18. Asshole Repellant

18

Asshole Repellant

E arly Sunday morning, for the first time in ages, my craft room beckoned to me. The door creaked when I opened it. I needed to grease the hinges.

Everything was exactly how I left it.

Tiny wooden FUCKS scattered across the desk from my last effort, an easy one that didn’t trigger my feelings of loss.

The real challenge lay in the chest of drawers. Silky threads in every shade of the rainbow lined up on display. Metallics, mattes, and satins.

My needles, anchored in velvet, gathered dust in a basket.

The open storage beside the chest held silks, satins, cottons, and velvets in jewel tones and pastels. My favorites.

I ran my hand across a sweet print fit for a baby princess.

I snatched my hand back at the thought and backed out of the room.

An hour later, I crossed Sage Ridge’s town line. My first stop? Lunch with the girls. Top of the itinerary was the final touches for Nadine’s shower.

I comforted myself with the knowledge I got to see Gabe afterward.

He worked a shift at the firehouse the night before and needed to sleep a few hours before heading to his parents’ house for Sunday dinner.

To which I’d been invited.

He met me at the door in worn pajama pants, slung low on his lean hips, a cup of coffee in his hand.

“Hey,” he greeted me, his voice warm and groggy.

“Hey,” I replied softly, going up on my toes to give him a kiss.

“I wish I could take that further,” he murmured, “but we have to get moving.”

Taking my hand, he tugged me into the kitchen. “How about I pour you a coffee and you share your sexy bucket list with me?”

“How do you know I wrote one?”

He slanted me a glance. “Did you?”

I huffed out a laugh.

He set my coffee down in front of me then held out his hand for my phone. “Let’s have it.”

I leaned forward, scanning the list, seeing it through his eyes.

Sexual bucket list:

Sleepy sex – check??

Drunk sex

Rough sex

Up against the wall sex – check!!!

Shower sex

BJ on my knees

69

Reverse cowgirl

More than one position in one session

Public sex

His eyebrows flew clear off his face as he raised his shocked gaze to mine. A slow smile spread across his face. “Public sex, Shae-baby? You want people to watch us?”

“What? No!” I gasped, flushing deeply.

He laughed. “You want the thrill, the risk of getting caught without actually getting caught?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed out a small laugh, my cheeks burning. “Yeah.”

“Can I add something to our list?” he teased.

“Sure!” I handed him my phone and he tapped in his addition before handing it back to me.

I glanced down, excited to see what he added. My jaw hit the floor. “Gabe!”

He laughed. “It’ll be a first for me, too.”

My eyebrows rose. “Really?”

His mouth quirked to the side. “Don’t look so surprised.”

I pressed my lips together tightly. “Do you know how to do it? Like, without it hurting?”

He laughed. “Of course, I do. Every man has looked this up at some time or another. Any guy who says different is lying.”

I searched his eyes. “Everybody does this?”

“Well,” he smirked. “It’s not like I’m going to approach Max and ask.”

My eyes widened at the thought of Gabe discussing that with anybody. “No! Don’t do that!”

Chuckling, he rose to his feet. Taking my hand, he pressed my palm to his growing erection. “I’m going to have a cold shower and then we’re leaving. No more talk of sex until you’re willing to follow through.”

I gave him a squeeze. “Deal.”

He growled playfully and swatted my hand away.

A scant forty-five minutes later, I stood beside him on his parents’ front porch, shifting from one foot to the next.

He held my hand firmly in his. “Nervous?”

I shrugged. “A bit.”

“It’ll be fine,” he assured me as he pushed open the front door.

Gabe’s childhood home was almost exactly as I remembered it, minimalist before it was cool other than the scattered piles of different projects in various stages of development tucked in the nooks and crannies of the room.

“It hasn’t changed.” I laughed and looked around in wonder. “At all.”

“What are you talking about?” Gabe pointed at the couch. “They got a new couch.”

“It looks the same as the old one.”

He laughed. “That was the goal when they went shopping. Dad complains this one is not nearly as comfortable.”

“Is it true?”

He grinned. “He complained incessantly about the other one, too.”

Gabe’s father came in through the back door. “Barbecue’s ready to go. Hello, Shae. How’re you doing, darlin?”

“Can’t complain, Brian. You look good.”

Gabe’s parents had never stood on ceremony. They invited all his friends to call them by their first names when we were yet teens.

Brian was, in fact, an older, thicker, and coarser version of the man beside me. Looking at Brian was a glimpse of how Gabe would look in 20 years.

