“Gabe talked to you about all of that?”
Proof.
He wasn’t a talker.
But he talked to me.
A lot.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
She gave me another look but put no words behind it, this time, because she didn’t have to.
Gabe sharing so fully was not Gabe.
Gabe sharing with me said many things.
Argh.
Instead, she suggested, “If he’s opening up to you, maybe…ask?”
I shut my mouth.
“I see,” she said. “So, you don’t wanna go there, therefore you don’t think that’s your business.”
“I still want us to be friends,” I replied.
“And if you worry about a friend, you ask.”
She was right again.
I was going to ask.
During our big blow up after our first kiss, he’d intimated he’d been played by a woman.
But that look on his face wasn’t about being played.
It was about something uglier, wounding.
Unhealable.
A hammering sounded on the door, and I got no thrill from it because only one person knocked that way.
Mouthy Martha.
Thus, Shanti and I looked at each other and said at the same time, “Martha.”
I got up to open the door.
And yep.
Martha.
She looked to me, then Shanti, then said, “Ad hoc Oasis Square Residents Association Meeting T-minus two minutes. Get your asses into the courtyard. Pronto.”
She then stormed away.
“Oh God, what now?” Shanti asked from behind me.
