Laura (homeandhearth) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-16 18:11:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | jane foster, marian |
Who: Laura and Gabe
What: Another date/drinks
Where: Local Irish pub -> Gabe's new house
When: Now-ish?
Warnings/Rating: Laura rants about her past a little and her boss, they retire to Gabe's. Offscreen, implied stuffs. (I've been waiting forever to use this icon.)
On a Friday night, though Laura thought it was poor planning on the owner’s part, the flower shop closed at 5pm. The lights were shut off, the doors were locked, and though Laura had been there by herself most of the day, running the place, the owner came in to oversee the end of the day deposit. The few times that Laura had tried to help, the owner had snatched everything away from her, shooing her away like a child that had no business trying to understand money or business. Never mind the fact that the books were fucked six ways from Sunday, that the business might not last much past a year if changes weren’t made, and that Laura knew she could start turning a higher profit in the shop in a matter of weeks. But no, the owner wouldn’t listen to any of that, and so Laura closed up the rest of the shop while the other woman screwed over her own accounting in the back office.
So by the time everything was shut down and locked up, it was 6:10 on the clock, and Laura was caught between rushing home to change and back out again, or going directly to the bar. Pub. Whatever it was considered. Guinness called, so she brushed her hair (tempted to pull it back in a ponytail, but that was too much invitation for staring at scars and asking questions), and went to the bar right away. Ignoring how she smelled of flowers and leaves and how a few of her fingertips were the sort of green that a simple washing wouldn’t get rid of. Not without a nailbrush scrub and a decent soap. So she left it. She knew she should put more effort into it. She knew it in a part of herself that fed her an image of a willowy brunette, everything about her so proper. But she wanted a drink more than she wanted to run home and possibly return late. So by the time seven o’clock rolled around, she was tucked into a seat with the dregs of one pint on the table, another full with the spill of its head puddling on the table, and a plate of nachos that only had a small dent made in it.
Possibly what she needed more than a date was a night of drinking with Max, but she wasn’t going to cancel now, not when it had taken her as much difficulty to get to a second date in the first place.
Gabriel had no boss problems or worries; when Bo was in the office, he was good humor and easy jokes and when he was not, the office ticked over fine without him. HQ now installed, the place was tidier, cleaner and rolling on oiled castors and the ongoing, quiet spat between Main and HQ was entertaining enough a distraction as there was any. Any ill humor was reserved purely for having turned up Monday with the hired car to collect his children and the maid (when she answered, taking long enough to respond to the lean on the bell that he’d worried the lot of them had closed down and shipped out) telling him Eloise had gone and decided, after all, to take the children - his children - with her. Work was easy respite, was well-known pool to dive into and if the house was still cleaner, blander, a little too white around the edges than he’d expected it to be after a week of would-be sticky hands and candy bars and indulging two big-eyed children who didn’t get much indulgence otherwise, then the office was more inviting than it had been and the coffee was kept stocked.
He looked tired in the week-end kind of way when he made progress into the bar, shouldering up against the loosely-knotted crowd clustering close to the bartender and service. He was obvious, the way people spread themselves out to avoid getting too far into his path and it gave him time enough to adjust gait, to hold head up and make the cane disappear in as much as he could. He was broad shoulders in clean white shirt, the collar loose at his throat and a clean-scrubbed, newly-shaved look to him and an easy sort of smile from across the room when searching eyes lit on her. When he came across, it was with a glass of beer in one hand and the pint came down on the table before he angled himself into the chair next to hers, the warm press of his thigh up against hers.
“You got started without me, Blossom?” Would-be amazement and laughter coloring low-deep voice and he leaned over easy as anything to kiss her cheek in greeting, a whisker of lips on skin.
