Page 39 of Should Our Hearts Catch Fire

“I assume it has to do with what happened before Cal’s accident?” Gabe says, and instantly wants to smack himself.

Ellis’ intense gaze fixes on him for a few seconds, but thankfully Gabe doesn’t feel annoyance or anger coming from him, just…surprise.

“How much do you know?”

Gabe shrugs. “The condensed version. Something went down at work, Cal took it hard.” He hesitates. “Self-medicated. Cue car crash. Then you showed up to pick up the pieces.”

Ellis licks his lips. “That…pretty much sums it up.” He seems almost relieved he doesn’t have to give Gabe a rundown on the whole thing.

“I’m sorry,” Gabe says. “I can’t imagine the stress you must be under.”

Ellis stares at him as if Gabe said something groundbreaking, then averts his gaze, aiming it somewhere in the general direction of his shoes.

Jesus, is this the first time someone actually acknowledged his struggle? Surely not. When Cal was talking about his brother, he mentioned all the things Ellis was doing for him and for Dawson. Said how grateful he is. So why does Ellis seem so out of sorts now?

“It was the stupidest thing,” Ellis starts. “We had a project lined up, but it fell through because Cal never signed off on it.”

Gabe’s eyebrows shoot up. He did not expect something so…anticlimactic. On the other hand, that would explain why Cal took it so hard. “Well, fuck. How did he miss it?”

“My guess would be his ‘self-medicating’ had something to do with it,” Ellis says tersely. “It was literally there on his desk. So fucking stupid.”

“Wasn’t there someone to, like, remind him of the deadline?”

“The project manager. He was in charge, so technically it was his fault.”

Gabe cocks his head. “You don’t think it was?”

“He had stuff going on at the time—his wife was about to give birth…” He waves a hand. “It was a whole thing. Didn’t mean much when I had to fire him.” He gives Gabe a pinched smile. “See why I don’t like dealing with people?”

Oh.

So it’s not just the stress.

No hugging straight guys, he repeats again when he feels his resolve inching dangerously close to a breaking point.

Ellis, on the other hand, seems dangerously close to bolting, as if talking about what bothers him is socially unacceptable.

“You know, if you wanna change jobs there might be a position open here,” Gabe jokes, though he wouldn’t be opposed to having access to Ellis on the regular.

Ellis takes the bait, tipping his head back and giving a throaty laugh that does terrible things to Gabe’s heart and…other body parts.

“I honestly don’t know which is worse.”

Gabe feigns offense. “Wow. Fuck you too.” He doesn’t have time to worry if he went a bit far because Ellis laughs again.

“Speaking of, why don’t you hire someone? Is it you and Zeke all day, every day?”

“Zeke is…” Gabe searches for the word. “Territorial. And I can’t blame him. We put a lot into the café and, let’s face it, it’s hard to find someone who would love it as much as we do.” He pats the countertop gently. “It’s our baby.”

Their baby, and second home. As much as he wants to kill Zeke half the time, Gabe’s always reluctant to go home after a shift, sometimes even staying behind to read a book on one of the sofas instead of his bed. He might’ve spent a night here once or twice too. Or ten times. The café has everything he needs after all: a kitchen, coffee… Okay, so maybe there’s no shower but there’s a whole ocean just a street over. Sometimes he wonders why he bothers paying rent on his apartment. He could easily live here.

Ellis slides his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, growing a little tense. “So…are you two…”

“What?”

Ellis clears his throat. “Like, a couple?”

A beat passes, then another. Gabe staggers back a step. “Oh my god. Eww. Eww! No way! God.” A shiver wrecks his body, and not a good kind. The yucky kind.