Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
We hadn’t even been on a date. There was one of us who was in deep denial she even wanted to date.
But we went to bed like an old married couple who were so in tune with each other, they recognized they’d had trying days, they needed rest, no harm, no foul, no recriminations, just the knowledge they’d make up the nightly sex sesh in the morning.
I fell asleep thinking this.
Which brought me to now.
Beckett’s Table was not McDonald’s. It wasn’t even Shake Shack.
It was a mid-range restaurant that served excellent, award-winning comfort food at prices that would not cripple you, but for the vast majority of people, it was a special occasion place, and one I could categorically not afford. I only knew how good it was because Shanti picked it as her birthday spot a few years ago.
And Gabe swung by there to get us takeout like it had a drive thru.
No, Gabe swung there to get me takeout, so I’d have a delicious, stick-to-your-ribs dinner and then I’d pass out.
He took me there to share he thought I was worth a takeout meal for two that cost over a hundred dollars.
He took you there because he is not Kevin. He is not your dad. He took you there because you are worth it. And he took you there because he’s a good guy, Dreamer drilled into me.
Yeah, a good guy who’s half naked in bed with her and she’s half naked, and he knew that would buy him his place right there, Logic declared.
He couldn’t know that! Dreamer retorted.
He could. And just sayin’, we’ve been love-bombed before, may I remind you, Logic shot back.
Sick of the both of them, I squeezed my eyes tight.
And Gabe’s body jolted, his fingers that had been curled light in sleep on my neck tensed, and I heard him suck in what sounded like an uber pained breath.
Alarmed, I pushed up to an arm and looked down at him in the dim light coming from around my shades.
He was blinking rapidly, and he looked clouded, and worse, intensely, even cataclysmically troubled.
Hang on.
What was this?
“Gabe?” I called.
His eyes came to me, that expression remained for a long disturbing moment before it cleared, and he lifted his hands to rub his face like he could scrub the last vestiges of…whatever that was from his psyche.
“Nightmare?” I asked.
He dropped his hands and met my eyes.
“No. Yeah,” he stated confusingly, pushed out a breath then did an ab curl, grabbed my neck again, pressed a hard, swift kiss on my lips and rolled out of bed.
Okay.
Hang on.
Now what was this?
He was tugging on his jeans.
“Gabe—”
He hefted them over his very fine ass, saying, “You need space.”
I did, indeed, need space, but at that moment, I hadn’t asked for it.
Buttoning his fly, he went on, “And you got shit to do today. So do I. We’ll reconnect tonight. Five. I’ll be back, and I’ll bring food.”
He bent to nab his tee.
“Gabe—”
He came to me, another claim of my neck, another swift hard kiss.
Then I watched him walk out of the room.
And two seconds later, I heard him close the front door.
Late that afternoon, I was at my kitchen bar and my laptop.
The cakes had been decorated, delivered, and I’d been paid.
I’d done a shop to have the supplies on hand to fill the orders I had for the next week, and I topped up on groceries.
Doing this, I was in active denial that I bought more beer.
I didn’t often drink beer, but the Oasis was a social place. There were about twenty-five people who lived there who at any time could knock on my door for a drink and a gab, and some of them drank beer. But why I was in denial was because that was not the reason I healthily replenished my stock of beer.
Ahem.
I’d also done a clean of the apartment (there were big positives to it being so small, and being able to give it a relatively thorough clean in less than an hour was one of them), some laundry, and I’d changed the sheets on the bed because I wanted a free and breezy Sunday with nothing dragging on me.
And now I was going through emails and sorting my schedule.
I had several birthday cakes to do the next week, a couple of cupcake towers, and the big Saturday job: a baby shower with a three-tier cake and four dozen cookies, all decorated in a woodland’s animal theme.
Fortunately, I also had next Sunday free.
Since people who were smart and organized tended to get orders in early, the next three weeks were pretty packed, but after that, my schedule lightened up.
However, I had five emails with prospective orders that would mean my schedule would remain steady, which meant excruciatingly and drainingly busy.
Therefore, I got out a notebook, grabbed a pen, wrote down average tips, computed what the take of my current schedule of orders would be and added my paychecks, and saw, if I remained on my strict money diet, that the next six weeks as they stood would plump my savings account minimally, but every little bit helped. It would also mean I’d have two and a half months’ worth of bills paid sitting in my checking account.