Gabe

by Desiree Lafawn

  “How do you even know that?” I asked, although part of me knew the answer before he even responded.

  “Dino texted me. Said Chaz wanted to make sure I knew your issues with him were over. The Blade article said he was a jumper. I’m not buying he suddenly gave up on life and took a leap off the High Level, but it is what it is.”

  Oh man, I had heard about the jumper, but I hadn’t put the name together with Tweak. Someone jumped off that bridge every year or so. It was tragic, but not really a shocker anymore.

  “Well, I guess there is no need to watch me so closely anymore, huh?” I asked, trying not to let the weird sadness I felt be heard in my voice. It wasn’t Gabe’s fault I was a weirdo. I couldn’t just feel safe, I had to be sad that Gabe didn’t need to keep such a close eye on me anymore.

  "I just got off my flight, I'm in Detroit right now. Where are you? Will be you home in an hour? I need to see you."

  "I'm not going to be home for a while, Gabe," I answered truthfully, although I hated having to tell him I couldn't see him when he had been so honest about wanting to see me. "I'm at Gallery B, I'm getting my first tattoo." I may have sounded a little geeked when I said that, and it would be because I was totally geeked.

  "A tattoo? Where did that come from?" What did he mean, where did that come from? I was a wild and unpredictable woman in my early thirties. A tattoo wasn't so hard to imagine, was it?

  "There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Gabe." I had meant it to come across as a lighthearted remark, but may have missed the mark.

  "Not as many as you might think," he mumbled into the receiver, almost like he was talking under his breath. He sounded exhausted.

  Beck interrupted. "Angel, I’m going to need you to unbutton your jeans and pull them down a bit. And hang up the phone, I can't have you wiggling around while I'm working on you."

  "Holy shit, what are you having done?" Gabe asked, astonishment clear in his voice. He must have overheard Beck, who was in his professional zone and had no clue how his overheard words came across on the phone.

  "Gabe, I have to go, I'll talk to you later."

  "You'll talk to me in about an hour, Angel." As he hung up, I tried to figure out why those words sounded so much like a threat.

  I didn't have time to pick apart the weirdness of that phone call, though, because my attention was diverted by a small blue something Beck was getting ready to run over the skin on my hip.

  "Why do you have a razor in your hand, Beck?"

  20

  Angel

  Okay, so the razor thing freaked me out, but in my defense, I had no idea that even the slightest amount of peach fuzz could wreck a tattoo. Hell, I didn't even know the hip was an area that had peach fuzz; you learn something new every day. I also learned something about tattoos.

  They hurt.

  I had thought I was going to be a big girl about it, and with the placement being one of the squishier bits of me, I thought it would be easy. Turns out I am a mega-wuss. It wasn't that it was so very painful, but the scraping was so repetitive, and I ended up grabbing the sides of the massage table to keep from squirming around under Beck's needle. I also wasn't required to keep my eyes closed either, and I felt damned embarrassed about it when I asked Beck and he laughed at me.

  "Well Regina had to do it, so I assumed that was some weird thing you had new clients do for a big reveal at the end."

  "No, I just made Regina do it because she was special," Beck said, his huge shoulders shaking a little as he tried to hold his laughter back and failed.

  "How special?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

  "The most special."

  I liked that. I liked that Beck had no problem saying out loud to anyone how he felt about Regina. He held nothing back, everything out in the open. Oh God, how wonderful to be so free. I wondered when I could be like that with Gabe. I was just now getting to the point where I could admit inside of my head I had feelings for him. Crippling fear stole the words from my mouth when I tried saying as much out loud.

  I'd asked for something almost deceptively simple, and Beck had gotten it done in no time at all. It was barely an hour later when he was smearing some salve on top of it and covering the artwork with a dark wrapping and some medical tape. It barely peeked out the top of my jeans, and I knew I wanted to change into some elastic waistband pants as soon as I got home or my jeans would rub it to bleeding soon enough.

