We were so focused on all Raye was saying, we missed Tex moving.
So it wasn’t only Raye who jumped when his hand landed on top of her head.
“You’re a good kid,” he said.
Then he plodded to the door, bent, hefted it open with such force it slammed into its safety catches, and he plodded out.
FIFTEEN
BOO
I only hyperventilated a little when I parked my tiny Mirage next to Gabe’s man-mobile in his garage.
This wasn’t bad hyperventilation, like I was scared we were going too fast.
This was good hyperventilation, like I was overjoyed I was parking my little baby next to his sturdy vehicle because I was “home.”
She’s learning, Real Logic said.
No, she’s believing, Dreamer replied.
Truth: I was doing both.
We’d sent our request off to Arthur, given Jinx and the girls a heads-up, planned our next steps with more detail, and now it was nearly midnight.
I was looking at a nice, full, four hours of sleep.
Ugh.
However, this time, I’d packed a bag so I could get ready in the morning at Gabe’s, and I didn’t have to be up at three thirty, nor did he, in order that he had time to take me home so I could get ready.
I hit the garage door opener to close the door, grabbed my purse and my overnighter, and headed out of my car, suddenly exhausted.
The switch-up in my work routine couldn’t happen soon enough, let me tell you.
Though, if Tex, Tito and Lucia were cool with it, I was going to lug my stuff to SC to make the rest of my orders for the week to save that quarter hour of driving and start to get the lay of the land working more fully with Lucia.
Every little bit helped, and no one could be too prepared.
I opened the back door, entered, and saw Gabe, fully clothed, even though it was midnight, heading toward the back hall to greet me.
Fully clothed.
Midnight.
Heading to greet me.
After Mom kicked him out, my dad took off, and never in any meaningful way reentered my life. He wasn’t there proudly taking pictures of me and my prom date. He didn’t hand me flowers and give me a kiss on the cheek when I graduated high school. And he certainly wasn’t there to raise hell when I’d been raked over the red-hot social media coals or to sit me down to lovingly share that Kevin was not the man for me.
And Kevin not only didn’t help when I had booths at farmers markets, electing instead to sleep in to recover from his taxing days doing nothing or hang with his bros. He also didn’t offer to be designated driver if I was out with my girls, and he sure as shit never waited up for me to get home from anything.
All this hit me so hard, I stopped dead.
Gabe took one more step, then he got a good look at my face, and he stopped dead as well.
I stared at him as it all crashed into me, all at once.
He was up before me to wake me up so I could get to work.
