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“Just what I said. I’m not a guy who goes for redheads. Except you, Abbie,” I say, and my joking moment has gotten all hotand serious, my voice lowering as I add, “You’re really fucking beautiful. Too beautiful for my own good.”
“But you don’t like redheads?”
“Nope. Never. I’m a changed man now, though, and that’s all about you.”
“Gabe,” she whispers, her eyes going all soft and willing while I go all hot and hard.
Dexter whines and Abbie tugs my arm. “He needs to go out.”
“Yes, the little beast needs to go out.”
I kiss her and we hurry toward the elevator. A few minutes later we’re at the park a block away and Dexter is sniffing everything in sight. Abbie and I stand together and watch him. “I should probably hire a permanent dog walker to come in twice a day.”
“From rescue to spoiled king,” Abbie says. “I love it.” She turns to face me. “Gabe, I really do love so much about you.” Her fingers curl on my chest. “But I need to know the man I’m falling for really is the man I think he is.”
“I am. I’m me. I’m just me.”
“I heard enough today at your sister’s to know that you’re not all jokes and fun. I heard that with your interaction with Kenneth.” I open my mouth to reply but she quiets me with a hand. “Carrie is Reid’s compass. I sensed that in her and him. If you want us to make it, you have to trust me the way he trusts her. Eventually. Not now. I know that, but eventually.”
Eventually is too soon, considering my past but I can’t say that to her. “One day at a time. Okay?”
“As long as those days are honest days, Gabe, I can handle almost anything. Except one thing: lies. I can’t handle lies. If you, this person you are with me, is a lie, tell me. End it now.”
My hand slides under her hair, settling on her neck. “I told you, Abbie, I’m more real with you than I have ever been with anyone.”
“Morereal. Not real.”
“Everything I show you, everything we share, is real.”
“The parts you show me, excluding the part of you that you think I’ll hate, of course.”
My expression tightens. “The part of me that Iknowyou’ll hate.”
“The part you believe is your father. That was the talk I wanted to have and this is what I wanted to say to you. You are not your father. I will never see him in you.”
Until she does, I think. “Never make a promise you can’t keep, baby.”
Chapter sixty-four
Abbie
EGabe and I move on from our “talk,” enjoying our walk with Dexter and all of his silly antics. It’s laughter and fun. It’s an escape and I find myself not wanting this part of the day to end. Dexter seems to agree, as he takes off running and Gabe curses. “Oh hell. Why’d I let him off leash?” Gabe takes off running now, too. I laugh because Dexter turns around and charges at Gabe. In what feels like a few blinks, Gabe is on his back and Dexter is on top of him. I hurry toward them and go down on my knees, only to be tackled by Dexter, too.
“Dexter!” Gabe chides, pulling him off of me, but not before I get a tongue bath. “My tongue,” Gabe says, “her mouth. Not your tongue.” He grabs my hand and sits me up. “You okay, baby?”
Baby.
It’s not the first time he’s called me this, but now, in this moment, that small endearment does big, fluttery things to my belly. “Yes, I say. “I’m great. Actually, really great.” I brush grass from his hair. “Dexter’s pretty wonderful.”And so are you, Gabe, I think,so are you.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his eyes warming. “He is and so are you.”
“Tell me that when you know me better,” I tease, pleased that he’s said what I was thinking about him. “I have bad habits.”
“Tell me about these bad habits,” he says, as Dexter plops down on the ground next to us, and a cold breeze blasts over us.
I shiver and Gabe stands, taking me with him. “Tell me at home in the warm apartment.”
At home. His home. But I like that he calls it home. I like that he’s invited me into a place that is his castle. His private space. We link our arms together and start walking.
