Gabriel didn’t hide the fact that he was ogling her a bit. She was looking beautiful that night and while he said it every time, he didn’t mind saying it again and again. “Well, it’s not like it’s my fault you look so damn good,” he said as if he was pointing out the obvious.
Marion’s company had become essential in these functions. He would have to go, regardless of her presence, but her being there surely did make things easier and more fun. Besides, he didn’t need to have an endless struggle with his tie and stop by his mother’s house to have the woman help him with. With a small smile tugging the end of his lips, he observed as tied the piece of fabric with easiness around his neck after they had gotten settled inside the car and the driver had taken off to the location of tonight’s event.
“You kiss one cheek and slap the other, that’s brutal,” he jokes with a light chuckle coming from his lips. Truth be told, he doesn’t mind his beard, he needed to have a clean jaw and be presentable for years during the times he played the game and now he was rather liking this particular phase of his life, where he could be more free with how he presented himself and his peers and the media clearly understood, after all, he was focusing on his recovery. “Once the beard has to go, you’re gonna regret all the times you said it needs maintenance, besides, I’m totally aiming for a Gandalf look,” he wiggles one eyebrow at the blonde.
His body is completely turned to her and his eyes study her carefully, not because she is obviously looking beautiful in her outfit, but because Gabe sees him trying to figure Marion out every time they spend together. “Thank you, by the way,” he says, breaking the silence, “for accompanying me, it’s gonna be boring, but there will be alcohol and food, so I guess that makes up for it, right?”
As is customary, Gabe showers her with a litany of compliments. Call it self-indulgent, but she rather likes receiving them — and who was she to deny a compliment, not when she’s pushing forty and is starting to find the first patches of gray in her blonde hair? “It’s also not my fault I thought you’d be used to me by now,” she says, “I clean up just as nicely as you do, you know. I dare say even better.” She snorts. “I’ve never been much of a beard person. Almost forty years, I’ve tried,” she crosses her arms over her chest before she replies, “you think you can tempt me so easily?”
Marion’s gotten used to this little cat-and-mouse they’d wound up developing, too. She’s certain it doesn’t mean anything, all this playful banter that only occasionally grows serious. In the months that had passed, she has always made certain to always err on the side of caution, never to reveal anything, to keep everything notoriously vague.
But sometimes Gabe surveys her with far too intense scrutiny, and she has to force herself not to be pulled in. Tonight marks one of those occasions, but fortunately Gabe breaks the silence, the tread to deeper and perhaps far more dangerous waters halted with the usual line of courtesy. “Alcohol and food…” she sighs, attempting Gabe’s own dramatic flair as she slouches against the seat, “…of course it’s worth it for those two things alone. But you saying it like that, you make me sound like a hedonist or something.”
“Did you ever pause to consider that I go to these events because I actually like your company? Ugh, wait. Pretend I never said anything.” Her face scrunches up in feigned disgust. The gesture is upended, though, by a slight smile that befalls her lips not long after. “Seriously, though, it’s fine. It’s not like I have anything better to do with my time, anyway,” she shrugs, “unless you count staring into space and taking care of my dogs. And neither sound particularly pleasant at the moment.”
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