Page 85 of Good Guy Gabe

“Saw the chicken wings, did you? I commissioned it. Charged me a small fortune, but it was worth it. Now go on, your other present is behind it.”

I see the dampness in Joss’s eyes, the tremble as her emotions get jumbled. “This isn’t—”

“Fair. You keep saying that. Ma’am, the decisions I made for you, I didn’t make them because I thought you didn’t want them, I made them because I knew you did. Yeah, it was shitty of me to push my issues on you. I’m a coward, okay? I wasn’t even brave enough to fucking ask if I’ve got a spot on the team next year because I didn’t think I could handle being told I don’t. I promise I’m going to try to do better, but there it is. Open the other present.”

Joss swallows a lump in her throat before tearing the paper off the quartet of fabric that matches the first bolt. “Is this for the baby?”

She’s smiling, but now I’m grouchy. At myself, but it doesn’t matter. “Got charged a much larger fortune for raccoon themed baby prints.”

She traces the happy face of the gray and black bandit. “Crud,” she grumbles. “How am I supposed to not forgive you after this?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to forgive me after this.” I pat the bed next to me casually, but my heart is pounding with the need for her to just be here, right here. Holding me. “Come give me a Valentine’s Day kiss, and I’ll order us some Valentine’s Chinese.”

She’s not sold, not entirely. But she curls up in bed next to me and says, “Those glasses make you look smarter than you are.”

I don’t know why I ever worried about another guy stealing her from me.

Chapter 34

Joss

ONE TIME EARLYin our relationship, Brian forced me to end my friendship with a college friend. He told me he’d overheard Josh saying inappropriate things about me. Brian was also a lot older than me or any boyfriend I’d had before him and insisted we do things in the bedroom that made me uncomfortable. He said it wasn’t because I didn’t like them, I was just inexperienced. I needed to grow up.

When I did inventory of the medication in his practice, the numbers were always off, but he had a reason every time.

Brian always blamed the patients when I asked about whether they needed sedation because the insurance companies were forever denying claims. He said teenage girls were babies who couldn’t handle a little pain.

I’m cautious with Gabe, but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. I fully trusted Brian and spent many years blaming myself for not recognizing all those little incidents for what they were, but I was young and naive. I am now less young and less naive.

Every time Gabe takes my hand, I feel this peace settle over me like I made the right decision. I think we’re going to make it.

Gabe squeezes my hand to get my attention. “What’s got your eye there?”

I look from the wall of fabric in front of me and the swatches of the baby fabric. He’s been glued to my side all afternoon. At lunch, he even insisted on sitting next to me at a booth that wasabsolutely not big enough to sit three people on one side. And no, I’m not claiming the baby took up an entire seat; Gabe takes up two. It was sweet, though. If I tried to pull away from him, I have no doubt he’d say that in his walking brace, he needs to lean on me for support.

I have a feeling he’s going to be running that line through March.

I slide the swatches over the line of fabrics the designer matched the custom prints to so it’d be easier for me to pair everything up. I keep pushing my hand to the yellows and greens; my hand keeps springing back to the pinks and purples. I know I’m blushing because we’ve spent the last week committing to gender-neutral colors when I say, “I know what we agreed on, but don’t these prints match so much better to the pinks?”

Gabe chuckles and leans down to kiss the top of my head. “You can say it. Now that you know we’re having a girl, you want to do girl stuff.”

“I’m not this shallow!”

“Well then, I’m that shallow. I found out two hours ago that I’m going to have a girl, and I’m so dang shallow that I demand all the pink. Every pink. Pink everywhere.” He reaches behind himself, taps the shoulder of the lady shopping the notions rack, and says, “We’re having a girl. Just found out. We were going to do the gender-neutral stuff, but now that I know it’s a girl, I want girl colors. Which pink should we go with?”

The poor lady, whom I don’t recognize, so she’s either a quilt tourist or a new customer who’s probably never coming back, looks at the fabrics I’m debating between. “Oh, that print is absolutely precious with those little raccoons! I’ve never seen it before. Is it sold here, too?”

“I had it custom made,” Gabe boasts. “Got sixty yards of it.”

The lady recoils at that. A valid response. It’s an unholy amount of fabric for most. Not that most quilters I know aren’t sitting on that much fabric, but you don’t just say something like that.

“Oh, hi, he means he bought me a bolt of each. And . . . I own the shop, so it’s not actually crazy.”

“That makes sense.” The lady nods and points to a blender pink with tiny swirls and hearts on it. “That matches really nicely, I think. Your shop’s amazing, by the way. I just moved here from Salem. I wasn’t expecting anything like this when I was told the best shop in Wilmington is all the way up in Camden.”

I blush and sink into Gabe at the praise. I know people recommend my shop, but I don’t hear it that much, and the recent string of vandalism had me worried people were getting run off again. But there hasn’t been an incident in a month and a half, since that day Keira came by, so maybe things are getting better.

Am I suspicious that Keira really was behind all the incidents? Yes. But as long as they’re not happening anymore, I truly don’t care.

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