A/N: Hey all! This is a special chapter. You will quickly learn why! It is also pretty darn long, and has some flashback that shouldn't be confusing, but it might be. Enjoy :)
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Gabriel sits across from Yessica in the airport café. She stirs her coffee slowly, creepily. She's added so much sugar and cream and milk that he doesn't know if it qualifies as coffee anymore. She hums along to a Spanish song, playing on her earphones.
"Thanks for picking me up," Gabriel says, loudly enough that he hopes she gets the message. She sets her things down, phone and water. "From the airport."
"You're welcome."
"You didn't have to do that."
"You would complain if I didn't," Yessica sighs. "You can't even pretend to be happy to see me, don't pretend to be thankful," she quips, arms folded, leaned back. Automatic defensive.
Gabriel sighs. "So, do you want to go home? Or..."
"I'm hungry," Yessica sighs. "A sandwich can't hurt."
"Sandwich it is," Gabriel agrees.
"Better get the most perfect sandwich. Before you hop on a plane without telling me again," Yessica leaves her things at the table, snatches her wallet and heading to the Which Wich. A gesture of disrespect; she knows Gabriel should be paying. She is particularly good at the unquestionable hostility. Not bad enough to really comment on. Bad enough to actively avoid her wrath.
Yes, he decided if he had to have another "why can't you just try harder" conversation—the "you" being either of them—he would probably lose it. So when he felt one coming on in the beginning of March, he and Jiao arranged for him to temporarily transfer to Colorado. She told him he should at least tell Yessica. He huffed like a bull and Jiao left it alone.
The next thing he knew, he was in a cabin with Jiao for a four-day, unplugged vacation. They camped in the hot springs. They rolled their pants up to their ankles and caught fish in icy waters. They took walks, and smoked weed. He and Jiao reminisced on high school memories, and they painted Bob Ross. Gabriel felt alive. A day after that, he walked into OrtegaTech Colorado, and told Yessica where he was.
Now, Yessica slaps a sandwich down on the table. One he'll probably enjoy; Yessica has him memorized. His first bite of turkey, swiss, lettuce, pickle, tomato, spicy ranch, other extras she's seen him order a million times, and he feels a little better. The resentment he feels for California because of this woman. The way a sandwich seems to make it better.
"Thank you," he says. Yessica nods. He doesn't know what he could even talk about. Yessica is the type to be mad every day for a month, which is probably what she did while he was away. Regardless, he's afraid any deep conversation would have him spilling his guts about Zeke.
His adrenaline kept him up on the plane. He wishes he'd caught Clay Edgar at any other time, in any other place than the company barbeque and basketball game. He closed his eyes, thought of his fists pounding into the smug face of that pedazo de mierda. He thinks of Zeke, upset and tearful. It makes him grind his teeth, the low marbley sound vibrating in his ears. He huffs, stopping the tapping of his foot. Something Zeke did often. Does... often.
Gabriel decides to break the silence as they clean up. "I have a lot of work to do."
"Yes, of course. Disappearing to Colorado in the middle of the night sounds like a lot of work. Staying away from me for a MONTH, sounds like a lot—" she sets her sandwich down, "—of work. When do you want to go into this?"
"I had to go for a lot of different reasons. You take everything personally."
"We were in the middle of something, and you left me, Gabriel. We were figuring things out, and you left me anyway. Like a coward. Because you can't follow through on shit."
Gabriel didn't even know what he was doing sitting across from Yessica. Her bright pink cap, plain white shirt. After meeting Zeke, he almost despises how put-together she seems compared to Zeke's put-togetherness. Yessica's controlling ways are always a part of something bigger. Malicious. Zeke controls because he has to for his own functionality. Zeke is still learning that he can be a leader, a force to be reckoned with. Zeke is the person that keeps getting better once he realizes the depth of his impact. He's a weirdo, yes, but he's a unique person. Gabriel longs to dig into the stories of the young man's life. The tiny glimpse into Zeke's sheltered past explains a lot of his little quirks.
Nothing Gabriel knows about Yessica explains her need to be so evil.
Gabriel had considered himself a funny person before he met her. She insisted he needed to up his game, insert himself deeper into his father's company. He did. She made him a powerful speaker. A powerful planner. She was only 21 at the time. So intense. He could have never guessed she was seven years his junior. She was spoiled beyond spoiled, and he didn't realize it until he was spoiling her, too. Yessica hid it well. When she was good, she was great. That was only rarely nowadays. Especially since the New Year. So he sits at the table, feeling defeated.
Gabriel clears his throat "I thought things were good enough that I could... go do what I needed."
"That's a fucking lie."
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ONE WEEK LATER
Gabriel sits on the edge of the couch, prepared to head to the beach if Yessica gets too unbearable, which seems to be her goal for the day. They've been on and off, a simple conversation here, a laugh when appropriate. An argument almost every night. Toxicity.
It bleeds into his texts, his calls with Zeke. He wishes he could flip the switch and be sweet to him. The young man who means so much, all out of nowhere. That firey, old-brick red hair, the naturally-cocky-as-a-defense-mechanism gait about him. He tries to think of these things as Yessica picks at him, as he wonders what to do. How much will he be telling her?
He did come to California with a loose agenda: end things with Yessica, fix what he could of the company. move back to Colorado indefinitely. Win over Zeke. There's only so much he can do at a time. Ending things with Yessica might not even be the right thing for him at this time. He's done a few spontaneous things in his life that usually end up working themselves out. Gabriel can't even make himself see Colorado as a spontaneous thing that ends up working out his relationship with Yessica. This is not one of those moments. But the unsure nature of it all, the way this feels like it's something leading up to something else... Gabriel can't shake it.
She sits across from him in the dim light, flipping through her word find. He sees the ring glisten as it catches the light. A villainous kind of glint. He feels himself take over the chair as he looks her way. She can't ignore it. "Yes?"
"I had to fire someone over Zoom today," Gabriel sighs. He doesn't even know what he's going to talk about, or how they're going to get real. She seems to understand work, so he starts there.
