Chapter 21
Riley set the piping hot pizza on the counter in front of Paige. "Thanks for keeping me company while Daniel is at his AA meeting."
"Any time. Especially if you're cooking.
" Technically, they had assembled the pizza together, but Riley already had the dough made when Paige arrived.
Paige leaned over and inhaled deeply. The sausage, pepperoni, and tomato sauce with Italian spices made her mouth water.
"It's been ages since I've had homemade pizza. "
"It's been ages since I've made it, so I can't guarantee how it's going to taste." Riley dropped the oven mitts on the counter and pulled two plates from the cupboard. "Proceed with caution."
"Is this Lottie's recipe?"
Riley's mother-in-law, Lottie Hamilton, was one of the best cooks in the county. She’d been the cook and housekeeper at the Double Diamond ranch that Riley's family owned for over thirty years.
Lottie's homemade scones with whipped honey butter were always Paige’s favorite part of sleepovers at the ranch.
"The crust is Lottie's recipe, but the sauce is from a jar. I'm not that ambitious. I'll never be able to cook like Lottie, so I don't know why I even try. Thank goodness Daniel isn’t picky."
"I'm pretty sure Daniel didn't marry you for your culinary skills." Paige wiggled her eyebrows at Riley.
Her cousin laughed. "Thank goodness."
"So how are you feeling? Do you still have morning sickness?"
"Some, but it's not as bad as I expected." Riley cut the pizza then lifted a slice of the gooey cheesy pizza onto her plate.
"Are you planning to find out the baby's gender?" Paige helped herself to a slice. "Will you do a gender reveal?"
"We're still undecided. We both kind of want to know, but we kind of want to be surprised too.
If we do find out, we will not do a big gender reveal.
They're anticlimactic." Riley rolled her eyes.
"I mean, it's always either pink or blue, and the parents are always happy about both. And if they're not, they should be."
Too impatient to wait any longer for her pizza to cool, Paige blew on it for several seconds then took a bite. The meat, cheese, tomato and dough concoction melded into a tantalizing burst of flavors in her mouth.
"Mmm…not bad, Ri."
They talked about Riley's work for a while before shifting into the success Daniel was seeing with the architectural firm he was building and how busy he was staying.
Then Riley abruptly changed the subject. "Speaking of jobs, how is your job search going?"
"Not great." Paige dropped the last half of her second slice of pizza onto her plate and grimaced. "Unless I want to work part-time as a library aide or a custodian. Or you know, I could get my CDL and become a bus driver."
"Seriously? That's all there is?" Riley reached for her third piece of pizza. "Have you tried applying in the Tri-Cities area?"
"Yes, but all I've found there are a handful of jobs teaching band, French, or woodworking at the high school level."
Riley grimaced. "So, what are you going to do if you don't find a job?"
"I don't know. I keep wondering if I made a mistake by quitting my job before I had something else lined up." But it felt wrong to list Principal Stevens as a reference when he still thought she planned to return to her job in Seattle.
"It's barely the second week of June. I'm sure something will come available soon." Riley attacked her pizza again.
Paige took a bite of her own. "I hope you're right."
"How's physical therapy going?" Riley asked with a pointed look and a grin that hinted at wanting juicy details.
"Fine." Paige refused to take the bait. "I'm getting stronger all the time, but I still have a lot of muscle soreness and weakness. I'm working on getting back my full range of motion in my shoulder."
"And how are things with your physical therapist?"
Wonderful and terrible.
She loved spending time with Gabe and his family, until he pulled away Saturday night. She couldn't even enjoy the fact that he was falling for her because his backing off felt too much like rejection.
Paige couldn't help feeling a sense of deja vu. She’d entangled herself in another relationship—never mind that it was fake—where she was falling for a man who only wanted to use her for his own selfish purposes.
A pain pricked her chest as she recalled Gabe’s shortness with her this morning when she asked how he got all the cuts and scrapes on his hands.
He shut her down faster than he did Nikki every time she asked about their fake relationship.
Paige tried not to take it personally, assuming his mood had something to do with his mom having a difficult day yesterday.
When she called Grace Sunday afternoon, she asked her opinion on enlisting Marisol's help to make a memory book for Gabe. Paige had been completely unprepared for Grace's emotional response. She'd spent half an hour listening to Grace cry and rant, wishing she could comfort her and Gabe in person.
She'd wanted to tell Gabe she was sorry for what he was going through, but Nikki had been too close at the time, and she never got the chance to talk to him without an audience.
"He's not my physical therapist."
"Isn't he?" Riley winked. "Sure, he's a lot of other people's physical therapists too, but that doesn't make him any less your therapist."
Paige itched to tell her cousin everything. How she'd agreed to be Gabe's fake girlfriend, but she'd fallen in love with him. And how all the enjoyment, excitement, and infatuation she used to feel in Phillip's arms paled in comparison to what she felt in Gabe's.
But Riley would want to tell Daniel, and he might let it slip to his parents or Riley's brothers, and if their mom—Paige's Aunt Faith—got wind of her fake relationship with Gabe, her parents and the whole town would know in no time.
No matter how badly she needed to talk to someone, it couldn't be Riley. Which depressed her, because she told Riley everything. It was another reminder that she shouldn't be lying to her parents and Gabe's mom.
Paige plucked a piece of pepperoni off her pizza. "Gabe has worked hard to get where he's at and takes his job seriously. He wouldn't risk it by openly dating a patient."
"I get it. That kind of thing is taboo in the medical field, but that doesn't mean you can't let him know you're interested. That way when you finish PT, the ball is in his court."
"He knows I'm interested." Heaviness hit Paige, constricting her chest and giving her the sensation of a stomach full of lead.
"And…?" Riley's eyes widened as her lips turned up. "What did he say?"
"He said he can't make me any promises." Paige's voice fell flat as she tore the slice of pepperoni into pieces.
"Oh." Riley's face fell. They were quiet for a long moment, then Riley perked up. "You still have a couple months of PT. You’ll win him over. Just be your fun, cheerful self, and by the time you finish PT, he'll be half in love with you and begging you to go out with him."
Paige couldn't tell her Gabe was already half in love with her—at least that what he intoned Saturday night—but he still refused to make her any promises. Maybe Riley was on to something, though.
She recalled one of the quotes on the wall at the PT office. Winners are not people who never fail, but rather people who never quit.
If Paige threw herself into her role as Gabe’s girlfriend every time they were with his mom, maybe he'd fall deep enough in love with her, he'd be willing to take a chance on them.