It was hard to not notice the man crossing the room, the way a path opened for him without him having to do much more than simply be there. She watched him on his way toward her, and returned his own smile with a soft one of her own. She could read the hint of the end-of-the-week tiredness, the way it hung around the eyes, but chose to ignore it in favor of looking at the wide shoulders, clean shirt, smooth face. Her own smile shifted into something slightly warmer, and the empty glass could likely be thanked for some of that ease. Also for the way she didn’t pull away from him, didn’t even battle tension taught shoulders.
She actually leaned into the kissed greeting, tipping her cheek toward him while her body was momentarily pressed to his. The bar was dim enough that the flush to her cheeks was subtle, and she ignored it. “It was a long day,” she replied once he was settled in his seat. “You need to catch up and be glad I didn’t stand you up in favor of drinking with Max.” Her words were serious, but they were softened with a smile and (using the glass she’d just picked up) a gesture to his own beer.
Had he expected otherwise, were Gabe looking for the tell-tale glimpse of taut corners of the eyes, for the tension held around the mouth that would indicate unsettlement and finding it absent, was all pleased surprise -- none of it, if it were so, was evident. His shoulder bumped against hers, the graze of his cheek brought with it the scent of bergamot and soap and clean cotton, and he leaned the cane against the edge of the table in the seemingly comfortable expectation of going nowhere. “Max is no good to drink with,” Gabriel said with the clear ease of someone sprawling out and making themselves comfortable, and he tipped the empty glass to the left, examining its dregs. “She’d have you under the table, Blossom.” A grin.
The beer was warmly welcomed, flavorful and Gabriel took a mouthful that was measured; the restraint of a man who was set to enjoy the evening but not one to overly drink. He was relaxed shoulders and keen eyes and he looked at the green-rimmed fingernails of her hand, picked up her palm to examine them more closely, “Tell me about this day of yours.”
With the beer (now -and-a-half) under her belt, Laura was content enough, loose enough, to sit next to Gabe and simply enjoy having him there. He smelled good (like he’d just put on a new shirt or taken a shower within the last hour) and he was solid, not moving, enough of a barrier to protect that side of her body so that she only had to focus on unknown approaches from the other. Not that she expected any. “I’ve gone out drinking with Max more than once. I can usually keep up right until the end.” She smiled and took another drink before setting her (now half-empty) glass down on the table back into the small puddle of condensation and spilled beer.
Once the glass was settled, she rested her hands close together, fingers nearly intertwining, and blinked a few times when she realized that her hand was moving again, held in something firm and warm. She looked down, watched as Gabe’s hand held her, watched him look at her palm, her own fingers relaxed enough to curl in on themselves for a moment before she consciously spread them back out again. “It was long,” she replied, voice just loud enough for the space between them. “And trying.” An eyeroll, accompanied by a forced twist of a smile. “My boss doesn’t trust me. It makes things complicated.”
Gabriel was used to being trusted. It was an easy thing, without expectation or trouble when you knew how to talk to people, when you knew what to to put them at rest. It was an art, acquiring trust and one he had practiced and polished over twenty years until the woman who took an order from him at a table trusted him as much as his own wife (or more, given Eloise’s suspicions throughout the marriage). “It’s done,” he said now, with another swallow of his beer, and he looked at the drop in the glass just long enough to make an assessment, one all eyes and vague smile and he didn’t leave go her palm after inspecting all that green. “Why doesn’t your boss trust you?” He thought perhaps, it might be something to do with the neat way Laura hid herself in plain sight, the quicksilver way she had of twisting herself up over something innocuous.
When Gabe didn’t drop her hand, Laura’s fingers went loose and curled again, folding over into a relaxed little cup. Her expression stayed loose as well, the smallest hint of that wry smile tucking itself into the corner of her mouth. “Because she’s awful?” It was accompanied by another lean, her shoulder nudging against his. Her smile faded for a second as she shook her head, frowning with a sigh. “She just... made her mind up about me a while back, when she hired me, and nothing I do is going to change that for the better.” The beer made her tongue share more than it might otherwise, and she snagged a few nachos before washing them down with another drink.
