18

Joss

“WELL, THIS ISN’Twhat I wanted to come home to,” Tilly grumbles as she scrapes a razor up one of the windows on the front of my shop. “How long has it been going on for?”

I test the acetone on the siding, regretting the cedar facade I had done last year when I thought the vandals had finally moved on. It was an act of faith in the community, that everyone had accepted or at least forgotten me.

“Beginning of the month, what, three weeks ago? The Jags game?”

Tilly snickers. “That’s how we’re tracking time now?”

I admonish her with a pleading, “Stop! I just remember it because I tried to beg off from the game, but Cora refused. She actually helped me with the mums.”

“No way!”

“She made me pay to get her nails fixed afterward,” I laugh, feeling better. Most of the paint comes off with a little scrubbing, but the shingle looks the same when I take a few steps back, so I count that as another victory. I’m worried about the paint that’s gotten into the grooves, that it might end up still showing the message — BACK OFF, spray painted in red — but if we can get most of it off, I’ll feel better about the day.

“What does that even mean,back off?” Tilly grumbles. “Back off of what?”

I shrug. “Who knows? You sure you should be out here? Not that I don’t appreciate your help just as much as I appreciate Cora’s, but I don’t want to hurt the baby.”

She glances down at that, pats her belly. She isn’t showing yet. With the medical issues she’s had in the past, I’m interested to see when she does. She’s home for a week before she’s got a short gig in California, and then she’ll be back for the month of December, but she’ll be out for over two months starting in January. I worry she’s going to overwork herself, but she doesn’t have much choice. She’s a contractor; no maternity leave.

“Nah, doc said that as long as I’m using a fume hood or working outside, I’m good with most things. And it’s so warm today that I’d rather be outside doing this than inside fussing about it.”

Indian summer. Wilmington always gets a good one. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with the city when I was first brought here from the gulf coast of Alabama. I was worried I was going to hate the cold season — and when I have to leave my property in February, I very much do — but I love the way it gets frosty, scaring me into thinking we’re going to have six months of frigid temps, only to kick back in time for Halloween.

Which is approaching more rapidly than ever now that I’ve started counting by Game Days.

“Gabe took me on a picnic yesterday, down at the square. I don’t know why I don’t visit it more often. It’s a ten-minute walk.”

I glance over at Tilly when I don’t get a response. Her arm’s fallen to her side, and she’s staring at the window in front of her. At the glass, at the graffiti, at the shelves within, at her own reflection? I couldn’t say. But she’s not the type to sit still for any length of time. Cora likes her quiet contemplation. I’m alwaysmoving, but it’s typically at the speed of a sloth. My lifestyle works well for that. I will gleefully slow down to help a student see that I’m doing.

Tilly’s a pinball. It’s what makes her so good at her job. Yeah, she’ll sit there and hand stitch a seam for an hour, but she’s doing a million other things at the same time. A precise hand, a loud mouth.

“You okay?” I ask.

Her eyes narrow to the point I’m sure she’s now glaring at her reflection. She anchors her hands at her sides, fluffing herself up to face me, but she’s got her wig in twin flaming-red pigtails high up on the sides of her head and she picked a glittery lipstick for today. Plus, despite the weight she lost last year, she’s maintained her chipmunk cheeks. “Do you think this is happening because of Gabe?”

I shrug helplessly at the sloppy letters. It’s not like it’s a new thought, but it is another to throw in the pile of stuff I can’t talk to him about. “My face is popping back up around town again. Gabe, he tells off anyone who tries to start stuff when he’s with me, but I’m guessing it’s fuel for the fire. And this?” My eyes run along the four-foot-tall letters again, B CK O F now that the two windows are mostly cleaned. “What else could it be referring to? It’s not like I’m suddenly popping up in places for any other reason.”

“Oh no. Again?” someone calls from behind us, out on the street.

They’re not the first passerby to comment in the handful of minutes we’ve been out here, and no, I don’t want to talk about this with rubberneckers who I know happily agreed with hateful words spoken behind my back while offering me performativecomfort to my face. Still, I screw on my customer service face to greet and accept their histrionics.

I soften immediately upon seeing Rachel, the Angel who makes Gabe’s favorite cookies. She never quilted a day in her life but said she saw the one I made for the fundraiser and thought it’d be a good hobby now that her kids are more self-reliant. I’ve known her less than two months and feel like she’s a bit of an oversharer and expects everyone else to share equally, but she’s nice. “Oh, hey. Yeah. It happens sometimes. It’s safe here, I promise. It’s always overnight.”

“Don’t you live right there, though?” she asks. “Would you be safer if you stayed somewhere else?”

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