I was not in the least disappointed.

Brian winked. “It’s all the rabbit food Maeve makes me eat.”

“I heard that!” Maeve called from the kitchen. “Are we not eating dead animals today?”

Brian scowled and fought the grin pulling at his mouth as he turned to me. “I’ve been marinating those steaks since yesterday and I made my own sausage. You’re going to love it. Even Maeve won’t be able to resist.” He lifted his chin and hollered back, “Woman, today you’re going to eat my meat.”

I choked, and Gabe spun away from his dad, giving him his back.

Brian groaned and covered his eyes. “My sausage.”

“Oh my God,” I wheezed.

Gabe sputtered, “That’s not better!”

“You’re traumatizing the children, Brian,” Maeve teased from the kitchen doorway, her hands on her hips.

“I’m going to check on my granddaughter.” Brian shook his head and dipped his chin as he headed for the kitchen, muttering, “I’m never going to live this down.”

Gabe laughed. “Not in this lifetime.”

Gabe tipped his chin down to meet my eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him string that many words together at one time.”

“He’s quiet,” I agreed then laughed. “You are more like your mom.”

His eyebrows flew up. “Really?”

I nodded and laughed. “You and your mom both have this energy. You’re magnetic.”

He snorted. “Maybe that’s why we repel so many people.”

“Think of who those people are. It’s like you have a built-in asshole repellant.”

“True.” He looked past me at nothing. “Unfortunately, I need a lot of those assholes on my side for Dylan’s sake.”

I opened my mouth to ask for further details, but he cut me off.

“That’s enough of that. This is supposed to be a barbecue.”

“True. Let’s go into the kitchen and talk about your dad’s meat.”

Brian’s deep baritone sounded from the kitchen. “I heard that!”

Gabe helped Brian cart the steak and sausage outside, Dylan toddling along behind them. She clutched her Barbie by the hair, bouncing her along beside her. “Her walking, Daddy. Her walking just like Dylan.”

He smiled down at her. “She’s so fast! Fast like my Dilly-bar.”

My heart ached with such yearning it wiped the smile from my face and stole my breath.

Maeve hummed.

I swung my attention to her, plastering on a ready smile.

She didn’t smile back. “I think,” she began slowly, “you’ll be good for them.” She paused, searching my eyes, “And they may be exactly what you need. But Shae, Gabe would have my tongue if he heard me say this, but he’s not nearly as tough as he looks. Please be careful with my boy.”

My eyes skittered between hers, feeling the gravity of her concern. “I will,” I promised. “I won’t hurt them.”

I swallowed. How could I even begin to promise that? Life happened and it happened at regular intervals.

It was a hopeless endeavour.

In Maeve’s presence, it took little effort to shake off the despair.

When we finally sat down to eat, it was to a table laden with potato salad, macaroni salad, summer greens, sausage, steak, and freshly baked buns.

Maeve made sure to compliment Brian’s meat to the point he threatened to punish her which only made her laugh.

As we laid down our forks, she turned to Gabe. “I forgot to tell you. When I picked Dylan up at daycare on Friday, her teacher asked to talk to me.”

Gabe’s eyebrows crashed together, and he barked, “To you? Why? They should be talking to me.”

Maeve softened her voice and continued cautiously. “They are concerned about her distractibility and level of activity.”

“She’s three,” he exclaimed. “What the fuck do they expect?”

“Gabe,” Maeve warned, slanting a glance at Dylan who watched, spellbound.

Brian stood abruptly and held his hand out for Dylan. “Come on, half-pint,” he called gruffly. “Come with Papa.”

Without a single worry in her little head, Dylan took his hand and toddled out of the room.

“He hates how he was about school when you were growing up,” Maeve explained softly.

Gabe shook his head, refusing to look at his mom or accept her explanation.

“It’s hard for him to express himself—”

“Mom,” Gabe warned. “Dad expresses himself just fine when he needs to. Tell me what else they said.”

She sighed, looking every day of her age for a moment before shaking it off. “They suggested the possibility of doing an assessment at the Early Years Center for Child Development.”

“Where the fuck is that?”

“It’s in the city, but there is a doctor here who is trained to do the assessments.”

“I don’t want some fucking quack picking her apart,” he sneered, “making her feel like something’s wrong with her. She’s fine. She’s perfect.”

Maeve quirked a brow and grinned. “The quack is your friend, Max.”

Gabe snorted out a laugh, his expression softening. “Maybe.”

