Apartment 3B

16. New Guy?

We ate our spaghettis, pizzas, and cheeseburgers. Then we all told our dessert orders to Jesse. We teased him and asked him to call Gabriel to our table.

"Uhm, two sizzling brownies with vanilla ice cream and uh, we'll take a big piece of strawberry cheesecake for the table. Thank you, Gabriel." Jesse recited with the biggest grin plastered to his face. He was arguably shining.

"Be right there-" Gabriel replied with an equally big grin. Indicating he wanted to know Jesse's name, he had paused and waited at our booth.

"His name's Jesse. Jesse Smith," I told him.

Jesse

I cringed at how my friends were reacting to a boy just winking at me. If they found out I wanted to lick that yummy face of his, they'd probably tease me to the ends of hell. But wait, why did I want to lick that face of his? And why did I just call him yummy?

I'd liked a few guys back in school but it never felt more than a young phase where I was crushing on attractive charming people. This was a full blown I-want-him-to-do-me-right-now moment. I'd never had one these before, why was I enjoying the attention he gave me? Which was just a wink, it probably didn't even mean anything to him and it's his job to be nice. I cringed at my own thoughts, my education was pretty progressive but my family wasn't. At all.

If they know their Jesse is drinking, had sex and is probably bisexual, if not gay; they will honestly fucking flip their shit. But I really want Gabriel, I don't know how and I don't know why, I'm inexplicably attracted to him.

After I nervously gave him the dessert order, Hayley told him my name.

"Hello, Jesse Smith. It's nice to meet you," he said in the sweetest voice and I swear I got weak in the knees when he smiled and put his hand out.

I took his hand in mine and shook it but what I was actually thinking about was how dry my hands were and wondered if they were clammy, because his hands were so soft; like he moisturizes them every time he washes his hands.

Ugh, why am I thinking about his hands. Ugh.

He went away to get our desserts and the gang turned on me, "Little Jesse has a boyfriend," Hayley started to sing.

"Don't tease him guys, I think we're past that age, don't you?" Luna came to my rescue.

Lainey added, "Yeah, it's okay Jess. Whoever you like, it's all cool."

Kabir started to make another joke but Luna kicked him under the table. In an attempt to shut Kabir up, she also kicked me accidentally and we all end up laughing when I screamed, "Ow, Looney, what did I do?"

The table erupted in laughter and the conversation shifted away from questioning my sexuality to Kabir's Diwali plans. Everyone went around to discuss their holiday traditions when Luna instructed us to do so.

Kabir narrated, "Well, when I was younger, we used to be excited for weeks to burst firecrackers but later it became about good food and playing cards. We have a big feast with North Indian food like shahi paneer and naan. There's lots and lots of mithai (sweets). Playing cards and drinking with friends for Diwali parties was something we did every year in high school, even when we weren't legal. They're some of my best memories."

Everyone responded with aww's and I patted him on the shoulder. After Kabir, we went to Hayley's traditions.

"Uhm, I don't have any yearly traditions with my family. My fondest holiday memories are with Looney. We go Christmas shopping together, decorate trees at each other's houses with fairy lights-"

"I think we all know about your fairly lights obsession, Hayles," I told her and everyone laughed in response.

"Ha ha. Any-waaay, we tried to bake cookies one time when we were 12 and it was disastrous, the entire kitchen was full of smoke. Luckily, we didn't burn the house down but we ended up buying chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies at the nearby bakery. We've gone back to have the same cookies ever since. We were the mischievous children who'd sneak in cookies to eat at Church."

Luna took the story forward, "We weren't allowed to eat for a while before, and during mass. All the kids were totally jealous of us because we were the cool gutsy rebels. Even though our act of sneaking cookies doesn't seem so defiant now, in that moment, we thought we were changing the world," Luna concluded.

Everyone erupted in laughter, again. The joy between us was such a natural emotion, everyone slipped into casual conversation with utter ease.

Lainey told us about her quiet holidays with her cats because she hated too much noise and shopping among the swarm of people at malls. Her family didn't believe too much in religious festivities and they rather enjoyed Día de los Santos Inocentes. They had traditions of going to the amusement park in costumes for Spanish April Fool's Day on 28th December.

I shared my plain boring story about my typically Christian festivities where the family would decorate trees, have dinner, go to mass, the usual.

We stayed much after dessert and Gabriel casually came up to us with the bill to indicate us to leave politely. We split the bill five ways to the T and left him a tip.

Gabriel came up next to me and leaned. The others were in conversation when he whispered to me, "You're cute." Shaking my hand and winking at me one more time, he walked away.

Who says cute anymore? That's so weird. I realize he'd slipped me a small piece of paper and I clutched it in my fist, not telling the others.

When we got home, we helped Kabir pack and put him in a cab in time for his flight. The girls were doing their own thing when I went to the privacy of my room and finally opened the hastily written note. It said do you like what you see? call me?

The note had a small heart drawn on the bottom left and signed Gabriel Matthews with this phone number.

I analyzed every word he wrote. He had asked 'do you like what you see.' It felt like he didn't say it with a cocky confidence. Rather, he asked me humbly and at the same time, tried to be endearing and charming.

Without letting my thoughts run awry and letting myself ponder too much, I just texted him. There were too many problems and variables to think about, I didn't want to drive myself crazy. I quickly typed it and sent it before I could change my decision.

Jesse, 6:45 pm: I liked what I saw :) -Jesse

And I waited.

**

A/N

Gabriel (Played by Jesse Williams) pictured above. Do we want to see more of him? How do you feel about these new feelings our Jess is experiencing? Vote, comment or drop a message. It means so much!

Love and power,
speck of dust~