Page 57 of Good Guy Gabe

I peek back into the den. Most of the guests have gone, but Abigail and her family are staying the night. She was shooed right out of the kitchen with that towel when she offered to help on clean-up, so she’s sitting in the rocker with the baby, chatting with Gabe while he lies on the floor performing calisthenics — which I know he hates — while the toddlers hold onto his limbs and go for rides.

“He’s gonna be such a good dad,” I whisper, blushing when I realize I’ve spoken loud enough Liza and Phoebe heard me.

Neither of them even glance my way, though. “Of course he will,” Phoebe says as Liza says, “Why wouldn’t he be?” at the same time.

“Oh, you know, because he didn’t want kids.” I shoot a nervous look his way, worried I’m betraying a secret he was keeping from his family.

Phoebe grips the edge of the sink to keep herself upright as she laughs. Liza’s whole body shakes. “Did he tell you that because of Suzie doll?”

I shake my head, not understanding.

Liza waves her towel at a photo collage on the wall. They’re all over the house, and I’ve looked at every one of them, mostly hunting Gabe down and then speculating what our baby will look like based on the pictures. He’s in most of the pics in this spread, not surprising since he’s the second of four, and since he’s the only boy, it didn’t stick out before that he’s holding a doll in a lot of them. They’re all holding dolls. It would make sense he’d end up with dolls as well.

Only now that it’s been said do I realize that from toddler up to the youngest pics with Leah, he’s holding the same doll, which seems to be getting progressively smaller but that’s how much he’s growing. That must be Suzie doll.

“Aww, that’s sweet that he had a baby doll growing up.”

“It wasn’t sweet,” Phoebe says. “It was creepy.”

That feels strong. Just because he was a boy, that doesn’t mean it was creepy for him to have a doll. He was probably copying his big sister. He was happy. It’s sweet.

But then Liza says, “We weren’t sure if we were going to have more kids after these two. But then Gabe got obsessed about having a little sibling. Would cry, throw tantrums about it. And then even after Abigail, he begged for another. The only reason we put him in peewee football was to get the other boys to bully him for being baby crazy.”

Phoebe nods like she agrees this was a sane and logical solution. “Baby crazy. His whole life.”

I’m telling myself it hasn’t been his whole life, it was a phase he eventually grew out of. There was a time in my life when I secretly wanted to be an anti-pageant activist, but looking back on my childhood now, I would never want to lose those experiences.

Gabe’s having the time of his life. He’s been playing with those kids for hours. Now that the crowd has thinned down, the party over, he could easily pop in a movie for them and join the adults again, but he’s shown no interest in that. It’s obvious he’s missed them, too.

“That ex-girlfriend of his, the one he had in college, was she anti-kid?”

“Totally!” Phoebe blurts out, putting me at ease. He got the vasectomy for her, then. Dumb, but I’m not surprised with Gabe.

Only, Liza then adds, “Not to his face, though.”

“She couldn’t be. He’d have dumped her.” Phoebe gives her mom a nudge. “I showed you his profile I found on that dating site, right? His whole ‘big family, ready to settle down and have kids with the right woman’ thing?”

“When did you see that?” I ask.

“A couple years ago.”

My final thread of hope is it might have been an old, long-forgotten profile.

And then Phoebe says, “He took it down right after he moved to Wilmington, though, since it was a local service.”

Chapter 25

Gabe

SOMETHING’S WRONG.

Joss was already asleep by the time I made it to bed after the party. The next morning was a whirlwind, two hours of Minnesota goodbyes that resulted in a pile of leftovers and a case of ginger beer I had to cram into our luggage. Joss was quiet on the drive to the airport, but there was a fresh coat of snow covering every surface. It’s hypnotic. Soft and quiet. I can see why she’d be focused on the world outside.

We barely made our flight. Joss took the window seat and curled up in a ball to stare out at the clouds, giving her back to me, but I’ve never flown with her before. We all have our quirks. I’ve had teammates near to brawling because of overhead lights.

It bothered me. I shouldn’t have let it, but we’ve spent more time together the past two days than we’ve gotten a chance to before or will again until the season ends, and it felt like she was putting as much space between us as possible.

My breaking point is when we’re back in my truck, cruising up from Wilmington to Camden, and I reach over the console to take her hand. Yet again, she’s staring out the window, yet again, all I see is her shoulder when I look her way, and when I touch her hand, she pulls it away, tucking it into her lap.

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