Chapter Twenty-Two
Darcy
What happens if he comes here?”
Gabriel flips down the top half of his newspaper and stares at me. I can only see him from the nose up, but it’s enough to know he’s tired of my questions.
“Then he’ll come here.”
I pick at my thumbnail. Beneath Gabriel’s secondhand kitchen table, Tater Tot does his best to destroy a chew toy that looks like a pumpkin. “But Gideon is old.”
“So am I,” Gabriel says, unconcerned.
“He’s powerful.”
Gabriel snorts. “So am I. And so, for that matter, are you.”
“Not lately,” I mumble. My relationship with my magic over the past couple of weeks has deteriorated from bad to worse. Gabriel seems to wield his magic in a way that’s natural. An extension of his own body. Mine? Not so much.
Sometimes when I call for my magic, I feel like I’m hurling pine cones covered in peanut butter and birdseed.
“I’m worried—”
“You shouldn’t be.”
I pick up a strawberry from the bowl I’ve been snacking on and lob it at his head. It smacks against his newspaper with a wet thwack, then falls to the floor. Strawberry juice splatters like blood, and the symbolism of it is not lost on me.
Tater Tot lumbers up from beneath the table, sniffs it, then tentatively collects it between his teeth. He wanders off to the other side of the living room to enjoy his pilfered snack while Gabriel folds up his newspaper and tosses it on the table.
He leans forward on his elbows. “Do you need more distracting?”
My cheeks burn hot. Distracting is all we’ve been doing with each other.
Our moment in the office has made me needy for more, though Gabriel has done an admirable job of keeping us within the boundaries he sets.
We have time, he’s assured me every time my grabbing hands start pulling at his clothes, trying to get more, harder, faster.
A rough grumble, and then, I can’t believe I almost fucked you against a desk.
It seems his possessive roughness was more of an exception than a rule.
Ever since he flattened me against the desk in his office, it’s been slow kisses and gentle touches and all of our clothes frustratingly in place.
His control seems to be tethered to a lack of bare skin, and as much as I want to strip down and push him right over that line, I don’t.
Because it’s endearing how hard he’s clutching to those hard-earned morals of his, if not wholly maddening.
“No,” I mutter, petulant. “I don’t need distracting.” I don’t need to be sexually frustrated to the point of oblivion. “This is something we’re going to have to deal with.”
Gabriel’s face softens. “And we will. But we have time, Darcy.”
I’m not sure we do. There’s no guarantee that Gideon won’t show up tomorrow and demand I return to the department.
I’m still looking for a way out of this situation, where I get to keep everything I so desperately want.
My newfound freedom. A fresh start. The dog currently chewing on a strawberry in the corner like it’s a delicacy and the man sitting on the other side of the table looking at me like he can’t decide between amusement and admonishment.
A beautiful, ordinary life.
“If he comes here, we’ll deal with it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve got bigger concerns than an ancient Reaper with an attitude problem.”
“I hate to point this out to you,” I say. “But I am also a Reaper with an attitude problem.”
A smile hitches across Gabriel’s mouth. “My favorite one.”
I snort. “Cute.”
I’m working hard to pretend I’m not charmed, but Gabriel isn’t fooled.
He drags my strawberry bowl across the table and starts poking around. “What’s left on your list?”
“This is not what you should be focused on.”
“You said you wanted to cross them off, yeah? How’re we going to do that by sitting around and moping about some immortal being that may or may not appear?”
Something warm and glowing flares to life in my chest. Close to where I keep my magic, but—different. A different sort, maybe. Or maybe something all its own.
“The list was a ploy,” I confess. “I was using it to distract you.”
He shrugs. “I figured as much. But it was also stuff you wanted to do, right? That part wasn’t fake.”
“No,” I answer slowly. “That part wasn’t fake.”
“Then we should do it.” He keeps his eyes on mine, his face open. “I told you, Darcy. I want to give you the things you want.”
“Is this some sort of Guardian thing, because—”
He shakes his head. “Nah. This is a Gabriel thing. A Darcy thing.” His voice is patient. Calm. Achingly reassuring. “C’mon. What’s next? Got a pickleball tournament on there? Bet I could dink.”
It feels like something thick is lodged in the base of my throat. I can’t swallow around it. I watch him carefully, looking for the lie.
“What are we doing, Gabriel?”
He smirks. “I mean, hopefully we’re playing pickleball. There’s a YMCA down the road I think we could—”
“No. What are we doing? There is no—there’s no future for this.” I’m too afraid to say us. I pick at the wood grain in the table, dragging the pad of my finger one way, and then the other. “I can’t run from this forever. I’ll have to go back at some point.”
