Page 58 of Good Guy Gabe

“You feeling okay, ma’am?” I ask, figuring it’s the safest question to ask. She’s been sick a lot. Nothing of concern to herdoctor, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to take care of her however I can. “You’ve been quiet today.”

“Just tired,” she says, but there’s a prickle in her voice.

Outside of when she first took that test, she’s been in high spirits, but I know not to expect that every day. All those physical things lead to grouchy days. Hormones lead to grouchy days.

“We’ll be home soon,” I murmur, moving my hand to her lower back, rubbing her there. She’s hunched over a lot with quilting, no matter how often she corrects her posture. Her back is in constant need of a rub.

I swear I feel her skin crawl under my touch, but I shake my head, assuming I’m imagining it or she had an involuntary shiver.

“You wanna come over to my place?” I ask.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Okay. We can hang out at your place then. I’ll cook us—”

“It’s a lot of work. You should drop me off.”

She just took a lot of days off, and she’s the type to work every single day, if only for an hour or two. She’s a workaholic, but I don’t think it’s bad for her. It makes her happy. Calms her. It’s not surprising if she feels behind. It’s not even surprising that she doesn’t want me around to distract her.

But the way she says it is short and flat, her words coming out on a single breath with no break or inflection. It’s dark enough that I can see her reflection in the window when I glance over, and her brow is tight, her lips pinched into a scowl.

I take a second to think about what I want to say. I’m glad I take it because I’d be using nasty tones if I didn’t, accusing her of lying or holding back when I know her well enough to knowthat if she’s upset, she’s internalizing it, likely blaming herself for whatever it is. It doesn’t take long before I realize that she’s scared to tell me what’s bothering her.

“It’s okay if you don’t like my family.”

That finally has her looking at me. “Your family is great,” she says, but even that feels like an attack.

“Did Leah say something? She can get really inappropriate at times. I’m not going to defend her if you didn’t like her.”

“I like her. I like your family. They were great.”

“Look, something’s bothering you. And I don’t want to drop you off if we haven’t resolved it. I don’t like us not being on the same page.”

“They told me about the doll. Suzie?”

Blood rushes to my cheeks. I swear my mother destroyed every picture of mewithoutSuzie doll just to make sure I look as weird as possible to everyone who steps into my parents’ house. Phoebe says no, I just never let go of that doll, I even washed her and changed her clothes, but that’s insane. “I wasn’t a weirdo, I swear. And it’s not like I had the doll forever.”

Even though my teammates through middle school and high school never let me live it down after one of them saw it in my room. I claimed it was my sisters’, but they didn’t believe me.

“You liked babies.”

A fact, but another one that hits wrong. Dread settles like coal in my stomach even though it shouldn’t. Isn’t this better? I’m going to be a good dad. There’s no way Joss missed how frustrated Abigail was with Dwayne. She won’t have to worry a second about that.

But the way she says it doesn’t sound very happy.

“I did, yeah. My sisters would have driven me crazy if I didn’t.”

There’s another lull in the conversation. Joss brings her hand to her mouth and nibbles on her nail. It’s such a normal thing, but not for Joss. She’s not a frivolous person by any means, but her nails are impeccable, her salon appointments twice monthly, one of the few times she leaves her property. Cameras are constantly zoomed in on her hands, after all, and although she gets subtle designs on her nails, they’re always intricate and perfectly shined and shaped. She absolutely does not chew on her nails.

When I try once again to take her hand, her head spins around to pin me with a glare and then return to that window. “Phoebe found your profile on a dating site.”

Blood heats my cheeks. “Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“It was from two years ago, when you were in Indiana.”

“Yeah, we were politely asked to not be on dating sites when we came to Wilmington. Not until the PR team had a good feel for how everyone was going to respond to us. Didn’t stop Blaise from using one of those, uhh, fetish sites, but—”

“You really wanted kids two years ago.”

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