She slid open the drawer marked “10” to reveal a pink translucent eraser wrapped in cellophane. According to the label, it smelled like peonies. The same measure of delight that would’ve swept through her at age eight, swept through her at twenty-eight. “A new eraser that smells like peonies!” He knew she had a weakness for both the look and scent of fresh peonies. “You combined two things I love,” she said, holding the eraser aloft, “further proving that you’re annoyingly good at gift giving.”
He winked. “I know.”
“I actually love it when I make a mistake with a mechanical pencil because it’s so satisfying to smooth it away with an eraser like this one.”
“Go wild, boss.”
“I intend to. Thank you.” She tucked the eraser into the large front pocket of the apron she wore when on the job. Her apron and Gabe’s had been hand-made of sturdy beige fabric withPaperywritten across the front in white calligraphy.
She checked her smart watch.
“You’ve been glancing at your watch a lot this week,” Gabe said. “More than usual. Is something going on?”
“Nope. I was just wondering which class Connor’s teaching right now. He was telling me about his different classes yesterday. The catatonic group. The loud-talking group. The I-couldn’t-care-less-about-art group. And so on.”
“You like Connor, don’t you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“When you talk about him, you get a... dreamy type of expression on your face.”
“A dreamy type of expression?”
“Don’t look so surprised. You and I both know that you’re starting to get into him.”
“I...” Did she know that? She supposed she did, but she’d been skirting around it in her thoughts.
“Spill.” There was nothing Gabe enjoyed more than receiving the inside scoop on the relationships of his friends and family. He prided himself on remaining in the know.
“He’s an awesome guy,” she stated. “There’s never been any doubt of that. He’s always been an awesome guy.”
“But you didn’t have romantic feelings for him until now?”
“I never gave myself permission to have romantic feelings. Then, yesterday, there was this moment when he came out of the dressing room wearing a blazer. It parted to the sides when he stuck his hands in his pockets and—boom.”
“Boom?”
“I felt this incredible bolt of magnetism, which kind of pinned me to the spot while I attempted to breathe and talk over it.”
“The blazer did you in.”
“The blazer did me in,” she agreed.
“You realized that the awesome guy isn’tjustan awesome guy. You suddenly saw him as boyfriend material.”
“In a word... yes. It’s disorienting when the friendship feelings you’ve had for ages suddenly morph into a bit of a crush.”
“It’s best to fall in love with a friend.”
“And you make this pronouncement based on your twenty-three years of life experience?”
“I do. I’d be thrilled if you’d date a guy as good as Connor.”
She leaned against the counter, sweeping away invisible dust with her fingers.
“Your dad was good in some ways, but deceitful in others,” he noted.
She rolled that around. She’d trusted Gabe with her family history, and he’d trusted her with his. “Nicolas, my first long-term boyfriend, was good. It’s just that we went to different colleges.”
