The Loneliest Stars

Chapter 22

It was late Sunday afternoon, the storm was long over and Gabe's mission for the day was convincing his homebody girl to go out for dinner. They had been pleasantly cooped up for much of the weekend, getting to know each other in ways that hadn't been possible before. But they needed to have a real conversation without getting distracted by each other.

"I need to pick up some clothes. Are we going out or are we going out out?" Natalia asked with a hand on her hip.

"Is this a weird British thing? Why do you think saying the same thing twice makes it clearer?"

She rolled her eyes. "Can we order in, then?"

"No. We're going out. Just throw something on and don't take hours."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Because you didn't ask a real question. Now, go before we lose our reservation."

"Reservation? Okay, that's all you had to say," Natalia said excitedly, rushing out of the room.

She found her keys on the hallway table, where Gabe had put them after locking the house up.

"Where are you going?" She asked him as he followed behind her, with an arch of her eyebrow. She usually pencilled her brows in, but Gabe preferred seeing her lighter, natural brows. Her fresh face devoid of makeup was heartachingly beautiful.

Gabe looked pointedly at her feet and he watched her as she remembered with a blossoming blush that he had carried her to his place. He was surprised that she would blush around him, given that he had seen her in all manner of states in the last 36 hours. It was unbelievably cute. He found himself smiling goofily at her.

"Ugh! You're so annoying, do you know that?" She pushed her feet into his size 11 sneakers by the door and marched out of the house.

Gabe watched her with great amusement, as he often did, as she stomped with difficulty down the street walking in shoes that dwarfed her. She looked like a clown. A beautiful clown. His clown. His laugh carried down towards her, only making her stomp with more vigour. He hoped she didn't trip.

Gabe took a shower as he waited for Natalia to return. He'd suggested that they go out for a meal so that they could talk away from the temptation of being alone with each other. Currently, there hasn't been much conversation going on. He wanted a chance to clear the air and make sure that they were good. He wanted wholeheartedly for this relationship to work out, and he was going to try by starting with healthy communication.

Natalia appeared about an hour later, letting herself in through the unlocked front door, finding Gabe in front of the television, channel hopping as he waited for her.

He smelled her first, the scent of her vanilla body wash, body lotion and her perfume swirling in the room around her.

She was dressed in a white off the shoulder blouse and light wash blue jeans. Her hair was up in a high fluffy bun with ringlets cascading down her face, pulled back by a multicolored scarf. She was still fresh faced, Gabe could only pick out that she was wearing lipgloss, but then again he wasn't an expert on makeup. He stared, transfixed, still getting used to the many versions of her beauty.

"You ready?" He asked.

She nodded. Gabe moved off the couch and grabbed his wallet and keys, pulling Natalia with him by the hand.

"This feels like a first date." She commented in the truck as he drove them to their destination. She had picked out the music for their ride, some hipster, breathy R&B that she swore by. If it kept the dreamy grin on her face, Gabe couldn't say that he minded.