Maeve went on to explain their concerns. “They are asking for us to support their efforts to teach her to comply here at home.”

Gabe’s blue eyes fairly snapped with agitation. “After following rules all day in school, they want us to bring her home to do more of the same? When does she get to be a kid? Be herself? Fucking breathe?”

Gabe vibrated beside me, his jaw ticking, knee bouncing.

I cupped my palm over his thigh and squeezed.

Maeve sighed. “I agree. You know I do. But we still have to come up with a plan to deal with daycare.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Gabe asserted.

“Gabe—”

“Mom,” he interrupted. “I said I’ll take care of it, and I will.”

She nodded slowly. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He softened. “You know I will.”

In the backyard, we played with Dylan whose energy seemed endless. She bounced from one thing to the next, running not walking, curious, bright, and full of wonder.

She filled her pockets with treasure, dumping them out on the picnic table to show me before jumping off the top into Gabe’s arms, and filling her pockets once more.

She climbed onto my lap and ran her sticky fingers through my hair. “This hair like banananas.”

Gabe snorted. “Could we find a better comparison than bananas? Maybe we could say Shae’s hair is like sunshine?”

She cocked her head and considered my hair, murmuring, “Dylan like banananas.” Grasping the end of my long ponytail in her hand, she leaned forward with wide eyes and put the end in her mouth.

I laughed, well used to kids’ antics.

She shook her head, disappointed. “It don’t taste like banananas.”

She utterly enchanted me. “I like bananas, too, Dilly-bar.”

Her eyes snapped to mine, and she pointed to her chest. “Dy. Lan. I Dylan.”

I didn’t have Dilly-bar status yet. “Dylan,” I agreed.

She climbed up onto the table and leapt into Gabe’s arms without warning. He caught her with a guttural ‘oof.’ “Give Daddy a warning next time!”

She was beautiful.

And if she didn’t have the right people around her, this world would do its level best to crush her.

When she began to yawn, Gabe told me she was staying with his parents for the night.

“Hey, Dilly-bar. Come give Daddy a kiss goodnight. You’re sleeping at Grammy and Papa’s tonight.”

Like everything else she did, she threw herself into his arms with gusto and pressed an enthusiastic kiss to his cheek. Unsatisfied, she palmed his cheeks and turned his face to hers before smacking her lips on his. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, Dilly-bar,” he whispered fiercely, closing his eyes as he hugged her close.

After a moment, Dylan wiggled to get down and lifted her arms to me.

I was hesitant.

Not because I didn’t know how to handle small children. I did.

Not because I didn’t want to, I wanted it desperately.

But because once I held her, there would be no going back for me. Not after the day we had.

I picked her up and held her sturdy little body close to mine. She felt so good in my arms, I wanted to cry.

She peered into my eyes, her bright blues exactly like the ones I fell in love with so long ago, the ones I loved even now.

“I like banananas,” she whispered.

“Me, too,” I whispered back.

She drew her head back and beamed at me, then, grabbed my cheeks and laid one on me.

I laughed out loud and hugged her until she wriggled to get down.

It wasn’t until we got into the car to leave that I ventured, “Gabe? About Dylan’s daycare—”

He shook his head. “I’ll handle it, Shae.”

“I used to work with special needs kids. I know a bit about—”

His narrowed gaze stole the rest of my words from my mouth. “She’s too young to be saddled with a label like special needs. I said I’d take care of it.”

When we got back to his place, he took off down the hall and asked me to wait for him in the living room.

“I need a few minutes, Shae-baby.” He pushed his fingers through his hair. “I just have to wrap my mind around—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “I’ll be back.”

Within ten minutes, he plopped down on the couch beside me. “I’m sorry. I’m used to parenting on my own.” He paused. “I just hate that they look at her like there’s something wrong with her.”

“She’s perfect, Gabe. Even if she has learning differences, she’s still perfect.”

He dropped his head back onto the couch, his face drawn. “I’ll let you in. I promise.”

“You’ll let me in?” I asked, a potent cocktail of elation and terror bubbling inside me.

He would let me fill the vacant space where a mother should have been?

Could they ease the cavernous space inside me?

His next words hit me like a bucket of icy water.

Tilting his head to the side, he took me in. “Just as soon as I know you’ll stay.”

I gaped at him, at the bald realization he worried I might leave. At the fear his concern was not wholly unfounded.

Eyes shuttered and wary, he asked, “For a start, how about you stay with me tonight?”

I stood up and offered him my hand. “Lead the way.”