Chapter 18: Beware the Forklift of Death

They were a little wobbly, but they all made it downstairs. Gabe continued outside to get the heavy cover back off and restart the pump to warm up the water. Meanwhile, the ladies made another batch of hot chocolate for them.

Bringing it out, they were a little surprised. He’d only put on minimal lighting, and he had the jets off, just setting the pump humming on a low speed to keep up the temperature. They passed him his chocolate, and he explained.

“Just listen, there’s nobody around. No traffic, no radios, no people. It’s so peaceful. Now, look up. In this air, the stars don’t twinkle, they blaze. That’s the Milky Way, that band across the sky.”

He made a sweeping gesture with his arm to show them. Then he pointed to a large evergreen tree overhanging the deck.

“If you move your head around a little, you can see the Moon peeking through the branches. With the trees and the house around us, we can see only part of the sky. But over there, the three bright stars in a row are the belt of Orion, that really bright star close to that treetop is Sirius, and that tight group of stars are the Pleiades.”

“Mia, where did you find this guy? He’s smart, handsome, athletic, kind, sweet, loving, and he fucks like a Greek god.”

“Well, yes, he does enjoy anal. As for the rest, there’s probably even more complimentary words I could use to describe him. I know I’m blessed. And you know the story of how we got together.”

Lucia put her hands together in a pleading motion and whined in a little girl’s voice.

“Tell me again, Mia, pleeease!”

“Oh, all right. So, I’ve just started at a junior position at the building products company where I work now. Gabe was running a construction crew on a building next to the parking lot where my assigned spot is. This guy is driving a forklift truck through the lot erratically and with the two lifting arms about two feet up off the ground. Just as I’m grabbing my bag to get out of my car, he loses control and spears the back of my car, obviously puncturing the gas tank.

“Gabe is twenty yards away and he sprints over and rushes me away, frantic. I’ve since learned that cars don’t usually explode like you see on TV, but my car could have easily caught fire. Once he was sure I was safely away and 9-1-1 had been called, he asked me to ‘just wait.’ He went for the forklift driver, who was just staggering around, helplessly. The guy was stinking of weed and obviously impaired.

Gabe was, well, he was frighteningly calm. You could see the tension in his body and his hands clenched into fists. He lectured the guy in that deep angry voice he can have. He told the ass-clown that in a few minutes he would be confessing, telling the police how he had caused the accident, that he was driving while impaired, about the drugs in his pickup truck, and so forth and so on. And if he failed to do all of that, well, I didn’t hear what Gabe promised, but I’m sure it involved him losing the ability to father children or ever again walk normally.

At any rate, he did confess and was led away in handcuffs. The fire department made sure there were no flames or explosion, but my poor old car was wrecked, worthless.

“Meanwhile, Gabe is with me and being his wonderful self. I was distraught. I was already in debt up to my eyeballs trying to keep that old car running, and now it was a total loss. How was I going to get to my new job? He’s got wet spots on his shirt from my weeping, and he’s all, ‘I’m taking you home, I’ll pick you up tomorrow, don’t worry, the company will buy you a new car, and on and on.’