  I was still trying to find the words to tell Beck how awesome I thought his work was when all hell broke loose from the front of the shop.

  There was what sounded like a pitch pipe being blown. That tinny metal fluteish noise that kids blow in orchestra class before they tune their string instruments. It came out of nowhere and even Beck stopped talking and glanced toward the curtained off area with a that’s new look on his face. But then the singing started. And then a very loud and very agitated male voice I recognized as Gabe’s responded to the singing with a loud, “What the fuck?”

  Shit piss hell damn.

  I shot straight through that black curtain as fast as I could get my pants zipped up and my shirt pulled down with Beck close behind me.

  No, no, no, this was all wrong. This was not how it was supposed to be, Regina what did you do?

  “Congratulations Daddy,

  It’s your special day

  You knocked up your lover

  Now you’ll never get away.

  But you are a big tough guy,

  We’re sure that you’ll pull through

  Please bring home chips and ice cream

  Because she’s - eating – for – two!”

  The lyrics were atrocious and sung in barbershop style by a sandy-haired guy who could not have been older than seventeen years old. He was dressed in khaki pants with a white dress shirt and red-checkered suspenders. Topping off his outfit was a straw hat with a red-checkered band that matched the suspenders. The hat was too big and slid down over one eye, making him look even more like a little kid who was wearing an older relative’s hand me downs.

  To make matters worse, he was dragging out that last line for all it was worth, hanging on to that note as he dropped to one knee in front of Gabe, who looked down at him in horror. Whether it was the kid's singing or the epic amount of jazz hands going on, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place even after the kid wrapped up what felt like the never-ending note, and Chessie broke the silence by running into the room, wiping her damp hands on her jeans as she hustled.

  “I went to the bathroom. I was gone five minutes, what fresh hell is this?”

  My mistake was looking away. My mistake was taking my eyes off the kid for one minute to look at Chessie as she spoke, because in the moment that I was distracted, Gabe moved. He had that kid backed up against a wall and stood toe to toe towering over him—Gabe shaking with rage and the poor messenger boy shaking with fear..

  Gabe’s expression was murderous.

  “Who sent you here?” Gabe wasn’t touching the much younger man, but his posture looked like he was going to take a swing at any moment. The kid looked like he was going to piss his pants and I wouldn’t blame him. Gabe was fucking scary right now. His eyes were black thunderclouds and there was a vein in the side of his neck that was sticking out pretty far. I remembered something Jeannette had said before.

  Money Bunnies.

  Oh shit, Gabe thought this was another pregnancy ploy by a desperate woman after his money. Creative, yes. Correct, no.

  “Oh my God, Gabe, back up, this is a huge misunderstanding,” I yelled as I ran over to Gabe and put my hands on his arm to get him to stop terrifying the kid and let him loose.

  “He is not the father,” I said to the young man as he scrambled away from Gabe and tried frantically to straighten his outfit and not look like he was running away.

  “It’s my first day,” the guy said, his voice shaking a little bit with nerves. “I came in and he was the only guy in the room. I thought it
was him.” I felt terrible. This was all Regina’s fault. Why she felt she had to be so over the top, I don’t know, Jesus hell, this was a mess.

  “He’s the father.” I pointed at Beck, whose mouth dropped open even further at that announcement.

  “You’re having his baby?” The kid’s eyes looked like they wanted to pop out of their sockets. Beck was a big guy, he kind of had that effect on people.

  “No!” Gabe and I both shouted at once. The kid looked like he wanted to run for the door, and this had to be the most messed up first day of work in history. I’ll give him one thing, though, he was tenacious as hell because even after all of that yelling he walked right up to Beck, snapped his suspenders and started again,

  “Congratulations Daddy

  It’s your special day—”

  “Stop singing. Stop. Just stop right now.” I waved my hands in front of the kid, the surprise was over and I don’t think any of us could sit through another round of a song I was ninety-nine percent sure Regina had written herself.

