Diving In (Open Door Love Story) (7 page)

Chapter Ten

I get off the bus by Safeway, only to find they’re closed for the day. Guess Grandpa and I will be getting our pumpkin pie tomorrow. Instead of waiting twelve years for the bus again, I decide to hoof it home. It’s less than a mile and the weather isn’t too crappy. Gray, fortyish, and threatening to rain, but being indifferent to the whole thing because everyone is inside. Yes, I know for a fact that weather has a personality.

The traffic is light as I walk down the side of the road on the gravel part between where the city decided there absolutely needed to be sidewalks and where they could spare making a safe place for people to walk for twenty feet. Weather, I get. The government, not so much.

I’m singing to myself, well, sort of hum-singing because I don’t know the words to the song I’m trying to sing except for the chorus, when a car pulls up alongside me.

I look over at the woman behind the rolled down window. She smiles at me like I should know her. A customer, probably.

“Hi,” I say confidently, hoping she doesn’t notice I haven’t addressed her by name.

“Hi,” she says and then giggles a little and shakes her head. “You’re Brynn Garrett, right? Otherwise, I’ve stopped on the side of the road to bother a total stranger.”

I nod. “Yeah, I’m Brynn. You’re a customer at my family’s drycleaners?” The jig is up!

She points to the seat next to her. “I am. I’m also Gabe’s mom. Do you need a ride?”

“Oh!” I say, recognizing her now. He shares her mannerisms … and giggle. “It’s not far to my apartment. I actually live over the cleaners.”

“Gabe mentioned that. He lamented how he’d never be able to visit your place because there’s not an elevator in your building.”

“It’s true. Although, my place is not worth visiting. It is exactly what you’d think an apartment above a drycleaners looks like.”

She giggles again. “Would you be interested in coming over to our house? That would score me some points with Gabe and I’m needing them at the moment.”

I only need to think about it for a second. I’ve been leaving him alone all day. Not texting or calling because … because we were new and I didn’t know if I was supposed to wait or what. I wanted to see him, though, and if it looks like it’s his mom’s doing, I seem less desperate. “Sure.” I go around and get into the passenger seat of her completely adequate blue four door sedan. “You wouldn’t happen to have any pumpkin pie at your house, would you?”

Mrs. Riley smiles at me. “I do. I was just popping to the Safeway to grab some whipped cream, but it’s closed. Can’t remember everything!”

She pulls out into the street and drives along at a leisurely pace of one hundred miles an hour. Now I know where Gabe gets it from. We make chit-chat. Did I have a nice day with my family? I lie and say yes. Do I enjoy teaching swimming to seniors? I do, I answer.

A smile creeps onto my mouth. I wonder how much he’s told his mom about me. That’s promising. I mean I know how I feel about Gabe and I think I know how he feels about me, but the idea of actually getting to be with him, that he might be my boyfriend and not this idea or fantasy, that feeling is in a constant state of flux. I was never good at the whole does he or doesn’t he like me as much as I like him. Because Andy liked me more and I liked him fine and there’s never really been anyone else.

“How do you like managing the dry cleaners?” Gabe’s mom asks, pulling me from my girly fretting.

“I like it. It’s a job that was easy to get.” A little family business humor. Hardy har har.

She placates me and chuckles. “Gabe’s been thinking of getting a job. I just don’t know what he would do, or that he’s ready for one.”

So, either he hasn’t told his mom everything or she knows about the job and is trying to get me to take it back. I decide to do that psychological thing and repeat her words back to her. “Why wouldn’t he be ready?”

“Did you know Gabe before his accident?”

I nod. “A little. He was three years ahead of me in school.”

“Well, he’s not like he used to be in more ways than people know. He gets tired easily, overwhelmed easily.”

“Gabe mentioned that to me. The overwhelmed part. I get that. He has to go through more steps to get things done in a different way than you or I would. I’m sure he’s also frustrated by that. I know I would be.”

