Giselle burst into laughter and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound as it echoed down the lamp lit street. “I don’t think anyone’s questioning that,” she assured him.
The couple was quiet for a while. They settled back on the stoop and looked up at the night sky twinkling with stars from their spot along the wide steps. Giselle’s family claimed a comfortably furnished townhome in the Mount Morris Park district of Harlem. Giselle’s father Brogan Lucas was a respected brick mason. Her mother, Gilda was a teacher. Gabriel received a few curious looks from several passersby, but not much attention beyond that.
“Your family-they’re good people,” Gabriel said, pulling his arm from her shoulders. “I can see where you get it from.”
Giselle peered around to study him curiously. “What do you mean?”
“Goodness.” He shrugged. “It’s in your blood. There’s enough to go round. You’re lucky.”
“Are you saying, you’re not?”
“Come on, G,” Gabriel drew a hand through his dark hair and winced. “You were there a couple of weeks ago when all hell broke loose. I think it’s safe to say there’s not much good to spare in my family.”
“And yet you still want to marry me?”
Gabriel nudged her again. “I think the question is do you still want to marry me?”
“I love you, Gabe. I’m definitely not going to hold the uncomfortable realities of family against you.”
He grinned, nodded. “Uncomfortable realities,” he parrotted.
Giselle wrapped her arms around her waist and focused on the toes of her Keds sneakers along the step. “Do you think what happened here tonight, could happen with your family?”
He laughed quietly and briefly. “What? A big family dinner with all the secrets on the table? I’d like to say my mother could come around based on how strongly she feels for you.”
“But?” Giselle shook her head suddenly. “Don’t answer that.”
Gabriel looked satisfied. “So that’s it, then? We can finally move on to making you my wife?”
“How?” Giselle shook her head, bewildered. “If you don’t plan to tell your family...if mine are there, questions will be asked.”
“Only if mine are there too.”
Giselle seemed to shudder. “You can’t exclude your family-”
“You’re my family. We only have to make it legal.” He shrugged as though the rest were inconsequential and shifted to take her hands in his. “If it matters to you so much, we can tell my family afterward, but I won’t lose you over this. I won’t lose you over anything.”
She shook her head. “You’re not at all what I expected.”
Gabriel rubbed a lock of her bright hair between his fingers. “I hope that’s a good thing.”
Giselle pressed his hand to her cheek. “It is.”
“Then I guess I should keep it up.”
“Please do,” she said as their lips met.
~5~
“I owe you an apology, Mr. Tesano.”
From behind his desk, Humphrey laughed and switched the phone to the crook of his other shoulder. “What? Did you think I’d run off and try to build one of my own?”
Jude Ophion participated when his associate laughed. “I wouldn’t have thought that about this. You seemed too spooked by it when you first saw it.”
“Not spooked. Try befuddled. Do you even know what that monstrosity is?”
Ophion chuckled again. “You can’t hurt my feelings today, Tesano. I’m too satisfied to be anything other than stupidly happy.”
Humphrey finished fixing the push pins to the new wall map situated beneath a framed one whose pins marked Tesano properties all over the country. He set aside the pin box and resumed his grip on the phone receiver. “You think you can find the right place to put it?” He spoke of the unsettling apparatus Ophion had unveiled in the Chicago warehouse. The item’s arrival in its new location had just been confirmed.
“Once buildings start to spring up out there, I’m sure I’ll find a place.”
Humphrey let out a sound that wasn’t quite laughter, but carried amusement just the same.
“You’re not quite believing it, are you?” Ophion guessed.
“It’s starting to set in,” Humphrey looked to the map which held pins marking every new square mile of land he had managed to acquire for the endeavor.
“I don’t doubt you. You seemed to take to your first surgery quite well.”
Humphrey smiled, proud of the compliment. “Hard to describe what it does to you.”
“I agree,” The smile was evident in Ophion’s voice. “I could happily spend my life in an operating room.”
“Well you’ve given me the next best thing to being there everyday.”
“Ah yes, that’s right, how are you liking your new toy?”
