Gabriel doesn’t speak, but he nods his head slowly. “Well, now you don’t have to.” He pushes off the counter, thumbs hooking in his pockets. “I’ll see you around, Avery.”
“Wait.” My arm shoots out to stop him. “Are you going to drive in that?”
He stares at me for a full two seconds, a smile playing on his lips, then says, “I drove in that to get here. And I’ve lived here for a winter now, so I have some practice.”
“Right,” I nod. My clasped hands bounce on my thighs. “It’s just that, there’s a lot of chips and salsa, and almonds, and I can’t eat them by myself.” What am I doing? Why am I doing it? I know better.
Gabriel’s hopeful expression makes the wrong feel right. “No?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He reaches up, sliding the beanie off his head and running a hand through his hair. It tumbles into messy waves. “Do they have any games?”
My eyebrows pinch. “They?”
“The owners of this place? It’s a rental, right?”
“Yes, yes.” My head bobs, clearing out the cobwebs. “I found a game cabinet my second night here.” I leave the kitchen, which means I have to pass Gabriel. I sail six inches from him, and he doesn’t move. No wide berths found here.
There’s a small cupboard in the dining room. It’s stacked, from bottom to top, with games. I open it and step aside so he can see.
Gabriel comes closer. He sinks down, balancing on the balls of his feet, and peers into the cabinet. “I know better than to suggest Monopoly.”
He’s right. I despise the game.
Gabriel stands, a pack of cards in his hands. “War?”
I clear off the dining room table, pushing aside my notes, and my laptop.
“Are you making progress on the book?” Gabriel asks, shuffling the cards.
I sit down and draw my knees into my chest. “I’ve written a few more chapters.”
“I’m curious to know what happens next.”
I watch his hands deftly arrange the cards into a neat pile. “It appears the story is going in an unexpected direction.”
Gabriel swallows hard. “Why is that?”
“Plot twist.” I bite the side of my lip. “The main character’s ex-husband showed up out of nowhere.”
Gabriel splits the deck in two. “That changes the story?”
“It’s starting to look like it might.” It may be a stupid thing to say. Should I be giving hope to Gabriel? It’s hard not to, when I feel the tiniest flicker of hope igniting in me, too. The more I write the story, the more I see what’s possible. The difficulty is in all the ground the characters will have to cover. How much hurt there is to unpack. And, ultimately, forgive.
Gabriel holds out my cards, and our fingers touch when I take them. It’s not an electricity I feel, but a pull. I’m drawn to him in a way that doesn’t make sense. It surpasses everything I know about attraction, and brain chemicals, and trained responses. It wipes out my fancy degree, my hundreds of hours of studying and researching, thousands of hours in my previous career, and leaves it at its most basic level. This connection between me and Gabriel justis. It exists. As essential as food, air, and water. Nothing we know about why it’s there can fully encompass that it is there at all.
“So your story,” Gabriel says, setting his cards on the table in front of him. I do the same. “Do you know the ending?”
“No.” I flip over my first card. A nine.
Gabriel does the same. A two. We keep going.
“Do you have a sense of what it will be?”
I shake my head. “There are a few possibilities. I have to think about what I want for the main character. Is she supposed to move forward on her own, or find love? With who? A man? Which one?”
“Which one?” A muscle in Gabriel’s jaw tics. “I’d hoped he was temporary.”
