Page 35 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“This feels like an episode ofTheTwilight Zone,” Josh said. “Hey, maybe that was the man in Emory’s vision. He wasn’t from your past, but he brought newsfromyour past. Maybe the colors and auras that Emory saw were more about what the man carried inside him, not what he directed at you.”
I could tell how much he wanted that to be true. Hell, I wanted it to be true too. I wanted to get on with living and loving without the added worry that someone was out to get me. “Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t sound too convincing. I leaned back on the sofa, wrapped my arm around Josh’s shoulders and pulled him against my chest.
“Are you going to open that letter?” Josh asked me softly.
“One day,” I said honestly. “This was something I never dreamed about or ever expected. I have a family that loves me, and I never wanted to belong to a different family. My life changes the minute I open the envelope and how can I know it’ll be for the better?”
“No one could know that,” Josh said, then snorted. “Maybe Emory, but he’s all hit and miss with his visions. How frustrating that must be for him.”
“I’ll give this the regard it deserves, but not until I’m ready. I want to talk to my parents first and find out how they feel about it. I don’t want them to worry about losing me, Sunshine. They lost one son, and they don’t need to worry about losing another.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but Martina and Al would never want to hold back your happiness. They know damn well that you’retheirboy.”
“You always know the right thing to say,” I told Josh softly.
“It’s a gift,” he boasted then laughed a little. “I’m not going to call the furniture company and complain, Gabe.”
“You’re not?” I asked. Josh was terrified when he saw it sitting on our porch.
“Nope, this set is much prettier, and it seems like it’s fated to be ours,” he told me.
“Yeah, let’s not tempt fate,” I agreed.
We sat there quietly for a while, neither of us saying much. Even though my mind was a million miles away, my heart was right where I left it—tucked safely in the hands of the man nestled up beside me.
TWO WEEKS LATER THEenvelope from Gabe’s birth mother still sat on top of our dresser. Every morning I would watch Gabe stare at it while he dressed and every night I’d catch him doing the same thing when he got ready for bed. Every morning and every night during those two weeks I just wanted to cry for the anguish he felt but never revealed. It killed me to keep silent, but Gabe had shown me nothing but patience while I came to terms with my past and my feelings for him. I’d do the same for him or die trying, which was a possibility because I felt like I was going to implode from the buildup of pressure inside me.
He spent a lot of time in his head, and I wondered what the hell was going on in his beautiful brain. Why was he so afraid to open the letter? Did he think it would be disloyal to Al and Martina? Didn’t he want to know if he had brothers or sisters? Was that what upset him? Was he torn up inside because he was curious about potential siblings and thought it was disloyal to Dylan? Did he worry that he wouldn’t like his birth mother?
Outwardly, it appeared that he was taking things in stride, but I knew better. He was a man who didn’t stress over little things but suddenly they got under his skin. We went over to our new, unnamed home one night after work to check on the progress since we were supposed to move in the following week. I noticed that the light fixtures hung in the master bathroom weren’t the ones that I ordered and Gabe’s response when I mentioned it stunned me.
“I’ll take care of this right now,” he had said angrily, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “Andy needs to pay closer attention to these details. You were very specific on the fixtures you wanted. Fuck! You printed a picture of them from the internet and circled the item number for him. How much easier does he need it?”
“Gabe,” I said patiently.
“These aren’t the fixtures you asked for, and you shouldn’t have to live with them, Sunshine.”
It was all I could do not to laugh over his outrage. I mean, hearing my cutesy pet name said in a snarly voice was hilarious. It would be like angrily shouting “I love you” at a person. The irritated, scowling expression on his face was just too much, and the dam broke. My laughter echoed loudly in the bathroom, but instead of breaking him out of his funk as I had hoped, it seemed to frustrate him further.
“I fail to see what’s so funny about shitty craftsmanship and poor professionalism,” he said haughtily, which only made me laugh harder until tears ran down my face and I clutched my stomach. “Well, I’m waiting.” Fuck me; Gabe was hilarious when he was in a snit!
I dug deep and found my composure after several minutes. “Darling,” I said, earning a scornful, raised brow at the endearment that never slid from my lips unless I was describing something I wanted to buy. “What was the only thing you asked for when we discussed renovating this bathroom?” I asked him. I placed my hands on my hips and pinned him with a look that said I meant business. “Theonlything,” I stressed.
“Enough built-in shelves in the fancy tiled shower to hold all your grooming productsandlube,” he said somewhat defensively. “Body wash burns when used as lube,” Gabe said as if I hadn’t learned this fact already long before I met him.
“What do we have in the custom-built shower?” I asked him.
“Jets to massage your body all over,” he said defiantly.
“And?” I prompted
He blew out a frustrated breath and said, “Plenty of shelves for lube. I fail to see the point.”
“The point is that the only thing you cared about was a place for the lube and you got it. You had no idea that the fixtures were wrong until I said something and I didn’t even say it angrily. It was more of a ‘huh; those aren’t the light fixtures I ordered’ kind of thing. To tell the truth, I like these fixtures better than the ones I picked out. So, put down the cell phone over there on the counter and let’s test out the jets in our new shower.”
“Now? The bathroom isn’t finished,” Gabe said, but he was already pulling his shirt over his head. “How are we going to dry off?”
“It’s ninety-nine point nine percent finished.” I went over to the linen closet and opened it to reveal two folded towels and a bottle of our favorite lubricant. I stashed it there the day before in preparation for the big reveal.