Before I could reply, say, tell her she couldn’t just stroll into a restaurant’s kitchen even if her daughter worked there, both the owners were eccentric (to say the least) and on any given day (or Angel assignment), all sorts of people could be trooping through there (what could I say? I didn’t want anything to mess with Lucia’s and my equilibrium because I didn’t want anything to mess with the opportunity Tito and Tex were giving me), she spoke again.
Loudly.
“Ooo! Look at how cute those are!”
She was gazing animatedly at my cookies.
They were cute, little foxes and bears, squirrels and bunnies, deer and racoons.
But Lucia was in her zone, and I didn’t need my mom’s animation to disturb it.
I rounded the prep table, grabbed her hand and tugged her to the staff room.
Once there, I said, “Love you, Mom, but you can’t just walk into Lucia’s kitchen like that.”
She was puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because she’s an artist. You don’t interrupt an artist.”
“You’re an artist too.”
“Yeah, so you shouldn’t interrupt me either,” I told her. “I thought we were meeting for dinner after I make my delivery. Is something up?”
“Well, kind of, if me and Robbie, Mike and Shelby ditching on dinner is something that’s up.”
Now I was puzzled. “You’re ditching dinner?”
“They’re coming up with us to Prescott. We’re gonna show them around. It carves about an hour and a half off their drive home on Sunday and Mike is like Robbie. He can only do the big city for a little while. He’s antsy. I’m gonna meet Shelby in a little bit, and we’re going to do a quick troll through Fashion Square Mall, and then we’re all heading up.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to pinpoint how I felt about Mom and Robbie, Mike and Shelby careening down the road to being best buds.
Obviously, I liked it.
But it, too, was warp speed.
“I also wanted to share personally that Gabe officially has Robbie’s stamp of approval.”
Now I was struggling to pinpoint if I remembered how to breathe.
“When we got back from dinner at that sports bar,” Mom continued, “he just sat on your couch, bent forward and put his head in his hands. He sat that way for a long time. I gave him that time, then I sat with him and asked what’s up. He lifted up and said,”—she took off Robbie’s deep voice—“‘This one is gonna take care of her. This one, fuck, babe, he’d die doin’ it.’”
No way to hold them back this time, tears sprang to my eyes and started falling.
Because…
Yeah.
Gabe would.
He’d do that.
He was a giver, not a taker. He was a supporter, not a mooch. He was a partner, not a bum. He was a protector, not a user.
He was everything.
Like knew like, I guessed, because Robbie was all of that too.
But even if having this knowledge settle deep into my bones was absurdly awesome, putting the cherry on the top was that me with Gabe didn’t make either my mom or my dad-of-the-heart worry.