“What has she decided?” Gabriel was mild inquiry and elbows on the table, he sprawled with the careless, happy disregard for space and for boundaries that assumed upon her relaxed, warm palm and stretched it further. The table was small enough that his elbows nudged near enough the glasses; Gabe’s hand was careless-close around hers, the beer traveling several times from table-top to his lips before it became a pleasant hum beneath his skin. “You tried correcting her?” Eyebrow upward. It could have been a chat over the dinner table, Phee complaining over schoolyard bullies and feminine mysteries; he had never quite understood why women were the way they were, subtle slights favored over old-fashioned fists. (He’d never been convinced Phee should not be articulate in both, had taught her across an afternoon and woken up bruised the next morning and cheerful about it.)
“Or you could move on.” The green beneath her fingernails said she worked hard; there were plenty of places in Vegas that sold flowers, plenty of places that needed help to put together bouquets to say ‘I’m sorry’, ‘I love you’, ‘I forgot’ for the romances that ticked on around the casinos and the clubs. Laura was calm, an easy, feminine weight against his side and Gabriel fitted his arm around her shoulders, solid weight apparently abandoned there as he rifled her chips. “Opportunities out there, Blossom.”
Laura considered Gabe’s questions from under the warmth of his arm, sighing at herself once she realized that she was leaning into it instead of away. She continued to drink her beer, quiet and thoughtful while it slowly disappeared. When it was near the bottom of her glass again (but not quite gone), she sighed and shook her head. “I’m not nearly drunk enough to be talking about this,” she said, making a face at herself. “And I’m also not drunk enough to be snuggling with a man in public.” Though that, at least, didn’t change, and she stayed tucked under his arm.
“The thing with people that tell someone to move on is that most of the times they don’t get what it takes to actually move on from something. And how sometimes there’s things coming from other people that you can’t move on from.” Too many words, too much information, but she shifted herself in her seat, sitting up straighter and turning towards Gabe, his arm falling away but her leg overlapping his as she tucked her knee up. She rested her one elbow on the table as she looked at him. “She thinks she’s a great person for doing me the favor of hiring me. Especially since so many other people didn’t and don’t want to. But she never lets me forget that fact, when all I want to do is make decent flower arrangements and not worry about her or her fucking high-handed moral opinions and her ‘helpful’ advice.” Her eyes were frank on his, a grey blue even in the low light of the bar, and with a heat behind them that she usually didn’t let out - the sort of passion a younger woman might have had.
Gabriel watched her, all visible calm and thoughtful brown eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched, just enough to indicate some mirth at the vim with which she spoke. Gabriel did not often exhibit passion, smoothed over and whited out by consideration. As Laura grew angry, she lit up, tempest in small teacup and more words than he’d heard her string together at once - she was pretty usually but as she sparked she was vivid, striking, attention turned from a couple of men at the pool-table nearby - Gabriel noted it with a comfortable ambivalence to any token attention sent her way. He leaned in rather than leaning out, elbows both on the table and watching her with the interest of someone learning material in a book laid out for perusal.
“What do you mean, moral?” Gabriel was creased brow, consternation - there was little to Laura that was not outwardly wholesome or shy neither of which predisposed toward a lack of morality. “Helpful?” The eyebrows slid upward; he seemed entirely comfortable talking even as his beer slid down toward half-way point. “She do much in the way of helping others usually?”
Laura didn’t notice the attention of the other men, and likely would have brushed it aside or been uncomfortable with it, if she had. But she was focused on Gabe and their conversation, the way she was alright with some of the things she was letting slip. Gabe’s lean in was simply accepted as the interest of a friend in the moment, someone that was interested in nothing more than what she was saying. Even though she was aware of her own buried (for the moment) attraction, it wasn’t on the front burner as she was talking about her boss and her own past.