  At that moment Cody came walking through the front door. The faint smell of tobacco that floated in with him said he had been outside having a cigarette and missed everything that went on. He looked around at the crowded lobby, then raised his eyebrows at the kid in the straw hat and asked, “So…what fun stuff is going on in here?”

  Straw hat opened his mouth to speak, but before that horrid song could start again Gabe jumped in front of him.

  “No. No more. Do not sing that song again.” The kid shrunk away from Gabe, eyes shifting from side to side, looking for an exit in case Gabe lost his shit again.

  “I’m going to get fired if I don’t deliver the message.”

  Gabe pulled out his wallet and took out several large bills, grabbed the kid’s hand and opened it palm up. He slapped the bills in his hand, closed his fingers around the money, and then took a calming breath.

  “If you leave right now we will give you a glowing review. But you have to leave. Right now. Goodbye.”

  The kid was gone before the door could even shut behind him. He looked like a cartoon character, he took off so fast, Gabe’s cash clutched in his hand. No one moved for a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the heavy glass door in the front of the shop clicking closed all the way after Straw Hat.

  Beck was the first one to break the silence.

  “I’m gonna be a dad,” he said it softly, staring mystified at his hands as if he was already holding his child.

  “Yeah, Beck, you are. Although, Regina could have picked a less catastrophic way to tell you. Gabe almost committed a felony.” I was referring to how close Gabe was to offing the kid where he stood, singing to Gabe like he was the one with a bundle of joy on the way.

  “I’m gonna be a dad. I have to go. Home. I have to go home now.” Beck wasn’t making sense. He was saying words, but I don’t think he was all the way with it. He was having trouble getting past the whole “daddy” thing, but he looked exactly like I thought he would. Ecstatic. Full of joy.

  Chessie was crying and smiling, and Cody was standing next to her with his arm around her shoulders. They were both looking at Beck with undisguised affection, but not surprise.

  “Did you guys know, too?” Both of them nodded.

  “I don’t know how she kept it a secret at all,” Chessie said, passing her hand in front of her mouth to hide the laughter. “She has to pee every five minutes when she’s here, and the random puking!”

  “Or when she begged me to stop and get her a Tony Packo’s hot dog, and when I fought rush hour traffic to get it she took one sniff in the bag and declared the smell made her gag and she couldn’t eat it?” Cody was smiling as he complained. He walked up to Beck and clapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Boss, now go home and hug Regina. She’s probably sitting by the phone dying to hear how this went.”

  “Well, I knew something was wrong, I’m not an idiot,” Beck countered, his voice a low rumble. “I just thought it was stress. Juggling time with me and learning a new job was taking a lot out of her. She wasn’t getting enough sleep. I just thought she was stressed out.” Beck looked at me again, then back to Chessie and Cody, and back again to me, barely sparing a glance at Gabe. “We’re going to get married,” he said, completely out of the blue.

  “Uh, does Regina know this?” I was willing to bet he had said it as soon as he thought of it, and no, Regina had no advance knowledge of her impending nuptials.

  Chessie started cracking up, but it was Cody who said the words we were all thinking. “Boss, you have to actually ask her if she wants to before you go saying stuff like that that.”

  “Nah,” Beck said over his shoulder as he sprang into action. “She likes it when I tell her what to do.”

  I rolled my eyes as Beck beat it out the front door at a dead run, without saying goodbye to anyone. She would have no idea how absolutely ridiculous the entire affair was. “It’s a far cry from a glitter spitting card, that’s for sure,” I grumbled to myself.

  “What?” Gabe had stepped next to me when I was watching Chessie and Cody, and his voice was so close to my ear I jumped.

  “Nothing, I just knew she was going to go over the top with her announcement. I don’t know why she couldn’t just sit him down and make Beck open a goofy present that said, ‘Congratulations Daddy,’ instead of giving everyone in the place a heart attack. You living?” I asked him, bumping his shoulder with mine affectionately. He looked exhausted. His dark navy Henley was wrinkled and he had a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. I resisted the urge to run my fingers over it to test its scratchiness.

