7. Very Fucking Nice

7

Very Fucking Nice

I came to slowly, my eyes gritty with sleep and swollen with the violent spilling of grief.

But I’d never felt so warm or safe as I did in that moment with the sweetest of dreams wrapped around me.

The last memory I had of the night before was curling into Gabe as he hoisted me up in his arms.

I slept better than I had in weeks. Maybe it was exhaustion, but I suspected it had more to do with the man pressed against my back, his scruffy face in my neck, and his strong arms wrapped around me.

His chest expanded with his deep breath as one hand wandered over the curve of my hip before returning to my abdomen.

Voice rough with sleep, he asked, “Are you awake?”

My eyelids fluttered shut. My absent libido was back in town and dancing on the bar top.

“Yes, you?”

He chuckled deep in his chest. “No, I’m talking in my sleep.”

“Shut up,” I huffed out a laugh. “I’m allowed.”

He squeezed me gently. “You are.”

I stroked his forearms, my eyes tracing the curls of ink. One day he’d tell me about every single one of those tattoos. My brow furrowed with the realization his entire life was a mystery to me, and I barely knew him at all.

My hand stilled.

He wasn’t married, not now at least. There must be someone in his life. A man like Gabe? Sweet and sexy and fun?

What the hell was I thinking jumping into bed with him? I wasn’t, that was the problem.

Did he say no because there’s someone else in the picture?

I cleared my throat. “Do you have anyone special in your life?”

The tensing of his muscles triggered my internal alarm system.

His hesitation made it worse.

“No.”

Disgruntled, I prodded, all the questions I never wanted to ask rising to the surface. “Has there ever been? Are you divorced? Separated? Are you seeing anyone?”

He grunted in irritation, the muscles in his chest and arms flexing. “Do I have to answer all your questions right now?”

“Yes.” I pushed his arm off and struggled to sit up. “You do if there’s a woman in the picture!”

“There isn’t,” he snapped, his arms wrapping around me and dragging me back into the bed. “Get back in here.”

Oh my God .

I was in bed.

With Gabe wrapped around me like my own personal heater.

And there was no one in his life I had to worry about.

Experimentally, I ran my foot up his leg. Yup. No pants. I swallowed audibly.

He chuckled deep in his chest.

“I need to brush my teeth,” I murmured.

I was not spending my first time in a bed with Gabe with morning breath.

He barked out a laugh, rolled me onto my back and covered me with his long, hard, body.

I squeaked as I pressed my head back into the pillow, eyes wide, my lips buttoned shut.

He grinned. “I don’t remember you being this difficult.” Dropping his forehead into the crook of my neck, he muttered, “Just cuddle with me. Don’t leave me yet.”

My body softened underneath him.

He grunted. “Better.” Pressing his mouth to my neck, he muttered, “Very fucking nice, in fact.”

“Gabe,” I breathed.

His solid frame was so much heavier than I remembered, thick. His weight grounded me, pushed my overwrought emotions back inside where they belonged.

“Not doing anything,” he paused. “Well, I’m trying not to. What do you have to do today?”

My heart dropped like a stone. “Open the restaurant.”

“Already?” His voice rose with surprise.

“It’s what Nan would have wanted.” I sighed. “In any case, closed restaurants don’t pay the bills.”

If Gabe thought it strange that I pushed him out the door, he didn’t say. I didn’t know much at that point, but I was sure I couldn’t handle whatever was or wasn’t left between us.

I’d much rather live with uncertainty than risk a truth I wasn’t ready to face. If that made me a coward, I was a coward.

Arriving at Ayana’s in record time, I trotted up the walkway, ripped the notice off the door, and rolled into work with swollen, red-rimmed eyes. Entering the kitchen, I noted I was in good company.

God, how they loved her.

Their presence should have been a comfort, a reminder that I was not alone in my sorrow. But the weight of their grief and worry sat on my chest like an anvil. They needed her but were stuck with me. I resembled her in looks but lacked her capacity to love. As extroverted as I was introverted, Nan never met a soul she didn’t make family.

And for most of them, Ayana’s was their family. She was their family.

The familiar cacophony of the kitchen, the clanging of pots and pans, the banter, the steady stream of orders that represented all things Nan and home and belonging, now grated along the edge of every raw nerve.

At first, subdued and withdrawn, they moved around the kitchen quietly. As the minutes ticked past, the familiarity of their tasks leant them comfort, allowing them to reminisce and laugh over memories I did not share. In the way of grief, laughter and sniffles both bisected their mourning.

I lasted an hour in their presence, one hour in which I was largely ineffectual before retreating to the tiny coat check closet to escape their angst, their laughter, their memories, and most of all their whispered remarks.

What do you think she’ll do with the restaurant?

Poor thing has lost so much. She has nobody, now.

There’s no husband, and if she has a boyfriend, no one has ever seen him.

She was engaged once. Did you know that? I heard she can’t have children.

Ayana’s, Nan’s pride and joy, now rested in my incapable hands.

Drawing my knees up to my chest, I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, shutting out the noise for just a little while longer before going back out there.

To do what?

Show them they could depend on me?

I bounced my forehead lightly off my bent knees and inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the comforting fragrance of butter and garlic, oregano and olive oil, lemon and the faintest hint of vanilla.

Again.

Filling my lungs with the familiar.

Easing my broken spirit.

I’d been broken before. Again and again, I’d gotten back up because Nan didn’t give me a choice.

Who would be there for me, now?

I pressed my palms into the gloss of the floor beneath me, floors Nan and I refinished the summer after my first year of college.

Above my head swung the chandelier I talked her into buying to brighten up the coat check closet.

On the counter across from me rested the hand-carved candy bowls we bought on our Caribbean cruise.

She was here.

In every pot and pan, the artwork on the walls, the twinkling lights and crystallized décor that reflected her favorite holiday all year round, she lived on.

As long as I had this, I had her.

I couldn’t ask for more.

Could I?