He nods, thoughtful, then reaches for my hand with his. I let him toy with my fingers, his ink-stained skin a beautiful contrast to mine.
“What were you planning to do with the time you’ve got left? Before Gideon comes?” he asks.
“Um, I don’t know. Panic, probably. Prepare, as best I can.”
He shakes his head. “I want it,” he says quietly. “However long you’re here—whatever time you have left—I want it to be with me. I want all your minutes, Darcy. Every last one.”
Pressure burns across the bridge of my nose. Immortal beings know the precious value of time. What a gift it is for him to want what’s left of mine. To offer his own in exchange.
“Okay,” I say, my voice a tight warble. I clear my throat and try again. “Okay.”
Gabriel nods, his face so, so serious. I bet in a thousand years more, when I think of him, it’ll be exactly like this.
With the sun pouring over his shoulders, a strawberry between his fingertips and his eyes right on me.
Tattoos and dark curls and the sleeve of his T-shirt twisted up over the curve of his strong arm. Bed wrinkled and perfect.
Mine.
“Okay,” he agrees.
I don’t know what else to say, so I don’t say anything at all. We’re a doomed, tragic pair. Two souls caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with not enough of it left between them.
But it doesn’t matter. The minutes I have left belong to him.
So I sit in his chair in his kitchen draped in one of the flannels I stole from his closet, and I smile like a fool.
He smiles back, then glances over my shoulder at the clock hanging on the wall. “It’s almost ten. Do you want breakfast? I can probably find something—”
“Oh, shit!” I stand quickly, hitting my knee on the underside of the table.
I hobble barefoot toward the bedroom, shucking Gabriel’s shirt as I go.
I reach for the black sweater I left at the edge of the bed instead, forcing it over my head while Gabriel leans back in his chair, watching from the kitchen.
“Is it something I said, or—”
“I have plans with Frank. I was supposed to be over there at nine.” I rush back out of the bedroom and grab a wayward boot, hopping on one foot while I slide it on. “He said he’d show me how to make a crescent arrangement.”
Gabriel looks unimpressed. “I literally just told you I want all your time.”
“And you’ll have it. When I get back from flower arranging.”
He huffs. “Should I be worried you’re blowing me off for an octo-genarian?”
“He’s seventy-eight, so. No.” Sweater on. Boots on. Bag … somewhere. I spin around wildly and then find it, halfway beneath his dresser. “I’ll bring an arrangement back for the bar.”
Gabriel does a poor job of hiding his wince.
“What? What’s that about?”
“Nothing,” he answers quickly.
I narrow my eyes and Tater Tot growls from his nest of blankets in the corner.
Gabriel sighs and scratches under his ear. “It’s just, you’ve been bringing a lot of them back. Don’t you think you’re running out of space?”
That’s fair. The town house I’ve been squatting in is filled to the brim with fresh florals.
If that Ghost of Christmas Past ever comes back, he’s going to have some questions.
Every flat surface is covered with daisies and dahlias and black-eyed Susans.
“That’s why I’ve been bringing them over here. You have plenty of space.”
His mouth twitches in a grimace.
I prop my hands on my hips. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Tiny flames appear at the tips of my fingers. “Gabriel. What?”
He looks at my hands and sighs, resigned. “I hate the way the lilies smell. It’s like being in a funeral parlor.”
I stare at him. “Was that a joke?”
He winces. “Shit. No. It wasn’t.”
I have to bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling. “I’m leaving now, and I’m not bringing you back any flowers.”
“Darcy, listen—”
“I’ll give them to someone who appreciates them. Like maybe the funeral parlor down the street.”
Gabriel stands from his chair and strides across the room, gripping the front of my sweater to tow me into him. He presses a firm kiss against my mouth.
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
But that sentiment is contradicted when he cups my face with his hand, his thumb tracing featherlight over my cheek. He looks at me like I’m something precious. Like I’m something worth keeping.
“You like it,” I whisper.
“Yeah.” He sighs. “I really do.”
“Your sweater is on backward” is what Frank says as soon as I crash through the front door of the shop. He glances up briefly, then frowns and goes back to his arrangement. “You’re also about an hour late.”
I glance down at my chest and, sure enough, the tag is poking out just beneath my chin. “I got caught up with something.”
Frank hums. “With someone, I presume.”
“That would be a correct assumption, yes.” I drop my bag on the floor and hustle over to the hook where Frank has started keeping my apron, right next to his.