Miraculous Short Stories

Gabriel, It's Cold Outside

“I really can’t stay”

A posh man about twenty or so stated as he sat on the white ‘L’ shaped couch of his college classmate. It was unbeknownst to the female renter of this apartment that the fashion design major had a crush on her.

The man looked at the pictures that sat framed on the coffee table in front of him. Most of the pictures were the roommate’s but, the one that wasn’t was a black and white polaroid of the design major back in his freshman year in college when him and his crush first officially meant.

Their meeting wasn’t the most romantic however, the setting was. They were both at at the spring dance and he noticed she had snapped a photo of him. He swallowed his nerves, asked her about it, and she replied with a cheesy pickup line that cause him to fall evening harder.

Now, being the type of man he was he thought that leaving was a better option then staying and risk being the talk of the town. In this decade it was considered taboo for a man to stay with a woman unattended. Who knows what unspeakable things they could do together? Like build a pillow fort or play scrabble or if they want to be a little risque play scrabble in the pillow fort. 

“Gabriel, it's cold outside.”

The girl of his dreams replied batting her eyelashes as an attempt to get him to stay. She had purposely invited him over even know her roommate was staying at a friends. This had given her the perfect chance to make a move on the brilliant young man that sat before her. But, she knew Gabriel was more of a traditional man in that the boy should always ask the girl out. She had often thought that stereotype was ( in her roommate's best terms) utterly ridiculous.

“I gotta go away.”

He told her before he stood up and grabbed his medium grey  trench coat off the back of the couch. He could easily stay with her and drink hot chocolate and watch reruns of Lone Ranger but he couldn’t. He put his coat on and slung his scarf around his neck as he he headed to the door. His hand was on the door knob when his blonde friend took it upon herself to fix his vibrant red scarf into a classical knot.

It seemed more often than not  that she was nitpicking what he was wearing. This all started during that spring dance all those years ago when he showed up with a slightly crooked bowtie. To be honest after that incident he purposed made something he was wearing slightly off just so she would fix it. That includes this scarf that coincidentally she had gotten him as a gift this season.

“Gabriel, it’s cold outside.”

She said as she tied the scarf. Gabriel did his best to avoid making direct eye contact with her. He knew one look into her emerald greens and he was staying for better or worse.

“This evening has been...”

“Been hoping that you'd dropped.”

“So very nice.”

He tried to thank her for inviting him over and was sorry that he had to leave but to be trapped with Emilie was agony.  Agony. The best word to describe Gabriel’s situation. He had Emilie, the most amazingly talented and not to mention beautiful woman so close. Yet, according to their mutatal friend, Emilie saw’ll Gabriel as nothing more then ‘just a friend’.

However, Emilie felt the exact same way. She thought that if she ever wanted anything more than a friendship with Gabriel then she had to ignore those stupid stereotype. She grabbed his hands in hers and planned on asking him out him out on something as simple as a date to the ice skating rink. But the words that exited her mouth were far more daring.

“I’ll hold your hands they're just like ice.”

“My mother will start to worry.”

He replied regrettably taking his hands away from hers. She looked at him with a slight glimmer of determination in her emerald eyes that could make any sane man swoon.