My tea from earlier was ice cold and disgusting so I made a fresh cup, made myself comfy on the sofa, and flipped on a new show I hadn’t seen before called Who’s Your Fryin’ Daddy? The host went to carnivals and county fairs from coast to coast and featured deep fried favorites. I got so caught up in the weird shit that some people liked to fry that I was able to temporarily forget the damage to my poor, pitiful Princess until Gabe returned upstairs by himself.
“Where’s the other officers?” I asked. I tilted my head to look around him, hoping that one or more would be following behind him, but no such luck.
“I sent them all on their way,” Gabe replied sternly. Instead of sitting on the couch next to me or the club chair beside the couch, Gabe squatted down in front of me. “Are you okay?” I was glad to see that concern had replaced the majority of the anger he felt earlier, although I could still see it simmering around the edges of worry in his eyes. I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“I’m fine, Gabe, but Princess…”
“Forget the car for a moment, Josh. Your insurance company will replace the tires. Princess will be fixed. It’s you that I’m worried about.” He released a shaky breath and I realized that his concern went deeper than I had first realized. I knew that Gabe had a protective streak, but I thought his reaction to a little bit of vandalism was disproportionate.
“What am I not understanding here?” I asked him.
“Tell me exactly what happened?” Gabe avoided my question, which irritated me. It was the middle of the night and I’d had very little beauty sleep so I wasn’t surprised when I felt the ugly coming to the surface.
“Why don’t you read the report?” I fired back.
“Now is not the time for your attitude, Josh. I’ll overlook that you called the police department instead of me… for now, but I need you to answer my question. What exactly happened?”
I wasn’t one to give in easy. “Well, I couldn’t fall asleep so I fixed myself a cup of warm tea and curled up with the cat on the couch. I was watching some food reality show and next thing I knew I was having a dream. You were there, Meredith was there, Chaz was there, and…”
“Josh!” Gabe rose to his feet and paced angrily away from me while sliding his hands through his hair. He turned to face me and gave his hair a theatrical yank to let me know how mad I drove him. “Damn it! You could be in serious danger and…”
“Wait a damn minute! How do you jump from four flat tires to serious danger, Gabe?” I was too shocked to come up with a cutesy name for him just then.
“Remember when I told you about the threats made to Nate Turner?” Gabe asked. I nodded my head but failed to see what I had in common with a sleazebag night club owner who might’ve been involved in illegal activities. I didn’t so much as cheat on my taxes. “His tires were slashed just like yours.”
“Coincidence,” I said to Gabe, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might be right. I did feel an ominous presence when I stood outside.
“If Nate hadn’t turned up dead in our county then I would agree with you, but he did,” Gabe said. He took his coat off and tossed it over the arm of the couch. “Josh, I have no clue what Nate was into or why he appeared to be bringing it to me, but it can’t be a coincidence. I’d love to pin this on Deputy Small Dick, but in all fairness, this doesn’t seem to have his name on it.”
Gabe was making serious accusations and basically telling me that my life could be in great peril, but all I could think about was how much I had rubbed off on him already. His Deputy Small Dick talk made me smile and brought happy tears to my eyes.
A look of panic crossed Gabe’s face then he said, “Josh, don’t cry. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” He pulled me into his arms and said such sweet things to me that only made me shake harder, and at some point, Gabe realized I was trembling from laughter and not fear. “What can you possibly find funny about this situation?”
“Deputy… Small… Dick…” I laughed so hard that I gasped for air between each word. “You might not look like me yet, but you’re starting to sound like me.”
Gabe closed his eyes as he struggled to find patience with me. If he planned on sticking around long, and I hoped that he did, then he would need to discover a huge well of it inside him. “It’s late and nothing is going to get resolved by us not sleeping.”
“You’re staying?” There was no disguising the hopefulness in my voice.
“I’m staying.”
Once we were tucked beneath the covers, I nestled up close to him and placed my head on his shoulder. He ran his hand up and down my back, but I wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort me or himself. “Much better,” I said sleepily. The excitement was wearing off and I could feel sleep coming for me.
“Why weren’t you able to sleep?” Gabe asked. There should’ve been a rule about asking questions when someone was tired and their guard was down.
“You know,” I replied.
“Maybe I want to hear the words,” Gabe said.
I remembered the scared look in his eyes when he returned upstairs by himself and I wanted to do something that would ease his worry, even if it was just for the night. “Because you weren’t here,” I admitted.
“I wasn’t sleeping either,” Gabe told me. He pressed a kiss against my forehead. “Just say the word when you’re ready to change our sleeping arrangements.”
I knew he was talking about more than the frequency of sleepovers. I also knew I wasn’t ready for it yet. “You’ll be the first to know,” I simply said.
“Probably not,” Gabe said. “I predict that I’ll be the…” he paused to count in his head, “third or fourth person to know.”
“Fourth?” I knew that Meredith and Chaz were probably one and two in his mind. A while ago, he would’ve been right, but I discovered that I didn’t want to talk too much about my relationship with Gabe. For one thing, I didn’t think I’d be able to find the right words. Second, what we had felt too special to dissect over coffee with friends–not that I wouldn’t hesitate to turn to my friends if I needed help.