“She goes to church. Which is great, whatever, but she thinks that means she’s better than everyone else. She thinks that because I have to check one fucking little box on an application, it means that she’s so much better and benevolent because she deigned to “give me a chance”. Like she’s some divine savior for giving me a shitty part time job. But of course it means that she needs to guard every fucking little penny her shop brings in, and god forbid she listen to someone who had not one but two successful florist shops with client lists as long as my fucking arm. She’s running herself into the ground and she doesn’t even see it because she’s too busy telling me that there are still men out there that might be able to overlook the past and the scars and that I’m “still pretty enough” to catch one.” Laura leaned back, finally realizing that she was leaning in and practically hissing at Gabe. She reached for her glass, surprised to find it empty, and set it back on the table with a frown.
Gabriel had attended church but the once; he was not suited to sitting in pews, to listening to talk of Gods that judged and saw and thought and forgave when the stain on hands was dredged in and neither acknowledged nor actively avoided but rather sought out again and again, line of duty and orders from above. He associated religion strongly with the kind of his past in-laws, church was a quiet, damp sort of place where no one raised their voice strongly enough to make out words from hymns and the censure weak as tea. The vitriol did not move him to lean back nor did it stir elbows from the table, but he looked at the empty glass sitting in its circle of condensation on battle-scarred wood and his face shaped something like amusement.
“You want another? Or you want to get the rest of it off your chest first?” Gabriel said not one word of boxes or checks, of likely causes and reasons behind their necessity. There was a great deal that could be said but he was mellow smile and mild brown eyes and one hand folded over hers like dragging anchor and no change at all, calm-at-sea rather than gathered clouds and confusion.
His question made her blink, rerun everything she’d just blurted out in her mind, and she very quickly paled and then flushed again, the alcohol doing its very best to bring up the color to her cheeks. “Fuck,” she whispered, and folded forward to thud her forehead against the solid curve of his shoulder. Her words were delivered directly to the fabric of his shirt. “Didn’t mean to dump all that on you. Can we just... ignore that?” She would gladly ignore it. Especially in favor of noticing how good he smelled, close-up.
Gabriel laughed, all whiskey-warm good humor and the relaxed slant of shoulders that was beer spreading warm and curling around painkillers to smooth out the rough edges of the day. She was warm weight spreading through thin cotton sleeve and his hand curved briefly, lightly over the back of her head, over smooth-as-silk blond hair like a benediction given, and his fingers curled and retracted, single moment flickered like a blown-out candle. “I think,” and his voice was slow, thoughtful drawl, the Chicago in the very back of it seeping out, like water over silk, “That it needed dumping, Blossom.” His index finger, broad and blunt and squared nail, slid beneath her chin, gentle-strong and lifted it just a little - her breath through cotton was damp-heat, the twitch of his skin like pleasant pin-pricks. “Consider it ignored,” he told her, voice unfurling fondness, back-of-throat thick.
“You want another drink, or you making friends with my shirt, right around now?” A press of fingerpads at her cheek, again, brief - before retreat.
The touch was a balm, something that was neither too heavy (that would set off all sorts of alarms), nor too light, and with the alcohol hitting her system and the sudden purge of things that maybe shouldn’t have been said, the moment (just a moment) was calm. She breathed out again, not realizing the pin-prick effect it was having on Gabe’s skin. She remembered though, his finger under her chin, the warmth of sitting close, she remembered how this was supposed to work now. And though he’d had to read that letter, she hoped (just for a bit) that he could ignore it.
“Your shirt is nice,” she murmured. “But no...” And if maybe she wasn’t yet quite bold enough to follow through on what she actually wanted, she was bold enough to lean in that last small distance and press her lips to the very corner of his mouth. It was off-center and closed off, but it was warm and lingered for a moment. When she pulled back again, it took her a few seconds to whisper: “Drink might be nice. I can still remember my own name...” And while there was maybe a hint of seriousness to that, she smiled to soften it.
