Mint and apricots

30. Old habits

"Put your butt on the chair, cowboy, so I can pretend I am of average height," Gabriel urged playfully, pulling one of the two stools from under the counter to place it in front of Sam.

Having by now surrendered to the situation, the twenty-six-year-old obeyed without another word. He sat down, closed his eyes and kept quiet and still while Gabriel proceeded to apply the frozen bag to the right side of his face after wrapping it in a clean towel.

"Well, it wasn't that hard, was it? I look terrifying, I know, but I don't bite. Not until after the first date, at least. At most, I am a pain in the ass or an apprehensive mommy," Gabriel teased him, stopping only when he was able to draw a smile on Sam's lips.

An instant later, however, the smile turned into a grimace of pain that, however quick to disappear, worried Gabriel to the point of making him release the pressure on Sam's temple.

"Does it hurt?" he asked in a more serious tone.

"Only when you press harder."

"Hm," Gabriel considered with an analytical look. "Are you dizzy?"

"A little bit," Sam murmured, opting for the truth.

"Come, then, I'll help you lie down," the other one decreed, withdrawing the ice to offer him a hand. When Sam hesitated, remaining seated, the landlord performed one of his enviable eyebrow games: "What is it? Do you have other dates in the city?"

"I don't," Sam allowed, agreeing to walk towards the sofa, however embarrassed by the other boy's proximity. "But I promised my brother I would be back in time for dinner."

"Well, you're still quite a bit early. And I doubt you want to go home still feeling unstable on your legs, am I right?" Gabriel continued, bolstering his case while he watched Sam lie down slowly. Then he handed the boy a cushion to put under his head and placed the makeshift dry ice on his temple again, letting go of the cold bundle only when Sam reached out to support it by himself. "All right. Hold it up, okay? Take your time, there's no rush. It's only six o'clock and I can always take you home by car. Give yourself ten minutes to calm down and let the merry-go-round stop."

Faced with the usual stream of words, Sam couldn't help but smile slyly.

"Yes, Mom," he teased him, and turned his gaze to Gabriel in time to see him giggle.

"Careful," the thirty-one-year-old jokingly warned him.

"I thought you were going out," Sam said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.

Gabriel, who until then had been crouched next to him, seemed to find relief in placing his knees on the ground and sitting on his heels, while reaching out on the table to take the stereo remote control and turn the volume down to the minimum.

"Nah. I'll have one of my nights on the sofa with Momo."

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow: "Do you always dress like this for your nights on the sofa?"

Gabriel gave him one of those smiles with which he seemed to want to soothe the world.

"Actually, I was planning on going out. But then I changed my mind," he confessed in a more modest tone, without taking his gaze away from Sam's eyes.

Sam felt himself sinking into the sofa cushions and wished the parquet floor swallowed him instantly. He certainly did not need Gabriel's sagacity to understand the true meaning of that glance. Namely that the landlord's change of plans must had been decided when the man had not felt at all reassured by the explanation provided by Luc for the infamous noise that had shaken the first floor.