Page 156 of Should Our Hearts Catch Fire

“Excuse me?!”

“Just a few more minutes,” Ellis mumbles. It’s hard to even put a coherent sentence together, he’s so relaxed.

“Unbelievable. I’ll kill Cal and Dawson if this mat ruins our sex life.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t you have a present for me?”

Suddenly, Ellis is wide awake. “Oh. Right.” He feels a little dizzy as he stumbles to his feet. “It’s in the bedroom.”

“That sounds promising,” Gabriel drawls.

Ellis snorts. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

In the bedroom, he pulls a white envelope from the nightstand, taking a seat on the bed and signaling for Gabriel to do the same. “Try not to make a big deal out of it,” he says as he hands Gabriel the envelope.

“In case no one’s told you, that’s a terrible way to prelude a situation,” Gabriel teases, pulling out a folded sheet of paper.

Ellis holds his breath, watching Gabriel’s face as he reads. His expressions range from confused, to disbelieving, to reluctantly hopeful.

When he’s done, his doe-like eyes fix on Ellis. “What is this?”

The answer is obvious, but Ellis humors him anyway.

“It’s an ownership transfer. For the café.”

Gabriel’s chin wobbles. “I don’t understand.”

Ellis brushes the back of his hand against Gabriel’s cheek. “Yes, you do.”

“What—How—” His eyes flit over the paper again, too fast to take any words in. “When did you do this?”

“Zeke gave me your landlord’s number. We had a chat. I offered more money than the other guys.” Ellis shrugs. “He was more than happy to accommodate me. Turns out he’s getting a divorce and will be glad if he has any money left afterwards.” He probably shouldn’t be so happy about someone else’s misfortune, but right now he doesn’t give a crap.

Predictably, Gabriel freaks out. “Are you nuts?! Ellis, I know how much the original price was. And you offered more?!”

“Buying a café hardly made a dent in my savings.”

“You just bought this apartment! It must’ve cost, like, a million!”

$1,230,000, but that’s beside the point.“Yes, after selling my million-dollar apartment in Sydney.”

“But—But—You can’t—”

“I can. And I did.”

“But—"

Rolling his eyes affectionately, Ellis takes Gabriel’s face between his palms, putting a stop to his blabbering.

“Gabriel, I love the café. I love you.”So, so easy to say it now.“The café is the reason we met. Do you really think I’d just stand by and let it get taken away?”

All the fight leaves Gabriel at once, his hands dropping to his lap. “Much better confession than the first one,” he says, lips twitching. “But you put the contract in my name.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want you to worry that…if anything happened between us…that you’d lose the café.”

“Ellis…”