The letter - impersonality of typed letters on blank-white screen, the clear-sterility of auto-correct applied to drunken tidal-wave of words -- it was very far away from Gabriel sat at pub-table with too-long legs crammed beneath. The letter was before, before spoilt-pouting princess of a fairy-tale, before the tart sharpness of weak tea and lemons that was Eloise’s ill-humor and the whited-out quiet of a house empty of expected children. No, Gabriel was not thinking of the letter as she leaned in close, the green-fresh smell of plants beneath the wheat-warm scent of beer and beneath that, something faded-floral like soap or shampoo. His hand slid along her jaw, easy-strong and if there was any surprise at all that Laura acted as she did, was small demand in the press of lips against his mouth, it was all undemanding return. And then his face - relaxed, contemplative, the kind of worn-in lines of a life lived - displayed consternation as she withdrew.
“I’m not in the habit of taking out women looking to forget,” Gabriel said, mild as could be, all possible rebuke faded down to nothing. Gabriel did not take out women as a general habit; the out had dwindled as marriage had stretched itself to comfort in silences, in the forgetful weight of being sidle-close in an evening on the couch, in reading aloud and then silently. “Is that what you’re looking for, Laura?” Her name was a soft-thing, quiet-couched in a pub slowly filling out with people, with the buzz of noise. He was angled spine and a twist of shoulders and the flick of wrist and those fingers against her cheekbone - and then a kiss that wasn’t light nor closed-off at all, even if it was brief.
The way he held her, touched her - both strong and gentle with the same rough wide fingers - made something in her sit up and take notice at the same time that it eased something within her. It was the way she wanted to be treated, and that - that more than anything else - was what drew her to him. It was only an added bonus that she liked his face, his voice, his smile and sense of humor, the way the bulk of him took up too much unapologetic space.
And the kiss. She was certain he had more kisses than simply the few she’d experienced, but those were, for the moment, quite enough in themselves. After the brief one he snuck on her, the one that chased away the things she’d been about to say about drinking to forget, she found that her fingers had hooked themselves around his shirt, in the space between one button and the next, just over his chest. Her name on his lips made her shiver, in the soft subtle way it tended to do, a sparkle of feeling inching up the back of her neck. And still close, she whispered. “If you want me to keep remembering things, you’ll have to stop doing that.” It came with a smile, a soft tease that had once been second nature but now only came when she had the warmth of a drink or two under her belt.
A laugh - and if the broad sense of him was wicked refusal to apologize for shoulders, for the absorption of space, consumption of air, was old dog’s steadfast stance on new tricks, then that laugh was smoky-blue, was attention gathered up in both vast hands and drawn close and ignored self-same as his own turned spot-lit onto Laura. She was breathed-out words as insubstantial as spiderweb, the cool slide of fingernails over wiry hair beneath the shirt and Gabriel lowered his head just enough to look at her as direct as laughter itself, all male certainty and the old-faded sense of self shaken out and stirred from back of mind. There was nothing of the agent, of the serious grey-suited man in so much defined masculinity, and his fingertip traced the jawline with calloused, blunt pad and stopped at the corner of her mouth.
“You want that drink here or you want to come see the house?” Invitation laid down alongside sticky-beer mats and empty glasses, and the heel of his hand was heavy against her neck, the warm timbre of her pulse beneath his lifeline. The house - clean-white and empty, and bare in the way of men who weren’t sure of how to build out roots, to wrap flesh around the skeleton bones of an existence all empty bookshelves and the broad kind of couch purchased for comfort rather than elegance. He was nearly at empty-glass and the low hum of painkillers beneath that and Gabriel spoke with the knowing that belied a man who had not asked in a decade.
His attention on her, so close and so unwavering, brought that flush to her cheeks again, but it also lodged the depth of a smirk in the corner of her lips. One that said she did remember how to play this game. Even if it had been too long since she’d played it, and she wasn’t quite as steady and dependable in the game’s moves any more. But she realized that her fingers had found their way into, under his shirt, and with a quick uncurling, one of them pressed to solid skin. It stayed there, a fingerprint press for a moment before she slowly pulled it away, retrieved her hand from his shirt.
