Page 103 of If You Stayed

“Gabriel?”

“Yeah?”

I walked over to him, stood on my tiptoes, and pressed my lips to his as I whispered, “Make love to me in here, too?”

So he did.

***

The next morning, when daylight broke through the window shades, I rolled over in the bed and found an empty spot beside me. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, searching for Gabriel, but he was nowhere to be found. Though my nose was able to smell my way through the situation.

I pulled myself up from the bed, slipped on my pantiesand one of Gabriel’s T-shirts sitting on his dresser, and then headed toward the kitchen.

A smile spread my lips when I saw him standing over the stove, scrambling eggs in a pan.

“Morning,” I said loudly.

He startled and jumped slightly, dropping his wooden spoon to the floor, which flung a good serving of scrambled eggs all over the place.

“Shoot, I’m so sorry,” I hurriedly said, rushing over to start picking up the mess. I reached for the paper towel and shook my head, embarrassed by the mistake. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said, chuckling.

I still felt awful, hurrying to start cleaning up the mess. “Gosh, I’m so clumsy. I’m sorr—”

“Really, Kierra. Don’t worry about that.”

“Ugh. It’s all over the place. It’s my fault for—”

“Hey,” Gabriel said, placing a hand on my shoulder and bringing me to a halt. He leaned in, locked his eyes with mine, and gave me his lazy smile. “Hi there.”

I bit my bottom lip and slowed my erratic breathing. “Hi there.”

He moved a piece of my fallen hair behind my ear. “I made you breakfast.”

The gentleness of his touch calmed the panic in me. If the same situation had happened with Henry, I would’ve been shamed and shouted at for making him make a mess. I would’ve been called names and belittled for the scrambled eggs hitting the cabinets. I would’ve been told to clean it up as soon as possible.

Gabriel instead smiled and then kissed me gently on my lips. I didn’t think he knew how much it meant to me—his gentleness.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

“Good morning,” I murmured back.

He raised me to standing before he pulled me into a hug and kissed my forehead.

I glanced at the countertop, which had a spread of bacon, hash browns, orange juice, and of course cinnamon muffins. Along with not one, not two, but four different types of eggs.

“Are you feeding two people or an army?” I joked as Bentley came into the room, wagging his tail as he ate up all the scrambled eggs on the floor. Turned out you didn’t need a robot to clean up messes; you just needed a dog.

“Well, I was cooking and realized that I didn’t know how you liked your eggs. So I made hard-boiled, over easy, sunny-side up, and an omelet. I tried poached, but it didn’t work out. And well, you saw how the scrambled—”

“I love you,” I breathed out, unable to hold the words in any longer. I had almost stopped believing in those three words when it came to the opposite sex. I had almost given up on the idea that I’d be able to whisper those words to another. Yet Gabriel made it easy. So easy that I cut off his words just so I could say it.

Maybe that was what love, real love, was. Something that somersaulted off one’s tongue. Maybe love was messy kitchens and oversized T-shirts. Maybe love was quiet good mornings and forehead kisses. Maybe love was peace. Maybe love was him.

He smiled and pulled me closer to him. I loved how I felt whenever he wrapped his large frame around mine. I felt safe. No one in the world knew how important it was to feel safe after years of feeling the opposite. “I love you, too. You know what’s crazy about that?”

“What’s that?”

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