I stood, and he handed me the bag. “Not a junk drawer. More like a survival kit. You know, in case the apocalypse comes. Yeah, you’ll wish I was in the vicinity when that fucker hits.”
Out in the lobby, we were nearly plowed down by two high school girls with enthusiasm shooting out of their eye sockets.
“Gabe Wolkowski! I’m Zakari, and this is my sister Anna.”
I bit my cheeks to conceal my laughter at the love-struck girls.
Anna beamed. “Today is my birthday, and now we run into you!”
Zakari grabbed Anna’s hand. “You’re our favorite hockey player in the world.”
Gabe nodded. “Well, thank you. And happy birthday, Anna.”
Anna let out a squeal. “You said my name!”
Gabe chuckled as Zakari grabbed her phone from her jean pocket. “Can we get a picture with you?”
“Of course.”
Anna looked over at me. “Will you take the picture?”
“I’d love to.” I put my junk drawer on the floor as the girls scooted closer to Gabe.
“I can’t believe this!” Zakari was literally glowing.
I was just about to snap the photo and stopped. “You know, why doesn’t the birthday girl jump in Gabe’s arms, and Zakari, you hop on his back? I’m sure that would make one hell of an impact on social media, huh?”
The girls’ jaws hit the floor as Anna waved her hands in the air. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
I winked. “Do it, girl! It’s your birthday.”
Anna looked up as Gabe scooped her into his arms while her face turned bright pink. He looked at Zakari. “Grab my shoulders and hop on.”
Both girls screamed with laughter as I snapped away. After a minute, they were both back on the floor.
Anna pointed to me. “If you have your phone, I can take a picture of you two.”
I waved my hand in the air. “It’s okay.”
Gabe walked over, slid my phone out of my coat pocket, and handed it over. While I felt silly, it was making me happier than an order of French fries with a stray onion ring to know he’d be in my camera roll.
After driving through White Castle on Robert Street and stuffing ourselves with delectable gut bombs, we rolled to a stop in front of my parent’s house. It was the end of the evening. Would he kiss me? I mean, we were kind of on a date. Or a friend outing? Gulp. I’d been shagged and bagged at the cabin, but for some reason, the thought of his lips on mine sent ginormous butterflies the size of hawks to my tummy.
Nerves hit the stage, causing me to hop out of the car at an unreasonable speed, resulting in me falling to my knees in the snow before I hopped up and looked back into the truck. “This has been nice. Thank you.”
He shook his head at me. “No.”
“No?”
He got out of the car and walked around to me. “I will walk Fern Ethel to the door to ensure your safety after whatever the hell just happened here. Also, you never know if your clown purse will fly open and that screw driver somehow stabs you in the throat, or the electronic pencil sharpener turns on and eats that beautiful, shiny hair. I’m a gentleman.”
“Aw.”
I knew that was a lie as visions of him being anything but gentlemanly with me on the cabin stairs and the guest room bed flew through my mind like a favorite movie. You will not show that film again. Nope. Fine!
He took my hand, and we walked up the shoveled path to the front door.
“Looks like Amazon stopped by,” Gabe said as he pointed to the packages by the door.
