“And he carries me to bed over his shoulder like I weigh nothing,” I added.
“Stark family move,” Harlow muttered.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve read the books. And Luke did that too,” Harlow told me.
Interesting.
Was that kind of stuff hereditary?
Shanti brought us back on target. “Since it seems you’re getting it good, not sure what the attitude is about.”
“We had a deep chat last night,” I told her. “And I’m not going to get into specifics, because all of that is Gabe’s, but I will tell you, he had a relationship that didn’t work out for reasons beyond his control, but he did everything he could. Then, back when he was a cop, he was on duty when the call went out because there was a body by the river. It was her. She’d committed suicide. He found her.”
“Oh my God.” Harlow’s whisper was suitably horrified.
“And his girlfriend after that was a spoiled, selfish bitch. So he thanked me this morning. Thanked me just for listening to him, because she didn’t,” I finished.
“Did she know about the…earlier one?” Luna asked.
“She did,” I answered. “But she had a wicked jealous streak and didn’t want to hear about it.”
“God, what a bitch,” Jessie snapped.
“Right?” I asked.
“Um…Willow—” Raye started, her eyes aimed beyond me.
I talked over her. “Her name is Ariana. I’m going to ask Arthur to hunt her down.”
“Will—” Shanti tried to cut in.
Alas, she did not succeed.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when I find her, but I want that info just in case I come up with something sweet to fuck her up. He brings me coffee in the morning, for shit’s sake.”
“Hey, Willow, if you’d—” Luna said swiftly.
I talked over her too.
“And he listens to me, really hears me, you know?”
I did not wait for them to say they knew.
I kept going.
“He waited up for me the other night. Neither of us get enough sleep, but he was waiting up for me. And I got home at midnight. He bought me Beckett’s Table like he was going through a drive thru. When we go out, there’s none of that, ‘What do you feel like? No, what do you feel like?’ malarky. He just makes a decision, and we eat.”
“Sis,” Shanti said urgently.
I was on a roll so her urgency was lost on me.
“I mean, how hot is that? Just decide where to eat and then eat. He’s so confident. He’s so together. It’d give me a complex, if he didn’t think I was gorgeous. Me!” I scoffed. “Gorgeous.”
“Seriously, babe—” Jessie said.
“And as hot as he is, which is off the scales, multiply that by about nine thousand, that’s how hot he is in?—”
