“I guess not,” Reid said. He hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but Gabriel was probably tougher than he looked. Hehadto be.
“Okay, we’ll do it your way. But if you need anything, if you hurt more than you think you should… anything like that, email me. And I wanna see you same time next week.”
Gabriel stretched his arms high above his head as Reid stood, wincing as he let them fall again. Reid tried not to show his concern at that, since he was starting to see that Gabriel really didn’t want to think of himself as injured.
And he wasn’t, exactly. He was just suffering the side-effects of something very few people ever did. That was kind of cool, even if it was uncomfortable for him. It made sense that he wouldn’t want to be treated as though there was something wrong.
“Same time next week,” Gabriel repeated. “I’ll be here.”
“Good,” Reid opened the door for him. “Follow your plan, rest if you’re in pain, don’t forget to eat.”
“Thanks,” Gabriel said. “For helping. I know I’m a pain in the ass.”
Reid smiled wryly. “Not even close to the worst. Take care.”
He watched Gabriel walk down the hall, still holding himself awkwardly. Despite knowing that Gabriel would recover and be fine, it still wasn’t entirely comfortable to watch someone so accomplished, so obviously smart and bright and with a surprisingly fun personality suffer.
Reid was starting to realize that he wasn’t getting over his tiny crush anytime soon, despite Gabriel’s apparent straightness.