“Gabe really shouldn’t be away from home for more than four hours at a time. He needs his rest.”

“Did he tell you about the job I offered him at the dry cleaners?”

She looks at me. Her eyes are worried. She is a mom and she is trying to manipulate me, but her reasons are so much more noble than my mother’s would be. She’s frightened.

“He told me about the job.” She swallows hard, like she’s trying to hold back tears. “I don’t know if he can handle dating someone and working for the first time. It’s a lot, Brynn. He’s come so far in the last year. His attitude has changed. He’s wanting to go out and do things and for the most part … seeing friends, liking a girl – he told me he got into the pool! That’s amazing, but I worry if he has one setback … he might not be strong enough emotionally yet to handle things.”

“All I can tell you Mrs. Riley, is that I want Gabe to be happy and comfortable. If the job gets to be too much for him, I’ll make him take a break, or I’ll fire him.” I laugh, hoping she lightens up a little too. “And as far as me and him go, I like him and he likes me and I think we’re just going to have to go through that and see what happens. Like we’re a normal girl and normal boy – because when it comes to that, we’re just like everyone else.”

She nods. “Okay. I will try to trust in you two. It’s just … it’s been a long road to get to where we are now.”

“I get it. I won’t do anything to intentionally hurt him. I promise.”

She reaches over and pats my knee. “I know you won’t, honey.”

~

Gabe’s house is kinda cool. All the ramps remind me of the fun house at a carnival. I don’t tell him that because I’m not a moron. I’m sure he doesn’t think they’re all that cool. Not as cool as walking.

He’s fake surprised to see me. I can tell it’s fake because he’s overly surprised. He and his parents were somehow in cahoots. Gabe checks with me, weighing my reaction, and I smile at him. His dad comes over and pats me on the back. They are a handsy family. I enjoy that.

“Nice to see you again, Brynn,” Mr. Riley says. “Can I interest you in a piece of pie? We’ve got pumpkin and pecan. I’m about to have my second round of the day.”

“Yes, please.”

Mrs. Riley smacks her husband on the ass as he walks by. “I didn’t get the whipped cream. Safeway was closed.”

“Oh, the horror,” Mr. Riley replies.

At my house it would’ve been a major disaster that there was no whipped cream. My mother would’ve written a letter to Safeway detailing the myriad ways she was not going to support their business any longer. But it also would’ve been a non-issue because my mother would never have forgotten the whipped cream and had to go to Safeway on Thanksgiving. She consistently forgot how to act like a human being, but she never forgot something if it was on the never-ending to-do list in her head.

I notice for the first time that Gabe is sitting on the couch and not in his chair. I guess I’m used to seeing him seated and just assumed. I hesitantly walk over and sit next to him on the couch. He braces himself with his hands to keep from falling toward me when my weight caves the seat cushions inward.

“Oops,” I say, embarrassed, and scoot away from him quickly.

He smiles. “No big deal. I should’ve warned you that I faceplant when people sit next to me on the couch. Another awesome thing about being me. I’ve had my face in my dad’s lap more times than I care to remember.”

“You know, FFCH, there are some things I don’t need to know.”

“Well, from one over-sharer to another, them’s the breaks. Don’t ever say I don’t give you some truly horrifying images to chew on.”

I shake my head violently. “I will only think of your dad as a door fixer and a pie bringer and you can’t make me do otherwise.”

“Jesus. You two are weird,” Mrs. Riley says. She rolls her eyes, but then winks at me.

Mr. Riley comes into the family room with two enormous slices of pie on these dainty china plates. He hands one to me. “Here, lemme get you a TV tray.”

He drags a metal tray with legs over to me and I set my pie down on it, resisting squealing like a little girl. At my house, you may have beverages in the den while watching TV on holidays, but under no circumstances were we ever allowed to have food anywhere but the kitchen or dining room table. This. Is. Awesome.