“I didn’t know you had a house,” she replied, blue eyes darker and bluer than they tended to be outside of a bar and a few beers. “I thought maybe you were just a nomad.” And though it was a tease, it also made sense. She’d caught him at work more than once, at the diner, at the flower shop, at the movies. He hadn’t mentioned a house before, that was for certain. And now that he had, and in that way, who was she to turn him down. “...I think I might like to see it.”
The unfolding from the table was a slow, patient sort of thing, no young man’s haste in the loose extension of limbs from underneath cramped round-top. Gabriel gathered cane into his right hand and the weight transferred from table’s edge to chair’s back to cane was a process as slow as it was now methodically routine. And once he was up, it was palm held out, a gesture all learned good manners, and Gabriel said nothing of fingertips that grazed skin suddenly thin over heartbeat’s pace, or of quickened pulse, all blond waves and blue eyes gone deep-dark to make it so.
“It’s new,” he said, cheerful-easy and he transferred her hand to the crook of his arm, folded fingers over the crease of cotton there, “I was a nomad.” Nothing further, nothing that explained it, just a palming of keys and a nod toward the bar, “Got room for the kids, a living room with nothing in it and a garden out back.” A smile, long and slow in her direction; Laura, Gabriel guessed, was one for gardens.
She watched as he stood, waiting for each shift of weight and steadying of balance. There was no sign of impatience as she watched, familiar with the sort of time it took to accommodate a physical weakness. She was in no hurry, would move at the same pace he did, and when he finally was steady enough to hold out his hand, she slipped hers into it with a smile, laughing softly when it was transferred to his arm like they were old-fashioned. Her fingers pet at the fabric once, twice, measuring the softness of it before they stilled.
Maybe it was predictable of her, but the mention of a garden caught her attention, and she focused more on his description. There didn’t seem to be much to the description though, sounding almost as boring as the small apartment she’d stayed in when Max kicked her out of the townhouse. But a garden... she’d never had her own garden, though she’d worked in a few other people’s from time to time. She walked slowly next to Gabe, doing her best to not over-balance him, and her eyes sparked with interest. “Tell me about the garden. What’s it like?”
So he told her.
He told her of the vines that had crawled the wooden fence that enclosed the garden, painted the light the soft, hazy color of deep water over grass. He told her of the smell of parched leaves, of things determined to grow despite abandonment. The cab was low-slung and the suspension had gone probably half a dozen years prior, and it smelled strongly of its driver and of onions but he wrapped her hand in his and looked out at so much concrete-neon and spoke of the overgrowth, the strangled-jungle of a backyard given over to growing, fighting desert heat. And when they pulled up outside the white-stuccoed house, not the vastness of Summerlin’s heights but on a street with spreading trees, the kind of place that suited the tumult of kids even in the quiet of an evening, and he opened the door onto a hallway silent and wheat-colored, Gabriel said nothing at all, but walked through a startlingly tidy kitchen to the back door, and swung open the door on the garden itself. It was small, a thing all would-be stretch of growth, tinged yellow by sunshine and lack of water, but it was there.
“It’s not much,” Gabriel said and it could have been the garden or the bland-painted walls, the kitchen an echo of stainless steel and clean-wiped surfaces. There was no imprint of the man on the place but the overlarge couch in the room they’d passed through and even that only served to underscore how little there was to the place of him.
For the entire cab ride, Laura kept her eyes on him, listening to the descriptions of the garden, the back-yard that could be perfect for quiet nights, noisy kids, maybe a dog. She had the picture of it in her mind before they even reached the house, and she found that the reality was very close to the expectation. It was the skeleton of a home, not just a house, and she could see where he would fit into it. If he ever made it more than the blank slate that it was. Paint and plants, wasn’t that what had made her own temporary apartment liveable? The same could do wonders for his new home.