  “We need to talk.” There was a hollow ring to his voice that caused a vine of doubt to start growing in my stomach, curling around my guts and making me feel sick. That didn’t sound good. Those words never sounded good.

  “Okay, that sounds serious. Do you want to wait until you get some rest?” Please let me put this off, I didn’t like the empty sound of his words.

  “No. This can’t wait.”

  I was beginning to get nervous. Gabe wanted to say something I didn’t want to hear. I don’t know what it was, but nothing good ever came of those words, “We need to talk.” That’s why people should never say them. There is only one place a person’s mind naturally goes, and of course, mine went there. I wasn’t ready to hear it. That he was done with me. I mean, I had prepared myself to an extent, but I wasn’t ready.

  Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, but there was no damn way in hell I was going to let a single one fall in this tattoo shop, so I just shrugged nonchalantly.

  “Okay, well, I have to pay for my session and then I have to corral the ladies from next door and pour them into the car. Jolene and Gerta came with me so I wouldn’t go out alone like you told me not to.” Something flickered across his face as I mentioned not going out alone, but I couldn’t decipher it, so I forged ahead. “I can drop them off at home and then meet you somewhere? At your office, maybe?”

  “Finish what you are doing and I’ll meet you at your apartment, okay?” It may have been asked as a question but his tone of voice was final. There was no other option but compliance when Gabriel Anderson wanted to have his way. From his squared shoulders and the firm set of his mouth, I knew he had his mind made up.

  He waited until I nodded in agreement before he turned and left the shop, the heavy glass door closing once again on an awkward scene. There was nothing left to do but pay Chessie for my session and then do exactly what I said I was going to do, which was pick up the girls and go home.

  He was going to invade my safe place with some bad news, and couldn’t even give me the decency of telling me in a neutral space.

  Shit piss hell damn.

  21

  Gabe

  I was glad I made it to her building before she did. It gave me some time to cool off from the events at the tattoo shop. Things were probably going to get messy with Angel and me, we really didn’t need residual issues from earlier interfering
with that, and they would have. I was pissed.

  I had just walked into Gallery B, there was no one in the lobby at all, and not five seconds after I walked in that kid in the drama club costume had shown up with his messed up singing telegram. I don’t know who Beck’s girlfriend is, but that chick is twisted for sure.

  For a second I really thought it was for me.

  I really thought that another crazy bitch was trying to snap me up. There was always someone, always someone looking at me like I’m an easy fucking target. I hate it. I hate that I can’t trust any woman I meet, besides Jeannette, because nine times out of ten, they only see dollar signs when they look into my eyes. Except for Angel. Angel knows who I am and no matter what has happened between us, and according to the time machine trip I just took through those books I was given, it was a lot, money is never something she thinks of when she looks at me.

  I needed to take the time I had, standing in the small parking lot outside of Angel’s apartment, separating myself from that part of my anger because Angel didn’t deserve to have me yelling at her over something that had nothing to do with her. Oh no. I had plenty of other shit to yell at her about, starting with the spring of my senior year, and how she had dropped me like a bad habit over something stupid. Or I had originally thought. In all honesty, I was pissed at myself, too. This whole thing was so fucking avoidable, and instead had turned into something that festered for so long it had affected her well into adulthood. I was responsible. And I hated myself for it.

  Feeling a prickling feeling on the back of my neck, I turned around to find old man Gary staring at me from the first floor window again, just like he had when I came over the first time, curtains flung wide open. He was standing in the window looking at me, arms folded across his chest, wearing a pair of grey slacks and a dingy undershirt. Why do all old men wear dress pants and undershirts like it is fashionable attire?

  Knowing what a close eye the residents of The Washington Arms kept on the place, I thought I would give a greeting. I waved to Gary, who raised his eyebrow at me but nothing else, just stood there staring through the window like it was a two-way mirror and I wasn’t supposed to know he was there. Something about my standoff with the old man in the window struck me as funny, and a little of the pent-up rage I had been feeling slowly bled from my chest.