Gabe taps me on the shoulder. “Hey looney tunes, you all right there? You’ve got a super goofy look on your face.”

I shrug. “Pie in the family room is the best thing ever.”

Mr. Riley snorts. “You have to raise your expectations, dear.”

We hang out eating and not eating, watching football and not watching football, talking and not talking. It’s all very easy. Gabe reaches out and rubs my shoulder from time to time and I bring my hand up and run my fingertips over the top of his hand. We’re flirty without being gross. A couple of hours pass this way. Leftovers are brought out and everyone eats again. His mom’s cooking is delicious and the food is better than my mom’s, even though it is nearly identical.

Mrs. Riley stands and saunters over to her husband, reaching a hand out to him. “I need to take a walk or I’m going to burst.”

Mr. Riley happily gets up from his chair and takes his wife’s hand. “We’ll be back in an hour. Mom’s got her phone if you need us.”

“Cool. Have a good walk,” Gabe says, grinning up at his folks. The instant the front door is closed, he turns to me. “I have been dying for them to take a hint. Stand up, will ya?”

Gabe braces himself and I stand up. Then he whips the blanket covering his legs off and takes hold of his left leg, just under the knee, hoisting it up onto the couch. He does the same with the other until he’s lounging back on the armrest.

“Get on top of me.” He licks his lips and looks me up and down, giving me the full-body tingles.

I’m ready and not ready for anything. I take a step toward him and then straddle him, one knee dug into the crack between the cushions and the back of the couch, the other still standing. “Uh, like this?”

“Yeah, except it would be better if you didn’t have any pants on. Or a shirt. Or underwear. I think the word I’m looking for is naked. It would all be better all of my days if you were naked, m’kay?”

I tug my shirt off over my head and then grab the hem of his long sleeve t-shirt and push it up his chest. “Will you settle for topless?”

“Topless is never a bad option with you.”

“Will you do me the honors?” I look down at the front clasp on my bra.

With a hint of mischief in his eyes, Gabe unhooks my bra and pulls the fabric cups to the sides, my breasts spilling free. They are unsupported for about a millisecond before Gabe’s hands are on them, kneading them liberally and scraping his thumbnails over my nipples. I lean over him, my hair grazing his bare chest.

“That feels good,” I whisper and then lower my mouth to his.

His tongue prods at mine and then draws back, licking my lower lip. “I want to make you feel great.”

He raises his head to my chest and looks at me as he takes my right nipple into his mouth, sucking hard. I moan a little letting him know he’s on a good and very right track.

Gabe circles my nipple with his tongue and then blows on it. The cool air makes it taut and I lower my hips to his, putting all the weight of my lower body on him.

“Mmm, I like that,” he says. “I can feel the pressure of you against me.”

“Where,” I ask, nudging my right breast to his mouth, getting it its due.

Gabe clears his throat. “I can feel the pressure of YOU against ME.”

“Ah ha.” I blush, even though the guy has half my boob in his mouth. I lean further over and brace myself by putting my hands on his shoulders, essentially holding him down. His eyes widen and he wiggles his eyebrows at me. I file that away under HE LIKES IT and start moving my pelvis against his, hoping this is also something he likes … and can sort of feel. The idea of getting him off turns me on so much. To be the person that can do that for him makes me feel powerful, like nothing else does.

“That’s hot, the way you move like that,” he says, coming up for air. “Am I responding?”

I slow down and widen my stance, searching to feel his hardness between my legs. “Not yet.”

“It’s still really hot, believe me, I have such a mind boner right now.”

I kiss him, because how can you not kiss the guy who has a mind boner for you?

“I need your shirt all the way off,” I say. “I want you to feel me where I can feel you.”

I sit up and he pulls his shirt off over his head, dropping it to the floor next to mine. I lay on top of him, pressing my breasts to his chest, reveling in the tightness with which he holds me to him.

“I feel you all the way like this,” he whispers in my ear. “Can you deal if this is all of me that … works?”