And the garden. She stood looking at it when the door was opened for her, and even through the lingering buzz of hop-filled alcohol, she could feel her fingers itch with the desire to plant. The feeling sparked a familiarity that wasn’t hers, the thought of where to put plants and if maybe a kitchen garden would be something he would want. She didn’t even know if he cooked. “Shut up, ‘it’s not much’,” she finally replied after making a slow circuit of the outdoor space. “It’s amazing. And if you don’t know it, then you’re an idiot.” She glanced over at him once, a wide smile firmly on her face, one born of comfort and contentment. “It needs life. Color. But you’ll get there.”
He had picked out a house the way Gabriel did many things; without much thought, with a great deal of impatience for the personal demands of the task and with a vague back-of-mind thought to the connections between things. He had thought ambiguously of dogs and of children, of wide white walls and vague things that ought be on them but he had nothing concrete, nothing but a wedding band locked in a drawer and a handful of photos, much creased from a wallet, propped carefully against the lamp on the nightstand. He was broad shoulders in the doorway, the spill of light from the kitchen a silver crescent on the concrete step and a smile that creased his eyes as he watched Laura, certain of elements and jigsaw pieces slotting home. “It’ll get there. I’m in no rush.” And whether that was statement born of comfortable familiarity with the space, with the certainty of feet planted solidly on American soil and the abandonment of a life that was shadow and grease and oil and the smell of gunfire or simply the promise of the cane leaned against the counter, Gabriel was solid lines and steadfast gaze watching the circumlocation around the dead space determined to grow.
“Glad you approve.”
Laura ended her loop of the yard back near Gabe, looking up at the doorway and how, outlined in it, he seemed even more solid, more belonging in the space. It, for just a moment, made her mouth go dry and cry out for another drink, but she swallowed hard, suddenly tentative to be in this man’s private space. And so she fell back on the professional. “You’ll want a decent landscaper. Someone that knows to put the hardy stuff in the sun and where you need irrigation. But there’s enough space here that you can have a really nice outdoor space. Even have some flowers to add color.” She took another glance over her shoulder at the yard. “It’s a nice space.”
There was something of paperwork, of filing and charts and HQ’s own quiet dignity in the rattle of words Gabe knew but in a context he did not. He thought of telling her of the book he’d bought, someone equally serious and earnest behind the counter with a tattoo of something growing, winding around her arm. He thought of mentioning top-soil, to see if she’d react (Gabriel did not know what top-soil was exactly, but he knew it was a technicality, and he knew that when Laura spoke, there was something in blue eyes that glinted alive, despite the dark, despite the cool dimness of the desert night).
“It’s a nice space,” he agreed, with the patience of amusement licking at the back of the words, the amiability of something else beneath them. And she was close enough - just close enough, that he was fingers fastened around her wrist and the gentle-generous tug of forward, the garden at her back and his interest in green things and in flowers, dying down to the woman who stood in front of them. “But I’m not gardening. Now.”
She was far enough removed from the drinks at the bar, head cleared by the perusal of the yard, that there was an edge of tension to her shoulders when he grabbed her wrist, but his hold was careful, something aware that she could repeat putting him down on the ground again if she needed to. But she wasn’t near that - a little wariness was all - and so she stepped forward to join him in the doorway. “Aren’t you?” was her reply, delivered with a soft smile that was, though still cautious, at least a bit more confident than it would have been even just a few weeks ago. And she knew, with a memory that hearkened back to years-past dates and getting to know someone, that stepping back into his house, still bland though it was, would lead them to more than simply sitting in his living room discussing his landscaping options.
She stepped in, going up onto her toes until her heels no longer touched the floor, careful not to lean on him too much and overbalance him, and kissed him. Soft, lingering, edged with a smile. And when she set her weight back on her heels, she was still smiling and her voice had gone quiet and promising. “Show me the rest of your house, Gabe.”