“I’m fine,” Gabriel grumbled when he heard footsteps coming up the path toward the stall for the fifth time that morning.

Orion’s concern was sweet, but starting to grate on him. Orion hadn’t even wanted him to work at the stall that morning, but as Gabriel had pointed out, if he didn’t, who else would?

“I’m sure you are,” Cora told him. She came around the corner of the stall, leaning heavily on the cane but beaming at him.

Gabriel jumped out of his seat. “Oh, my God. Cora. What are you doing here?”

“I’m a little dented, not broken,” Cora waved her hand at him, but she let him help her over to the chair and settle her down. “I’m not just lying around all day for months on end. Orion knows I’m coming up here today.”

“He didn’t walk you up?”

“Bah. If I can’t walk up one little path…” Cora scoffed and shook her head. “All this mollycoddling is bad for me.”

“The weather’s getting hotter. At least head inside at lunch,” Gabriel coaxed her.

“Oh, I will. But I didn’t want you to be alone. Orion told me what happened last night.” Cora folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him.

Gabriel sighed and kicked at the dirt, then hopped up to take a seat on the edge of the heavy trestle table. “He did, huh?”

“I pried it out of him,” Cora told him with a wink. “Nobody can resist these eyes.”

Gabriel chuckled. “I know. I sure can’t.”

“Shame that paramedic didn’t feel the same.” Cora propped her hands on her cane and stretched her legs out carefully. “Handsome fellow, he was. I doubt he was on my team, though.”

“What?” Gabriel furrowed his brow, trying to remember if he’d seen a cute paramedic around town.

“Oh, I could give you a Rolodex of your team, if you’d ever asked,” Cora said, grinning again as he blushed. “It’s not Grindr, but I know what’s what around here.”

“Cora!” Gabriel buried his face in his hands as he laughed. “Anyway…”

“Speaking of Orion, hm?” Cora prompted.

Gabriel jerked his head up and stared. Had he told her that, too?

“Oh,” Cora waved a hand with a sly smile. “He didn’t say that part. But he wanted to tear that cousin of yours apart, to say nothing of your ex. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain.”

Gabriel cleared his throat and fidgeted. “Um. I… I wouldn’t wanna say anything…”

“Of course not.” Cora patted his knee. “You’re a good fellow. You might have a couple asshole family members, but everyone does. You’ve got great people around, too. That aunt and uncle of yours, say. And me.”

When Gabriel gave her another surprised look, she scoffed. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re family, too.”

It took a few seconds for that to properly sink in. That was why she was up here, however much it pained her to get up here by herself, just to talk with him. Gabriel gazed at her, slowly shaking his head.

People did care about him. Not a lot of people, but so what? A few people more than he’d realized before.

Even that wasn’t quite true. Just different people than he’d thought cared. Obviously not Art or Chad, but Orion and Cora.

That was a trade he’d make any day.

His eyes were wet. He quickly wiped them and cleared his throat, then shook his head. “Shit. Sorry.”

“Oh, honey. No apologies,” Cora told him firmly. “Just tell me how I can help.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t think… I mean, it’s up to me. Everything is changing, you know? It’s kind of…” He bit his lip, thinking about the next couple days: he and Orion were going to get his stuff tonight, and take a look at the car, and maybe call the garage to get a tow there, and… all of it was just happening at once.

He was suddenly dependent on Orion, and it was scary. Like opening his arms and falling, trusting Orion to be there to catch him.

And so far, every time, he had.

“Change is scary,” Cora told him, taking his hand and patting it. “It’s supposed to be. That’s when you know it’s good. You should never be totally confident about what you’re doing, or it’s the wrong thing.”

Gabriel nodded slowly. It didn’t make him feel much better, though. “But I’m… what if I fuck up?”

“Then people who love you will be here to help,” Cora told him gently.

“I can’t be a burden…” Gabriel started, but Cora waved a hand to cut him off.

“You’re not. You don’t have to know it all and do it all alone, sweetheart. Maybe you don’t know everything you need to yet, but you will.”

Gabriel bit his lip again to keep himself calm. “Are you sure?”

Cora rocked back slightly in her chair and hummed thoughtfully. “The way this change feels… does it feel like a huge, empty space around you? Like you’re a hermit crab who’s just climbed into a bigger shell?”

Gabriel’s jaw dropped. Now that he thought about it, the metaphor worked. “Yeah. Yeah. Like I was used to the old shell, and now… I’m gonna need to find another place to live. And a career so I can finally move…”

“You’ll grow to fit your new shell,” Cora told him, smiling up at him. “And then you’ll find another new shell, and another. That’s how life works.”

Gabriel stared into the distance as he thought about it. She was right. Hell, being hired to run these stalls had been growth for him, and he’d outgrown them now. Maybe landscaping was his future, or maybe something else completely.

“I don’t have to be ready for all of it right now,” Gabriel said slowly.

“That’s right.” Cora patted his hand again, firmly. “Thattaboy. You just get moved out of that asshole’s shed into a real house with my Orion. And tell the town you two are dating, for God’s sake. It’s murder trying to keep the gossip out of your ears.”

Gabriel couldn’t help it—he giggled. “Seriously?”

Cora grinned. “I stayed quiet, you know. But once Doris knew, you were screwed. The grapevine grows fast. Now, about this landscaping thing. You need a client, right?”

Gabriel blinked, not bothering to question how she knew that. “Yeah. Someone’s yard I can redo, and show companies I know what I’m doing so they hire me.”

“Do mine. Make it your portfolio project,” Cora told him in her no-arguments tone. “Orion’s been rattling on about wanting to do up my yard so I have a nice place to sit and work less. I wasn’t gonna let him go digging the place up without a plan, but I’d let him at it as long as you’re in charge.”

Gabriel’s chest felt tight, but in a good way this time. His emotions were a flood of warmth and gratitude and… hope. God, he’d missed feeling hopeful. “I… Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Cora corrected him, shaking her head. “I get a talented up-and-coming designer’s very first project. My property value will shoot up in five years’ time.”

Gabriel laughed, his heart lighter than it had been in days. “I’ll take care of it. And your grandson.”

Cora’s eye sparkled as she smiled up at him. “Good. I’d have warned you to already, but I knew you would.”

Gabriel slipped off the table and hugged her, then handed over his sketchbook. “Show me some things you like.”

The next few days felt like nothing compared to the future that suddenly stretched ahead of him. He could—would—rise above this petty bullshit. If Chad burned his old life down around his ears, Gabriel would rise from the ashes into a newer, better, brighter tomorrow.

As long as Orion agreed to be by his side, Gabriel could take on anything.

Listening to the woman who’d raised Orion to be the man Gabriel had once crushed on, and cared for even more now that he’d gotten to know him, Gabriel couldn’t escape the truth any longer.

I love him.

And now that he knew—now that he accepted it, rather—Gabriel wasn’t going to let another day go by without telling Orion.

Even though he’d thought he was waiting for Orion to figure himself out, maybe Orion had been waiting for him all along.