He was off to the gym, so obviously he hadn’t showered.
And maybe he got paid so much, he could afford housecleaners.
However…
Yesterday was Sunday, so no cleaners would come in that day. Nor would they probably come on Saturday.
Gabe’s beard was always neatly trimmed, so unless he had a weekly barber’s appointment (and I knew he did not), he did it himself.
And there were no whiskers littering the sink or the counter beside it.
When Kevin was with me, I was constantly on his ass to rinse out the sink and wipe down the countertop, because, I mean, gross. It was his mess, it was unsightly, and I didn’t need it getting into my makeup or hair stuff. Not to mention, I didn’t leave a mess for him to clean up after I left the bathroom.
But Gabe was tidy.
Gabe cleaned up after himself.
Even living alone, he was a mature enough man to rinse his own damned sink.
God.
Why had I fought this for so long?
I will reiterate my desire to slap your bio dad across his useless face, Real Logic chimed in.
Mm-hmm, Dreamer agreed.
Yeah, Dad and his ilk sure did a number on me.
Bluh.
I left the bathroom, made the bed and got dressed, belatedly doing what I usually did upon waking, this being going through my day.
Go home, get ready for work, fill the case, serve, come home, bake more, meet at Raye’s (yeah, we had our phone call last night, at least I didn’t pass out before that) in order to suss out our mission, then do the mission.
Man, it’d be good when I got to that actual breather portion of my breather period, for sure.
Dressed, I walked down Gabe’s stairs, reminded of what I’d learned last night.
How much I liked his place.
He had a loft-style townhouse on the south side of downtown (and maybe ten minutes from my apartment, which explained how he got there so fast yesterday).
It had a brick wall, open-backed wood stairs with metal railings, visible ductwork, high ceilings, an exposed upper bedroom level with a sweet bathroom that included a soaking tub (lush!) and a nice, if not large, square of outdoor space.
It also had décor.
Color me shocked Gabe could pull together a couple of cool couches (one gray, one blue), a hip chair (butterscotch yellow leather), throw blankets, toss pillows, rugs, and even a couple of plants.
When I’d teased him about it, he’d said, “I don’t work hard to come home to a dump, cupcake.”
There you had it.
It was not lost on me all of this was designed for complete comfort and visibility of the TV (except the butterscotch yellow chair, a piece of furniture he told me his mother got him).
But it still rocked.
I wandered to where he was pouring coffee into two Nightingale Investigations travel mugs at his island in his brick and black and stainless steel with wood accents kitchen (in other words, yes, it was as kickass as the rest of his pad and at least twice the size of mine, maybe even three-times as big).
