Page 77 of Billionaire and the Barista

NATHAN

Iagreed to stay behind while Gabriella went and picked up Robbie from school. She had to have told him I was at the apartment waiting for them because he burst through the door and tackled me in a fierce hug. He had a lot of strength for someone so small.

Everything was, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” as he discovered the giant teddy bear, dragged me off to his room, and showed me his toys. Part of me laughed at his enthusiasm. Part of me committed every second of it to memory. I had a son, and I felt equally as thrilled about him as he seemed to be about me. At some point he would grow out of his enthusiasm for having me around, until then, I wanted to shout “Robbie, Robbie, Robbie,” with the same exuberance as he called me Daddy.

Gabriella leaned on the door frame to his room, as we sat on the floor, and he began pulling toy cars out.

“You think you can handle this? I have to go back to work,” she said. Her smile told me she was just as happy about the two of us playing together as we were.

“Yeah, we’ve got this. Don’t we, Robbie?”

“We can be a team,” she said.

“Go team,” she chuckled.

“Hey, what if we need to go anywhere?” I asked.

“You’ll need to borrow my car; you don’t have a booster. I don’t think you even have a back seat. Do you?”

I shook my head. I needed to get the Jag into the shop, and I needed a different kid-friendly car.

“What kind of car should I get?” If I was going to buy a new car, I might as well get one she liked. Of course, I needed to buy her a new car as well.

She listed off some names I wasn’t familiar with. “Those aren’t car companies,” I said.

“They’re car seats,” she said.

“No, I meant what kind of car should I get?”

Her eyes lit up with understanding. “I really liked that convertible Land Rover, but I think we’re going to need something bigger, like a minivan. I know that’s not impressive and it’s a mom car…” she trailed off.

“It’s a dad car, and I’m a dad now, so… I’ll take a look.”

“Ok, wow. Car shopping will be fun. But not right now. I’ve got baking to do. You know where to find me.” She took a few quick steps into the room and kissed Robbie on the top of his head. I lifted my face to hers and she gave me a fast kiss. I hooked my hand around her leg and held her for a moment longer.

She mouthed the words ‘I love you,’ and left for work.

“So,” I turned to Robbie, “you want to go look at cars?”

I called Jonah, and within a few hours, he was waiting for us with a newly installed booster seat in the back of his car. Robbie could barely contain himself as we stopped by to let Gabriella know we were headed out.

Robbie and I were in and out of minivans, while Jonah checked safety ratings and found us red ones. By the time Gabriella was closing up for the night, Robbie and I had a shining new, dark red, minivan. As an added surprise we stopped and picked up dinner at a nearby Italian place.

When she walked back through her front door, we had the table set and flowers as a centerpiece, ready and waiting.

“What is all of this?” she asked, a broad smile on her face.

“We got you something! Look, look, look,” Robbie grabbed her hand and tugged her to the table so that she could see in the center of her plate was a set of car keys.

She picked them up and held them in her fist. “You didn’t.”

I nodded. “You said I needed a family car. So, with a little help from Robbie, I got a new car. Now, those are your keys in case you need to borrow the car. I figured you might want to pick out your own car.”

She was in my arms and kissing me before I could finish. She was crying again when she stopped.

I stroked her tears away with my thumb. “I’m not that bad of a kisser, am I?” I teased.

“Why are you being so wonderful?”

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