Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“All I know is I’m never going without my muffin. I will throw elbows for that dang thing. It makes my mornings that much brighter.”
“So you work in the city?”
“I do. I’m a therapist.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “That makes sense.”
I chuckled. “Does it?”
“It does.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m pretty good at reading people. I study people all the time. I’m a professional at two things—architecture and people watching.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.” He smirked. “And you give off therapist vibes.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
“It’s a good thing,” he said. “A very good thing.”
“What exactly are the therapist vibes I give off?”
“Well…” He rubbed his cheek. “When you talk to people, you really talk to people and listen as if it’s a late-breaking news story. You look at them as if the most important conversation ever is taking place. I saw you inside earlier talking to Marc Christian about rocks for a solid fifteen minutes, and you looked so intrigued.”
“It was a very interesting conversation. I love to talk about a grown man’s rock collection,” I joked.
“It wasn’t interesting at all, and Marc has a very monotone voice. I fell asleep eavesdropping.”
“I thought I heard someone snoring.”
“It was when he spoke about his rock polish. He said that, and away I went.” He made snoring sounds, making me break into laughter.
Gosh, in the past few minutes, he’d made me laugh more than Henry had in the past three years. “What can I say? I like to know what people are thinking. Even if they are thinking about rocks,” I said.
“Sounds about right, Mrs. Therapist.”
Before I could reply, the sky was lit with fireworks. Our eyes instantly drifted up, and the lazy smile on Gabriel’s face returned. As he studied the sky, I studied him.
“Don’t read me, Mrs. Therapist,” Gabriel whispered, feeling my stare on him. “My thoughts are a little messy and jumbled in my head.”
“That’s my favorite type of novel.”
“Oh my gosh, Gabriel! Look! Fireworks!” Ramona said, reappearing out of nowhere and pointing at the sky. She’d somehow returned with another glass of champagne.
Gabriel gave Ramona a thumbs-up as she swung around, her dress swirling, and stared as if the sky had just exposed a new dimension. So many oohs and ahhs.
“I better get her home,” Gabriel murmured. “I hope you have a good night, Kierra.”
He began to turn away from me, but before he was too far gone, I called out to him. “Gabriel?”
He turned back in my direction, and my stomach fluttered as I rediscovered his gentle eyes. “Yes?”
“Are you happy?”
“Happy?”
“Yes. Sorry, I know it’s a super-random question, but I’m just curious. Are you happy with your life?”
He raked his hand through his hair. “Life has its ups and downs, but I lean toward happy.”
My troubled heart found comfort in that response. “Keep leaning that way, okay?”
The warm, lazy smile returned to his full lips. “I’ll do my best. Have a great weekend. Maybe on Monday I’ll beat you to the last cinnamon muffin.”
“Don’t threaten my life like that, Gabriel.”
“‘May the odds be ever in your favor,’” he said as he bowed slightly, delighting me with the surprise Hunger Games reference.
He began to walk away. And for a moment, I considered showing up at Florence Bakery and waiting all morning solely to fight Gabriel over the last cinnamon muffin.
5
Gabriel
“Gosh, that was amazing! Can you believe that we were at one of the Henry Hughes parties? Those things are legendary! And we were there!” Ramona exclaimed as she collapsed into my passenger seat. She raked her hand through her wild red hair, shaking her head in disbelief. “I bet that’s what parties were like in The Great Gatsby. Oh my goodness. And he’s so intelligent. It was like talking to Einstein.”
I studied the darkened road ahead as Ramona went into overdrive from excitement. The party was impressive, I’d give her that, but our goal wasn’t to be as social as Ramona had been that evening. If anything, she’d crossed one too many lines.
“I thought we agreed to a three-drink maximum,” I said as my hand stayed glued to the leather steering wheel. Personally, I’d only had one drink, but that was because I knew I was still in work mode. If people weren’t my family or friends, then they were my work colleagues or clients, and I had a strong belief that my work colleagues or clients should never see me intoxicated. It would make me too human for them, and that was never a good thing.
People respected you more if there was a bit of mystery to you. If they saw you off-kilter, they’d work like hell to remember you in that flawed state as a way to have power over you. I’d learned that fact the hard way.