Page 11 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

Two weeks ago, Gabriel and I showed up at Yaffa Café, thinking we were meeting Annika one-on-one. But no, I was the third wheel again.

While Annika fed her boyfriend baba ghanoush, I got hit on by an Elvis impersonator. Not young Elvis. Tinted sunglasses, sideburns, middle-aged rhinestone Elvis who tried to woo me with an off-key rendition of “Burning Love.” It had the same effect on me as that failed comedy act.

Gabriel found it “funny as hell.”

Last Sunday, Annika and I made plans to go to The Cloisters, and she brought Gabriel along, so I’d wandered off on my own and communed with the medieval gardens.

And every Monday night, I dutifully accompanied Annika to Monks to watch her boyfriend perform.

At this point, I might as well get used to it. Gabriel was here to stay.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Cleo!”Annika greeted me with a big, goofy smile and tried to stand, but went right back down again. She had a giggling fit while Gabriel shook his head with an amused smile.

A pizza box sat on the coffee table and a weed fog hung in the air.

On Annika’s insistence to join them, I dropped into the olive green leather chair across from the sofa, too tired to fight it and too broke to turn down the slice of pepperoni pizza Gabriel offered me.

I folded the slice in half and took a big bite.

“Remember how I used to get all paranoid whenever I smoked weed?” Annika held up one finger and squinted at me. “Well, not anymore. I’m soooo relaxed.” She let out a sigh, curled up on the sofa, and promptly fell asleep.

Gabriel and I laughed.

“She barely even smoked,” he said. “Two tokes and she was high.”

“Yeah, she’s a lightweight.” I smiled at my friend. Even asleep, she was so pretty with her lilac hair splayed across the purple velvet sofa and her cheeks flushed a pretty pink.

“She had a rough day,” he said.

“Oh no.” I leaned over the pizza box to eat. “What happened?”

“Things didn’t go well with the rehearsals today and that asshole Trent was giving her shit again.”

“God. He’s such a prima donna. I’d love to give him a piece of my mind.”

Gabriel gave me an amused smile. “What would you do, Cleo? March right up to him and tell him to go fuck himself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Annika tells you too much. But I’m pretty sure I said, you cankindlygo fuck yourself, thank you very much.”

A laugh burst out of Gabriel. “So polite. So demure.”

“What can I say?” I finished the slice and wiped my mouth with a paper napkin. “My mother raised me to have good manners.”

He laughed again. “You wanna smoke?”

“Weed?”

He nodded. What the hell. It couldn’t hurt. “Okay. Sure.”

He relit the joint and took a hit then leaned over the coffee table, passing it to me.

I slunk down in my chair and propped my feet on the table, holding the smoke in my lungs before releasing it. Getting high and forgetting everything seemed like a good call so that’s exactly what I did.

Soon, all the edges started to blur, and the brass lamp cast a hazy amber glow around Gabriel’s head. Like a halo. An archangel in a halo.

I choked on a laugh.