Chapter 11 Dunch #2
“What if I’m not that good?” I asked quietly.
“Willow, were you not there during our first kiss?”
I so was.
“That kiss?” he asked. “Damn, baby. I got no concerns. And I have no doubt we’ll be fuckin’ explosive together.”
I had to admit, that kiss really was that good.
Though, I wasn’t going to admit it out loud.
Per usual, Gabe didn’t need me to.
“The minute you got in my Jeep and we delivered that kid’s birthday cake to her bitch mom, you became mine. And my sense is, this morning, you figured that out.”
I would not admit that out loud either.
But I had.
That said, I became his during that kiss.
I’ll never get a lock on an alpha’s logic, but with this one, as crazy as it is, it somehow manages to still be logic, Real Logic mused.
Agreed! Dreamer chirped.
“I’ll grant we’re new to this,” Gabe carried on. “So we should get some ground rules down.”
Considering how this conversation was going, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
So when I asked, “What ground rules?” it was with uncertainty.
“You’re on Angels business, you check in.”
Oh.
Well then.
That wasn’t demanding or invasive or insane. It made sense. It wasn’t my job to do that kind of thing, like it was his. And it had gotten dangerous in the past. So I could get why he’d want that.
“I can do that,” I allowed.
“So, for instance, you get done with your briefing, you’re home, you don’t text me shit that’s gonna make my jaw ache. You say, ‘Baby, I’m home. Wanna get some dunch?’”
I was bouncing back and forth between regretting I unintentionally made his jaw ache to getting irritated he was now skating the zone where he was telling me what to do—and say—when he pushed it.
“You with me?”
“I think maybe at this juncture we should discuss you tempering the bossy.”
“I do not have a fake moustache. Disguises are dicey. Unless you’re super fuckin’ good at them, never use ’em.
You gotta make an entry, you do it under the cover of darkness, wear black clothes, definitely cover that gorgeous hair, and you don’t fuck with the locks.
If you can, jimmy a window. If that’s not an option, you go for a door, best choice, the back.
Since you don’t know what you’re doing and probably don’t give a shit you might cause damage, just bust it open.
You do that with a lookout on you. You have backup with you.
And you got someone behind the wheel of a car who’s close so if you gotta get the fuck out of there, you can get away fast.”
Okay, maybe I could forgive him for being bossy if he was going to say shit like “dunch,” call my hair “gorgeous” and teach me how to be a badass.
And it was nice that our team already had all the bases covered.
“Gotcha,” I replied.
“I know you women have an uncanny knack for this shit, but I care about you, so I’m gonna worry and you’re gonna have to suck it up how that worry comes out. It isn’t gonna be ugly. But it might be bossy,” he warned.
Aww!
He was such a good guy!
“Okay, Gabe,” I said softly.
“And about the I’m your man, you’re my woman thing, I’m there.
I explained at length last night how I know, and I know you heard me.
I also know you’re not there, but you’re getting there,” he stated.
“If you wanna go out for a special meal and wear something pretty, I’ll give you that.
Happy to. Look forward to it. But a Sunday afternoon after you’ve had a fucked-up and busy week, I’m gonna look after my woman.
I’m gonna feed her. We’re gonna relax. You work your ass off and you’re gonna be hitting it again just like that tomorrow.
I’m gonna make sure you’re ready for it.
It’s not spontaneous, but we don’t live lives where we can be that.
We’re too busy. You want to do it up, we’ll find a time when we can do it right. Then we’ll do it.”
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Crap.
I was thinking I was about to bust out in tears.
“Willow?”
“That works for me,” I said throatily.
Hearing my tone, Gabe reached out and grabbed my hand. He brought it to him and pressed it to his chest. Then he kept hold of it and held it on his thigh.
That nearly made me break down too.
I held it together as he wisely didn’t even bother trying to park in Ingo’s lot and went directly to the spill-over lot. He held my hand as we walked the block back to the restaurant.
And I was having another moment about how much I liked he was decisive.
There wasn’t a twenty-minute conversation that was a lot of “What do you want? No, what do you want?” He picked a place that served great food and had a menu where you could rest assured you’d find something you wanted.
I was evidently not done with tuna, because I got the tuna sandwich.
Gabe made the excellent selection of their chicken sammy.
He augmented this with their devilled eggs.
He told me he’d never tried their tuna, so we went halfsies with the sandwiches, and I considered avowals of love at getting to eat both Ingo’s tuna and their chicken all during one dunch.
We ate on their patio.
I filled him in on the briefing. We talked about Raye and Cap. I told him how cool I thought it was that Ava was going to design Alexis and Jacob’s invitations, and the Rock Chicks were going to kick in from afar like that, not to mention NI&S were going to pay for the booze.
He told me he’d done “jack shit” that day, except watch some pregame shows and football.
I did not miss he got a lot of attention from women.
What I also didn’t miss, but had never noticed before, was that I was getting attention from men.
Gabe didn’t miss this either, and even though I ignored the women, he had no compunction to outright stare down the men.
This he did.
And you could just say the speed with which they backed down when Gabriel Stark shot them the evil eye was brisk.
It was all kinds of hot.
He took me to Churn after and got me a hot fudge sundae. I enjoyed the view of him eating a bespoke ice cream cookie sandwich.
Then we walked hand and hand to his Jeep in order to go to his and chill.
And it was only when I was in his Jeep and we were headed to the thrilling next chapter of us where I’d see his place, that I realized, Gabriel Stark didn’t ask me out on a date.
There was no fretting about what I would wear and if I’d spill something on it.
There was no mindfuck about who was going to pay (I’d already learned after he slashed a look at me when I went for my wallet at Beckett’s Table that he was old school about that and there was no discussion) and what was going to be expected after.
But we’d still just had our first date.
It was hassle-free. It was lowkey. It was fun. We were out on the town and out in the world. The food was great. Once we settled in, he didn’t talk much, but he didn’t make me feel like I was jabbering.
It was the best date I ever had.
It was maybe the best date that ever was.
But he was right.
It wasn’t a date.
It was a woman with her man going out to dunch.
And call me all kinds of crazy, that made it even better.