Page 58 of Coming Home to Wishington Bay
‘Um-hmm!’ I nodded brightly, holding his gaze for the nanosecond I thought I could get away with. ‘Just girl talk, you know.’
‘Oh, I’m so looking forward to some of that too!’ Martha laughed from the other side of the table. ‘I don’t really get much of that these days. I think Nate – that’s my other son, as you know – had hopes for that when he met and married his wife, but we’ve never really had that sort of relationship.’
I didn’t know that but it was a good nugget of information to store away for the rest of the evening.
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ Knowing that this lady had lost her little girl, I could see that having gained a daughter-in-law might have given her hopes for that female connection again, but it obviously wasn’t to be.
‘How is he?’ Gabe asked, stabbing at an olive with a toothpick.
‘He’s … Nate. You know.’ His mum shrugged.
Gabe nodded. ‘I’ve called a few times but he’s either been working or she’s obviously been there so it’s not been easy to find out much.’
‘They’re basically trying again, but if I’m honest, I don’t think either of their hearts are in it.’
‘They split up, then?’ I asked, unable to stop myself. ‘I’m sorry. That’s really none of my business. I didn’t mean …’
‘Don’t be silly, love. I’m surprised Gabe hasn’t told you more, to be honest.’
‘He’s … umm … he’s told me a bit, you know. But like he says, he hasn’t been able to get to chat to him lately so it was hard to say too much.’
‘Exactly,’ Gabe added, his eyes sliding to mine in a brief thank you.
* * *
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully, and actually very pleasantly. Once I relaxed about things, helped in no small amount by the fizz, I started enjoying myself. And I mean, like really enjoying myself, more than I had in a very long time. Gabe was not only very pretty to look at, he was also funny and warm and it was easy to see as we all sat at the table, eating good food and drinking good wine, just how much he adored his family.
The charade that he and my mischievous grandmother had cooked up made perfect sense to me now. Before I’d thought that perhaps it was just a little of Gabe’s homesickness mixed with a lot of Gigi’s love of the dramatic. But now, sat here, watching the last moments of the sun sizzling into the wide expanse of ocean outside the window, I could see it was a lot more than that.
Gigi had loved this man as much as Ned and I, and like us, she’d wanted to do whatever she could to help him when she saw he was hurting. Obviously even Gigi couldn’t have imagined this turn of events, but I knew she would be looking down on us all now and absolutely loving this new twist in her plot.
‘What are you smiling at?’ Gabe asked, as we stood waiting for his parents who had stopped to have another quick natter with Ned and were also chatting to Carrie who had now joined him. Ordinarily I’d be stressed about this, wondering what clanger might get dropped, but for some reason – a lot of it alcoholic and the rest the nearness of Gabe – I’d decided I could cope. Carrie had been using the baby-brain excuse for months, so I’d decided I could just appropriate that if needs be on her part, and if the faux pas came via Ned, I planned to just roll my eyes at Martha, tut, and say, ‘Men, they never listen,’ in a knowing way and hope that would cover all the bases, with Gabe taking up any slack that was left.
‘I’m not allowed to smile?’ I asked, tilting my head to look up at him, despite the heels. ‘Are there any more of your boyfriend rules I should know about so that I can ignore those too?’ I grinned, vaguely aware that I might have been swaying a little.
Gabe’s arm moved, his hand now resting lightly on my waist and the motion ceased. ‘Of course you’re allowed to smile. Honestly, I wish you’d do it more. It’s very beautiful. And no, no rules. Although, as you say, and if you’re anything like your grandmother, you’d only break them anyway.’
‘Rules are for wimps!’ I said, prodding him in the chest before looking up again. ‘Do I really have a beautiful smile?’ My voice was a whisper now, my face close to his as his arm tightened a little more around me.
‘You really do. I always thought you were pretty in your pictures, but when I saw you in real life? Beautiful,’ he repeated.
I pulled back a little, scrunching my face. ‘The first time you saw me in real life was when I was cross with you.’
‘Briefly surprised and then cross, I think, if we’re going to be pedantic.’
I clapped my hand over my mouth. ‘And in my underwear. Oh God. I’d forgotten that bit.’
‘I so haven’t forgotten that bit.’ He grinned, his teeth showing white in the low light, all neat lines and even. My mind began floating off, wondering if that was genetics or orthodontics, but his comment brought me back to the moment.
‘Then you should!’ I whispered, wide-eyed.
‘Umm …’ He made a play of thinking about it. ‘I’m going to go with nope.’
‘I knew you were a perv the moment I saw you on that ladder.’
His laugh made me smile, maybe a bit too much. I saw the others glance over at us, his parents smiling, and my relatives smiling but with a little more bemusement. Behind Martha’s back, Carrie raised an eyebrow at us.
‘You see that, right?’
