Page 61 of Good Guy Gabe

I roll the window down, hoping she’s backing down, hoping there’s damage inside, even. Some excuse for me to stand next to her on solid ground and work this shit out. To say things right the second time around.

“The worst part is I wanted this baby. Desperately. If you’d only asked me, I would have said yes.”

Chapter 26

Joss

ASINGLE GIFTremains under the Christmas tree in the barn. Most were doled out at the annual Quilted Flower Christmas party, both the personal gifts to my closest friends and the White Elephant gifts that had amassed in the weeks leading up to the event. There were gifts for the Jug House, Mel Cohen, and Lin and Wren, which Cora distributed for me when she returned from her trip on Christmas Eve.

She insisted it wasn’t an excuse to see Merrick, but since I didn’t ask if it was an excuse to see Merrick, I have my doubts.

That leaves a single gift under the tree on January second.

“You could auction it off,” Tilly suggests as she reaches up to take the first ornament off the tree and her shirt rides up slightly, revealing her baby bump. Because of everything her body’s been through the last couple years, it’s hard to tell she’s pregnant even at six months. The shape of her belly is slightly unusual, but it mostly looks like she’s just filled back in what she already had. Most people think she’s put the old weight back on.

Good for her. Everything’s going smoothly for her, which she deserves after almost dying last year. She’s got one more job to get through. The longer she doesn’t show, the better.

Meanwhile, I’m already grouchy about people touching my distended tummy, which the doctor has promised me isn’t gigantor baby at all but bloating. I’m bloated, and people are touching me.

So I’m justifiably crabby with my response of “That’s stupid.”

Cora chokes down a laugh as she packs the ornaments Tilly hands her. “I can still take it over to the Jug House.”

Tilly waggles an eyebrow at her. “And ride that Merrick train?”

Cora throws a wad of bubble wrap at her, but it gets caught on the air and sinks long before it closes the distance. “It was one time, oh my god.”

“Two times, minimum. Did you think Joss and I weren’t going to compare notes and realize you were telling us about two different days?”

“I didn’t tell Joss about anything,” she bristles, but the argument falls as flat as that bubble wrap. “This is so lame without mimosas.”

Tilly grins like this is the greatest moment she’s ever experienced and not the fifth time Cora has complained about having to break tradition this year. “Go make yourself a mimosa, then!”

“I’m not drinking by myself, that’s even lamer.”

“Then take the gift over to the Jug House and ride the Merrick train until you’re knocked up, and then we’ll all be in this together.”

Cora gags, legitimately gags, at that. “That is disgusting. I don’t want a kid at all, let alone one with that asshole. I’m gonna drop this off on the doorstep. It says ‘Gabe’ on it, they’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t want to do that.” I stoop down to pick it up, get it out of the way. My usual instinct to squeeze it, knowing there’sa fluffy quilt inside, fleece lined for warmth and big enough to properly cover his bed, is absent. I don’t even want to touch it.

I thought he was going to be the one to save me. To protect me. To breathe life into me.

Cora shuffles toward me reflexively, unendingly reliable to lend a shoulder for me to cry on, but it’s become rote since it’s all I do anymore when I’m out of the public eye.

“I have to stop this,” I grumble into her shoulder, irritated with myself. I ended things, not him. I outed him for the bastard he is, and I freed myself before my life was ruined by a man for a second time. This is a time of celebration, not of grief.

Cora hugs me fiercely, no doubt realizing she was half-assing the support I didn’t deserve anyway. “You don’t. What Gabe did is disgusting. It’s caveman shit. And we all fell for it. So you have every right to be upset. I’m upset.”

“Men are trash,” Tilly says cheerily. Coming from someone who’s never dated seriously, I’m not surprised. She dodged a bullet getting knocked up by a stranger, I swear.

That’s it. I’m over it. I let this ruin the holidays, but that’s enough. “You know what else is trash?” I say, giving the gift that squeeze I didn’t give it before. “This.” I push it toward Tilly. “Throw this out. It’s trash.”

Cora and Tilly gasp together, horrified. “It’s a quilt!” Cora squeals.

“You could sell it!” Tilly adds.

“It didn’t do anything wrong.”

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