Gabe and Beau had Rachel and I moved into our tiny little gray-shingled house in a matter of hours. That first weekend, Gabe called me and asked me out on a date. 

“A date?” I squealed.

He chuckled. “A date,” he repeated. “But don’t come over here. I want to pick you up.”

“You mean…” I put my hand to my mouth in shock. 

Now he was outright laughing at me. “I can drive. I just got the okay from the doctor.”

“I had no idea.”

“How would you? You’re my girl, not my nurse.” My heart squeezed to hear him say it again. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over him calling me his girl. 

He wasn’t done blowing my mind. “I know a guy is supposed to pick up his girl for a date, but I’m gonna let you drive.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”

“You’ll see. Wear something nice,” he said, then hung up the phone. 

My heart raced as I stared at the screen. I wanted to run through the town, shouting out the news to complete strangers. “Gabe King is taking me on a date! I’m going on a date!” I wished there was someone I could tell who would be happy for me.

Then I remembered there was. 

I got up from my bed and went to the door of my bedroom. Rachel sat in the living room, immersed in a giant fantasy novel from the library. She looked up and smiled when she saw me. “Hey, was that Gabe?” she asked. 

“Oh, sorry, was I loud?”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she said quickly. “I’m used to filtering out the noise of people around me.”

I grinned at her. We were both still so wary and careful around each other. I opened my mouth to apologize again. Instead I said, “Guess what?”

She raised her eyebrows in that quiet way she had, not using more words than absolutely necessary. 

I knew her well enough now to realize that was her way of showing interest, so I barreled on in glee. “Gabe is taking me on a date! And he’s driving over!”

“Oh, he’s driving? That’s wonderful!” she cried, clasping her hands together in a gesture of prayer. She looked down at her hands and consciously unclenched them before looking back up with her eyes shining mischievously. “A date, huh?”

“I know. I’m so secular,” I teased. 

“You’re gonna have to tell me all about it because I have no idea what dating is,” she sighed. “Where are you going?”

“No idea. Maybe a restaurant? The bar? He said to dress nice, but I don’t have anything for going out. All my clothes are work clothes or scrubs. Think I should wear scrubs on my big date?” 

Rachel hopped to her feet. “Absolutely not,” she said, her face thunderous. 

“I was just kidding.”

“I know, but come with me anyway,” she ordered. 

Confused, I followed her into her bedroom. It was smaller than mine, but so pin-neat that it felt bigger by far. “What are you doing?” I fell into awed silence as she opened her closet door. 

Dress after dress hung in Rachel’s closet. Sparkly tops nestled next to scoop-necked sweaters organized by color. I leafed my fingers through the shiny, slinky fabrics, pausing to admire a gauzy blouse before whistling at a skin-tight orange Lycra dress. “Did you rob a boutique?” I gasped. 

She laughed quietly. “When I first got out,” she said, brushing her hand fondly across an angora sweater, “I wanted to blend in. It was easy enough to get the credit card. The hard part was knowing what real people actually wear day to day.” She chuckled ruefully as she pulled out an especially bright top sewn entirely from sparkly palliates. “Turns out you guys don’t wear clubwear every day of the week.”

“There are still tags on most of these. You could return them.” 

She shook her head and ducked away from me. “If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to help my friend look pretty for her date.”

It felt good to grab her in a spontaneous hug and it felt even better when she hugged me back. “What do you think I should pick out? You’re a little smaller than me, so maybe not a dress…”

She thumbed through the hangers with an intent look before pausing. “This one.”

It was a blue tank top with a gauzy blue long-sleeved overlay that fastened with one pearly button at the chest. “It’s the same color as your eyes. He’ll love it.” Her grin twisted into mischief again. “I don’t mind if he tears it.”

“You little minx!” I scolded, but I definitely wouldn’t mind either. 

Rachel insisted that I take her silver heels too, even though I had barely walked in heels before. A pair of dark wash jeans and a swipe of lip gloss were all it took to feel pretty. I liked that when I looked in the mirror, I still looked like me. I didn’t look like someone else, like I had the night Gabe and I met. I looked like a version of myself I could be proud of.

The crunch of wheels on the gravel road was loud enough for both of us to hear, and Rachel flew to the window to check. “I think it’s him?” she called, sounding confused. “I don’t know his car.”

“He’d probably be in his mom’s SUV,” I called from the bathroom as I patted water through my ponytail to combat the frizz around my hairline. Humidity was not my friend. 

“It’s not an SUV,” Rachel called back. “It’s a car.” She paused. “A pretty fancy-looking car.”

Curious, I met her at the window. A light blue Acura stopped in front of our house. “That’s not him?” I said. "Or it might be? I don't know."

The car door opened and there was no one else it could be other than Gabe King. 

It took my breath away to see him standing so straight and tall. And wow, was he tall. Standing this close to my tiny little house, he looked like he wouldn’t fit inside. 

He wore dark jeans that hugged his hips and renewed my belief that I was an ass-woman. His casually untucked gray button-down looked soft and comfortable. The light drizzle was beading upon his skin, which still somehow retained the traces of a tan in spite of the sun not shining for months on end. 

Rachel made a small noise next to me. She was literally biting her lip as she watched Gabe stride—slowly and carefully, but still confidently—to our front door. “Are you checking out my man?” I teased.

