“You arebeyondridiculous. Do not buy meanyof those things, you hear me?”
“I’m just going to have to do other things to make my home more appealing so you won’t ever want to leave.”
“You realize that theonlything I care about that’s in the home is you, right? I don’t need a fancy kitchen or four gigantic bedrooms or a massive tub that looks really nice. I just need you.”
“You probably could have told me that before I bought all of that stuff,” I tease.
He laughs. “Weirdly, I didn’t think I had to.”
“Gabriel, I’m an easily confused man. You look at something and I assume you want to own it.”
“I look at a lot of things in a day. You can’t possibly buy them all for me.”
“I could try,” I assure him.
Gabriel swings his arms around my neck, hooking me and pulling me in. “You wild man, there’s never going to be a boring day if you’re in it, is there?”
“That’s my plan.”
My phone beeps, and I look down at it to see that Matthew has messaged me a URL.
Me: I’m assuming this is a virus or a link to your failed OnlyFans and refuse to click on it.
Matthew: Fucking hell, I just spent fifteen minutes looking up shit for you to do so you don’t scare Gabriel away because you’ve only become tolerable because of him. We’re all fearful he’s going to leave you if you tell him you bought him a goddamn house. It’s a cat café. Trust me, it’ll go over significantly better than a house. Abort the house thing. Abort.
Me: Well, joke’s on you, he loved the house.
Matthew: Oh, that poor man. That poor, poor man.
“Please block Matthew from ever messaging you,” I say as I decide I’ll block him after I check out this… cat café. It looks absolutely stupid. How the hell could it be better than ahouse?
“Why? Was he showering you with too much kindness?” Gabriel teases.
“Definitely. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going now?”
“This was just an appetizer.”
Gabriel stares at me, and it’s quite a hard expression to read. “The… appetizer… was a house… oh noooooo. I think I have… a dentist appointment… sooo sad.”
“On a Sunday?”
“Yeah… Like… you know. Teeth.”
“Teeth?”
“Yep. Teeth.”
I drag him and his cat out, and after dropping Lucy Fur off at his house, I head toward the main event.
“I mean… after awholehouse, I feel like anything less than like… a private island is going to feel disappointing,” Gabriel says withmuchsarcasm.
“Don’t tempt me,” I warn him as I pull into the shopping center and park the car.
“Oh no… did you buy me the whole shopping center? Liam… it’s really too much. Did you put my name on the deed so if something happens to you it’s all mine?”
“I’m going to put your name on the deed of that diner and make it your problem if you don’t straighten up,” I say.
