Page 46 of Philly
“And root beer,” he said.
Her eyes widened, and she grimaced. “I haven’t had either of those in years.”
“Then lucky for you that I’m your partner in crime. I make epic road trip snack packs.”
She rose to accompany him out. “Add something healthy?”
“Cheez-Its? They have cheese.”
“Fruit? Or nuts?”
“Excellent idea, Fruit Roll-Ups and chocolate-covered peanuts.”
“Gabe.”
“I’ve got us covered. Trust me,” he said with a grin as they pushed out the main door.
She eyed him, then huffed a small laugh. “I do,” she said quietly. “I actually do.”
26
“Have you ever been to this part of the country?” Callie asked Gabriel. They’d left the desert of Nevada behind and were entering the red buttes, mesas, and canyons of southern Utah.
Gabriel popped a stack of chips into his mouth and shook his head. Despite what he said, he’d packed plain roasted almonds, and she dipped her fingers into the container tucked into a cup holder and grabbed a few. They went well with the root beer he’d snagged for her at the airport.
“We trained in Arizona once, but not Utah,” he said.
“Did you work with all the Falcons while you were in the service?”
“No, I was on the same team as Monk and Viper. I worked with the others on and off, depending on the op, so I knew them. But Monk and Viper were the ones who invited me to join the Falcons when I discharged.”
“You’re not one of the founders?” She’d assumed he had been, given how close he was to the other members.
He shook his head. “Mantis, Stone, Monk, Viper, North, and Dulcie are the original six. The rest of us came along after.Although not much after, for me. I moved to Mystery Lake about six months after they settled in.”
She hesitated, a question she’d been wanting to ask hovering on her tongue. She had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to like the answer, but some deep instinct urged her to bring it up. “Someone mentioned you got your handle because you talked about Philly—the city—so often while deployed. It was the closest big city to where we lived, but I don’t ever remember you even going there when we were growing up.”
He took a sip of his soda and turned his face to the window. A mile ticked by before he answered.
“I went to the city every Thursday through Sunday night from the time I was fifteen,” he replied.
She whipped her head around and gaped. “I saw you at parties on weekends. You couldn’t have been in two places at once.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t. But I worked at a restaurant busing tables, helping in the kitchen, that sort of thing. I worked from five until ten four nights a week. If you cast your mind back, you’ll remember that I never arrived before eleven. Keep your eyes on the road, Calypso.”
A hundred questions popped into her head as she turned her attention back to the ribbon of asphalt. How had she not known? Why hadn’t he told her? Why had he kept it a secret? And what did that have to do with his handle?
He chuckled beside her. “I can hear your thoughts spinning.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m curious, but it’s none of my business if you don’t want to tell me.”
He lifted a shoulder again. “I needed money to make sure that Matthew and I had the basics, like decent clothes and food. I couldn’t work in town because my dad would hear of it and demand the money. I even had my bank statements and tax information sent to your grandparents—they understoodwithout me explaining that it wouldn’t be good if my dad found them. I also arranged my schedule to make it seem like I could be out with friends or partying so he wouldn’t get suspicious. And the owners of the restaurant were very understanding. I think one of them came from the kind of situation I grew up in and knew the score.”
“I had no idea,” she said, a wholly inadequate statement. Her childhood had been shitty, too, but she’d never worried about food or clothes. Well, not in the same way.
“No one did. Except Matthew and your grandparents. It was safer that way.”
The image of Gabriel as a young man figuring it all out himself—how to eat, how to care for his brother, how to keep them safe—tore through her. She wished she could go back and protect that remarkable young boy. And tell him what kind of man he’d grow into, how he’d have people who loved and respected him, how he’d have a home that was safe andhis. It wouldn’t change his circumstances, but it might ease some of the uncertainty in which he lived.
