Chapter 8 #2
Gabe held my eyes again for a long time. I wondered what he was thinking, and before I could break the stare, he said, “Did
you know I used to have a crush on you?” He asked it so casually that I didn’t think I heard him right.
My lashes must have batted ten times before I cleared my throat. “What?”
“When you came to the store for signings and talks.” He nodded like he’d said nothing when he’d proclaimed a crush. On me?
Him? I know he was plain old Gabe Scott back then, but he was still fine.
“A crush?”
“Yeah. You had my attention from the moment I saw you.” He smiled. “And you were nice, which made me want to make that move.”
I looked away, embarrassed by how honest he was. My eyes met his again. “Gabe . . .” I don’t know why I said his name. I had
absolutely zero words to put behind it.
“You still are. Just thought I’d tell you that. It’s been on my mind.”
“So now you can speak freely?” I asked, hoping he’d elaborate.
“Kind of.” He smiled, and I realized those dimples that talked me into this job could pretty much talk me into anything.
“Well,” he said, breaking our stare. “I have a grant application to finish before I fly out on Friday, so I need to get back
to work.”
“I looked at your schedule. You’re staying in Hawaii for three days. Kauai is on my bucket list.”
“It was on mine too, and now I get to go for free.”
“Show-off,” I replied.
He laughed and balled up his sandwich wrapper and returned it to the bag. He stood and locked eyes with me again. “Nice to
have you on board.”
“I officially feel welcome,” I replied. He left the room, and I regretted we hadn’t had another five minutes to unpack his
statement about the crush.
I went into the kitchen and wet some paper towels and sprayed them with cleanser before returning and wiping the table.
I detested the whole high-value, low-value man talk, but if a man would be put in the category of being of some higher value,
it would be Gabriel Scott. He was flirting with me. There was no reason for him to tell me he used to have a crush on me.
Everything about a man like him made me nervous. I wasn’t used to dating up.
I sent a text to Trish.
Me: Is dating up a thing?
Trish: Only when the woman is the one who has more. ??
I held my laugh in.
My phone pinged with a text from the maintenance company. The work on my A/C was completed. I also had an email in my notifications.
It was from Joy. Adrenaline rushed through me, but I decided to wait to read it.
I gathered my laptop, phone, and bag and walked up the hall to the office. Gabe was reading a document and tapping the end
of a pen on the desk while doing it. It took him a minute to sense my presence.
“Were we done?”
That was a stupid question. We were obviously done. I wished I could take it back, but I wanted to pick up the conversation
where we’d ended it. Gabe had papers and files everywhere. He’d sunk his teeth into the work he was doing. But still, his
eyes lingered on mine for much longer than they needed to. “Done for now.”
My writer’s mind read something into that. If a male character in one of my books said, “Done for now,” he would definitely
be implying there was more to come.
I wanted to take a seat and insist he tell me about the crush. But I couldn’t do any of that because he was busy, and this
girl did not have the nerve. I wasn’t one of the fierce women I wrote about in my novels. I was the woman who’d settled for
men like my exes.
“Then I’m going back to the cabin,” I said softly, with a side of defeat.
Gabe rolled his bottom lip in. Suspiciously sexily. The distance from the door to his desk created an appropriate barrier to diffuse the heat between us. Kind of. He hesitated for a few seconds, and I thought he might tell me to sit, but he didn’t. “Thanks for having lunch with me. Good
luck with the writing.”
I fought the urge to say something awkward like Good luck with your grant, instead opting for a smile and a nod before escaping down the hall and out of the building.
The first thing I did when I got home was open the email from Joy.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for your patience. So I guess I’ll get this started since I reached out to you. ??
My father’s name is Tom Jones. I don’t know much about him. I didn’t grow up with him. What I know, I learned from my mother.
He was from Edisto Island, South Carolina. He moved to Texas in 1993. He met my mother a few years after that, and they started
dating and then living together. Unfortunately, he left her when I was a year old. The ending of their relationship was complicated.
That’s really all I know. He was in his early to mid-forties when I was born. Mom wasn’t 100 percent sure. If he’s alive,
he’d be about seventy-seven years old.
Is his name familiar? Are you related to any Joneses? Do you have family on Edisto Island?
Thanks,
Joy
“Tom Jones.” I spoke his name out loud, hoping it would jog my memory. It wasn’t familiar. “Such a common name.” Even if I
did remember it, it might be from anywhere. There was a famous singer named Tom Jones. That was a difficult name to isolate.
I logged into my Ancestry account and scrolled through my distant relative matches on the paternal side, looking for a Jones.
There were none, but then, the paternal matches were all third and fourth cousin matches, which most Black folks knew were historical connections due to the slave trade.
They were not family. So there was nothing.
I still knew nothing about my father except for the secret Beck kept and Aunt Leah knew.