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Not once did he move to the shadows.
“I guess I need to be going,” Riel finally said. “As much as I want to stay, I have to be at work
today. Do you want a ride?”
Ember immediately also offered to give me a ride home.
“Actually,” I said as I stood up. “I really need to be going myself. And I know y’all want to go
talk to a few of those guys in there. So, I’ll go ahead and hitch a ride with Riel.”
Ember grinned.
“You know Gabe so well,” she laughed.
After exchanging hugs with everybody, Riel led me back to his truck.
His hand brushed against mine, and I found myself longing for the feeling of it once again
wrapped around my own.
Suddenly, I blurted out the first thought in my head.
“Would you happen to want to go to the beach with me?” I asked curiously.
He frowned. “What?”
“The beach,” I said. “Every year we go on an end of the year class trip to celebrate making it
through. This year, we’re going to Destin, Florida.”
He frowned.
“I…” He paused. “I don’t know.”
I could tell what he was thinking.
He didn’t want to be at the beach where he could be ogled and stared at. The poor guy was so
self-conscious about himself that it literally broke my heart.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “I’d have to ask off of work, and me being so new, it may not even be a possibility.”
I could understand that.
And, sensing that he wanted to change the subject, and fast, I chatted with him about a patient I had the day before.
When he dropped me off at my house, leaving me once I’d made my way in the front door, I turned
around and watched him stare at my house for a few long seconds.
While he was doing that, my eyes took him in.
I saw the sorrow there.
The emptiness.
The loneliness.
