Dinner

Alberta watched Gabe order for the both of them.


There was definitely something different about him tonight. Maybe it was the fact that he was only a year away from joining his brother and Ily at college. Or maybe it was that Alberta felt so out of place in a place as fancy as this. Night clubs, even if they had a restaurant attached, were still night clubs.

The air sat heavily with the stream from dance floor. Alberta could feel the air on her nose and cheek bones settling. She resisted the urge to wipe her face since she wasn't sure she'd be able to make it across the dance floor comfortably to the rest room to check her make up.


"Uhm, Gabe, am I even old enough to be here?"

He smiled at her as the server put their plates in front of them. "You are; you just can't drink."

He had a point, and it wasn't like she was going to order a drink any way even if she could. "So, why are we here? This seems a little fancy for us." She was quick to add, "I mean, not that it isn't nice once in a while." There were plenty of girls who would kill to have their loved one take them out to a fancy dinner. She didn't want Gabe to think she didn't appreciate it.

There was a quick movement from the corner of Alberta's eye as someone in a tight dress passed. Gabe watched the woman walk past with little expression on his face.

Alberta glanced over her shoulder quickly. The entire transaction took only a second, and in that second her heart faltered. The woman was beautiful, older, and in a tight dress. She was the sort of woman Gabe would most likely meet when he was in college. She was probably the sort of woman that Gabe should be having dinner with.

Alberta turned back quickly to take a bite of her futo-maki and swallow that horrible feeling bubbling up from her chest.

"I've been thinking," Gabe said as he slid an envelope across the table to her.

She put her sushi down and wiped her hands on the napkin under the table. "What's this?" Carefully, she opened the envelope frightened at what she would find.

She looked at him imploringly. "I can't take this!"

Alberta tried to push the envelope full of simoleans back to Gabe, but he crossed his arms and smiled at her in a way that wasn't entirely joyful. "Think of it as a promise. Some day we will live together, and I'll be able to take care of you properly. But until then, will you let me do this?"

"But where'd you get this from?"

"It doesn't matter. Will you let me do this?"

Alberta wanted to say no, but the look on his face told her that saying no to this would be the same as rejecting him out right. She would agree to it if it would make him happy, but she wouldn't use it. She'd save it instead for when they were together, and if for some reason it didn't work out, and he wanted it back, she would hand him all the money and any interest she had earned on it.

"All right."

*************

Seems I keep having issues posting. XD This time, my number #1 issue was that I noticed just how bad the compression has gotten for some of my pics when I upload them to blogger/picasa. So I did some finagling to get the pics to be small in the way I want not in the arbitrary way that blogger will do automatically.

My other issue was while playing to get pictures. The kittens (who have both grown a good bit in the past month) decided to do some wresling near the power strip and turned the computer off. Oooh! Were they in trouble, LOL. But I hold a grude as well as they do. (Which is not at all. Seriously, for cats they're both very forgiving and forgetful thankfully.)