Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 197(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 197(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
I move away from the window, keeping the view open and unobscured. The heavy blanket slides off my shoulders while I’m walking toward the kitchen. When Gabe was inside and I told him I’d take care of dinner, I did some investigating of my own. The whole fridge and pantry are well stocked for someone who was out of town for weeks before this storm hit. I wonder if Mr. Bernie came up here and stocked everything when Gabe told him he was heading home. He had everything for a vegetable beef stew and biscuits. My years working at a restaurant and diner are coming in handy right about now. Especially with the dream of a kitchen Gabe has going on. My apartment has a nice kitchen, too, yet the thought of cooking for one person always seems silly. Plus, even if I made half of the batch I am today, it’d take over the majority of my freezer space, and then I’d have no room left for ice cream.
I’m about to head to the kitchen when I realize I’m going to need a jacket of some kind in order to cook. The long shirt I’m wearing, along with Gabe’s slippers, is doing an okay job, but not enough to keep warm, and I won’t ask him to kick up the thermostat again. I go to the mud room off the kitchen, looking to see if Gabe has a jacket or hoodie hanging up on the built-in coat rack. “Hmm.” I check but don’t find anything. When I walked him out the door, he put on his snow suit, boots, and a beanie. I didn’t think it’d be enough, but Gabe assured me he’d be fine. He’s a heater and would probably drip sweat by the time he was finished for the day. There’s nothing hanging up, but there was a basket of folded clothes when I walked by the laundry room. Maybe that will have something; if not, I’ll have to go into Gabe’s room and root around in his drawers or closet. I’d rather not do that even though he’ll be doing similar shortly.
“Ah-ha!” I find the laundry basket filled with clothes. I dig through the stack until I find a flannel. It’s not as thick as I’d like, which is why I also snatch a pair of socks. His slippers, while comfortable, are entirely too big and a tripping hazard when walking back and forth in the kitchen. I slide one arm into the dark black and red flannel shirt. It’s longer than the borrowed T-shirt, which is good because there is most definitely a draft trying to creep its way up my body. Once I have it on, I cuff the too-long sleeves, and then I cop a squat on the cold floor to put the socks on. I’m sure I look like a hot mess right now. This is as good as I can make it for the time being. My hair is a lost cause. There’s no fixing it until Gabe brings the toiletries I asked him to pick up. That leaves putting it in a low messy knot, wrapping the hair around itself and calling it good enough.
“Alright, let’s get to work, Carsynn. Gabe is going to come back hungry and needing something to warm him up.” I clap my hands together. My forearm isn’t hurting nearly as much. The doctor did, in fact, call Gabe on his phone. He wanted to see my wound and said it looked to be healing nicely already. Doctor Wade also told me I was lucky to walk away like I did. He’s not wrong about that. I’d like to think Gabe had a lot to do with that, him finding me when he did before the storm really started coming down, or I wouldn’t have survived. I know that more than anyone. I’ve got to get that out of my head. Those thoughts will only bring me down, and I’ve come too far to spiral downwards. I shake the memories away. It's time to keep myself busy. I walk back to the kitchen feeling warm and ready to take on the task of cooking. My eyes go from where I’m pulling things out of the fridge, doing a search to find everything I need to cook dinner, to the window where Gabe is. He’s still out there, working on clearing a path, now further along, and I feel better that my eyes are back on him. There’s no way I should be feeling this deeply for a man I’ve only met yesterday, Bernie talking him up a good game, and, of course, seeing the pictures he had plastered all over his walls. Still, I wasn’t prepared for Gabe McCoy, not like this. I move around the kitchen, stopping at the vintage radio and flipping it on, then turning the dial until there isn’t talk radio but instead an old country song. My body moves to the beat while I get lost in cooking. Last night may have been a mess, but today is a new day. And while I’m still a bit apprehensive about this thing between Gabe and me. I really do want to see where it leads.