Gabe pulls back from our kiss looking stricken. “Oh my God. You’re starving.”

Now it’s my turn to pinken. “I could try to deny it but apparently my stomach is doing the talking.”

He lunges for the fridge. With an erection tenting his sweatpants.

I don’t even try to stop him. I might be in the first, flushed stages of arousal, but it’s too much of a pleasure watching this man crack eggs into a bowl, rip bagels in half in his bear-sized hands, pour orange juice into a Mets memorabilia day glass. Besides that, I really want to ask him about what I heard this morning while lying in bed. “Gabe…” He glances back at me over his shoulder, nods for me to continue. “I knew your brother and your ex-wife lived next door, but…you can hear them in your bedroom.”

“Yeah, they have kind of a ritual.” He takes a fork out of a drawer to whisk the eggs. “My brother goes out to get bacon, egg and cheeses most mornings. When you heard them this morning, he was coming back from his breakfast run.”

It’s hard for me to imagine how painful this must be. How hard it must have been, especially right after the divorce. Gabe might not have been deeply in love with Candace, but for his brother to walk all over his feelings, to invade his space, must be so hurtful.

I have a really, really big problem with anyone hurting Gabe’s feelings.

My skin is starting to feel a little extra hot when I saunter to the side window and peek out through the blinds, looking across the driveway to Gabe’s brother’s house. There is a light on inside, but I can’t see anyone. However, I do notice that the car belonging to Gabe’s brother is parked on Gabe’s lawn. There is more than enough room to get all four wheels of the vehicle in the driveway, so it must be a choice.

I remember Gabe telling me how much it bothers him.

I remember the fact that Gabe only got called outside to hang with his brother and the rest of the neighborhood kids if the football got stuck in the tree and they needed him to get it down. These were just stories until now. Until I’m looking at the stupid tires on the lawn.

I release the blinds with a little too much force and circle the kitchen, considering sliding a knife out of the butcher block, taking it outside and stabbing it into the wheels of Gabe’s brother’s car. As satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t solve Gabe’s issue, though. The issue of his brother not only disregarding his feelings but almost taunting him.

“I smelled sustenance,” Tobias says, walking into the kitchen. In a wide open robe that I’m pretty sure belongs to Gabe, nothing but a pair of white briefs underneath. “I’ll have a double espresso and eggs Florentine, please.”

Gabe snorts. “I’ve got eggs and bagels.”