Chapter 168 - The First Night (1/2)

”It's not much, but it's comfortable,” Claire says as she stands by the door of Gabriel's temporary room. It is spartan and neat, by all means, but so far from the luxury Gabriel is used to.

He shrugs. ”Don't worry, this is perfect. I'm out in the country, I've met your family. What can I ask for?”

”I can't sleep here with you, you know. My parents would freak out. It's not like we're already married and…”

”That's fine. We've never slept together, anyway. If you know what I mean,” he says.

Claire laughs. ”Someday we'll come to that. Maybe soon.”

Gabriel smiles at looks at her. ”I look forward to that.”

”So…goodnight, then?”

”Good—”

Claire gives him a kiss on the lips so fast that it's over before he realizes it.

”See you tomorrow,” she says, walking away, toward her own room.

”Okay,” he mutters, more to himself than to anyone else.

This is wonderful, Gabriel thinks. The bed is a simple wooden bed, with a soft but not luxuriously soft mattress. Sure, it's far from the Sealy mattress he used to enjoy, but there's something about the simplicity, the no-frills vibe of Claire's place that makes him feel so deeply calm and contented. Like he feels as though he has finally come home.

And it's uncanny, too, the quietude of the place. Gabriel walks up to the open window and surveys the moonlit landscape. Claire's family's farm seems to extend beyond what he can see, and all around them are structures he could only ȧssume to be the barn, the stables, or wherever they keep all the animals and farming equipment. This is where Claire grew up, and for him, it feels like homecoming, too. He feels that funny, delicious feeling in his stomach, like he's a teenaged boy again and he just found out that his long-time crush—a girl whose footprints he worshipped—was endearingly human, too.

He looks at himself in the mirror and sees how David's old sleepwear—old pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that says, ”I Heart New York”—look perfectly on him. The clothes were from many years ago, when perhaps David was his age. Yet, it smells clean and new-ish. When he'd come out of the bathroom wearing it, Claire's mom stopped and stared—she must have had a vision of her husband from a long time ago.