She shook her head as if waking from a dream. “Sorry, I—” She bit her lip again. “He looks exactly like everything my church warned me about.” Rachel turned and gave me a smile that was half wicked, half wistful. “Does he have any brothers?” she joked.

I laughed and was still laughing when Gabe knocked on the door. Some dating rule somewhere probably stated that I should have made him wait a couple minutes, keep him on his toes. But hell, not knowing or following the rules at all had gotten me this far—with Gabe King of the King Brothers waiting on my doorstep to take me out in his fancy car—so I didn’t intend to follow them now. 

I threw open the front door with such exuberance that it left a dent in the wall. “Shit,” I sighed, and turned to Rachel. “I’ll pay for it.” 

Then I threw myself into his arms. 

He grunted as I slammed into him. Gabe had to step back to catch his balance, but he caught me in his arms all the same and returned my wild kiss with the same fervor. “We’re going on a date!” I exhaled when I finally came up for air. 

“I mean, we could stay right here,” he said, his eyes darkening and his voice going all growly in the way that always made my toes tingle. “I’m sure Rachel wouldn’t mind taking a walk.”

“It’s raining,” Rachel pointed out sourly from the kitchen doorway. 

I hadn’t realized she was listening and blushed a little. “No way,” I mock pouted. “You promised me a date and you also promised I’d get to drive your fancy car, so don’t try to weasel your way out of it now.”

He laughed, a full-throated belly laugh, and pulled me to him. “There you go,” he murmured into my hair. “You ask for what you want and make sure you get it, baby. That’s how you do it.” He turned to wave to Rachel. “I guess this means we’re leaving.”

“Have fun!” Rachel said. I couldn’t miss the wistful note in her voice as she closed the door behind us. 

“She needs to go out, too,” I fretted. “She’s never been allowed to go out and have fun before.”

Gabe stopped and turned. “You want to invite her to come with us?”

I pressed my lips together and scrunched my nose, making him laugh again. “Good,” he said. “Let’s bring her with us next time, okay? Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect,” I agreed, slipping my arm into his. It was hard to shake the habit of holding him up a little, acting as his personal crutch, and he knew it. With a glance downward, and one perfectly raised eyebrow, he let me know that he was fine to walk on his own. I contented myself with a squeeze of his bicep, which made him laugh, and cleared my throat. “So why do you need me to drive tonight? Is your right ankle bothering you?”

“No,” he said as he held open the driver’s side door for me. I grinned at him and slid into the leather seat, smoothing my hands over the console and brushing over the space-aged dashboard. “I wanted you to see if you liked driving it.”

“Oh my god, well…it’s gonna be a wee bit different from driving Grim around, but I’ll do my best to adjust.” 

“Turn it on. No, don’t press the accelerator or slip it into neutral or any of those other gyrations you usually do. Just...press the button. Right there.”

I pressed the button and the car purred smoothly to life. 

“That almost felt like cheating,” I whispered. “It can’t be that easy.”

He chuckled and gently shut the door, then came around and slid into the seat next to me. “How about you test it out a little?”

“Are you trying to make me jealous here or something? What are you up to, King?”

He shook his head with a smile that made me want to kiss him for no damn reason, but the siren song of a sexy car lured me away from his grin. I threw it into reverse. “Oh my god!” I cried as the engine hummed. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I’m leaving you for your car.”

He looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary. “Keep driving,” he urged. 

“Why? So I can know for sure that I want to marry a vehicle? Oh my god, you just press the accelerator and it goes! I feel lazy!”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“You shouldn’t be glad. I’m breaking up with you right now so I can have some alone time with this car.”

He grinned. “What if I told you that you could have us both?”

I froze and looked at him, then remembered I was piloting a gorgeous piece of automotive engineering. I wrenched my eyes back to the road. “Have you…both?”

“This car is for you, Everly.”

I swerved to the side of the road and threw it in park before I drove us both into a building. “What on earth are you saying? You didn’t really buy me a car, did you, Gabe? No,” I shook my head. “It’s too much. I can’t accept it.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for the door.

He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not giving it to you,” he said. When I turned back to him, he smiled. “Come on now. I know you better than that. I knew you wouldn’t accept a gift like this, so that’s not what it is.”

“What is it, then?”

“You need a reliable car,” he said with a note of urgency in his voice. “It’s not right that you had to deal with that deathtrap for so long, and I don’t ever want to see you having a panic attack about it—” I ducked my head away in embarrassment. He squeezed my hand. “I don’t want that to happen to you again, baby. So I figured if I could help you, I would. And I can.” He reached out and patted the dash. “This car is the loaner from my Dad’s friend’s garage. Since it’s a loaner, he’s totally cool with it being loaned out indefinitely. You take it. You take care of it, fill it with gas, and make all the recommended maintenance visits.” He grinned at this and wagged his finger. “Believe me, my Dad and his buddies insist on all of the recommended maintenance and then some.” I grinned in spite of myself. “If you can take care of it, it’s yours. If they need it back, which Chuck at the garage insisted they probably wouldn’t, then you bring it in and they’ll hook you up with another loaner.” He patted the dash again. “Though I doubt it’ll be as nice as this one. I made sure to snag you the good one.”

“Gabe.” I didn’t know what to say, so I kissed him. He seemed to like that response just fine.