Diving In (Open Door Love Story) by Stacey Wallace Benefiel Page A

arrives and I do my routine, apart from checking Facebook, because seriously, who gives an eff? Streak across my room, slight thrill, turn on shower, brush teeth and lay out clothes, shower, dress, eat cookies, fill up the coffee cups. I use my spare for Gabe. I haven’t even asked him if he likes coffee, never mind how he likes his coffee, but I’m betting on him being a member of the human race and requiring its caffeiney goodness to wake up.
    I go downstairs and find Gabe and Junnuen by the back door waiting for me. They’re both holding Venti cups from Starbucks and letting the steam from the hot coffee warm their faces. I notice Gabe has another cup sitting in a beverage holder on his lap.
    “Morning! Looks like we’re going to be super caffeinated today,” I say.
    He offers me the coffee. “Isn’t that the only way to be? Take this will ya, I’m pretty sure I’m burning my leg through the fabric of these slacks.”
    “Steam press,” Junnuen remarks and giggles.
    “Junnuen! I knew you habla’d the ingles more than you let on.” I hand her my lowly homemade coffee before taking the one that Gabe is offering. I line the three cups up against my chest and hold them pinned with one arm while I fish the keys from my jacket pocket and unlock the door. Junnuen goes through and then I nod for Gabe to go next, but his chair is about a half inch too wide to make it through.
    “Shit, I was afraid of that. You’ll have to go through the front door until I can figure out a fix. Sorry.”
    Gabe smiles up at me. “No biggie, boss.”
    I lean down to kiss him and feel the burn of hot coffee on my arm too late before I dribble it all over Gabe’s unzipped jacket and white button down shirt.
    “Good thing I work at a dry cleaners, eh?”
    “Good thing.” I set the coffees on the concrete. “I didn’t burn you, did I? I could feel it through two layers of fabric.”
    Gabe shrugs his jacket off his shoulders some and then begins unbuttoning his shirt stripper style – complete with grindhouse music.
    “You are one sexy crippled guy, you know that.”
    He looks down at his chest. The skin is red, but not blistered or anything. “Either that or you’ve got a fetish you never knew about.”
    “Oh, I knew about it. I telepathically willed you to come into this store so I could get some of your sweet, sweet wheelchair lovin’.” I pick the coffees up. “Meet you around front.”
    “Work is awesome so far,” he says over his shoulder as he rolls around the corner.
    I go inside and set all of the coffees down on my desk in the office, then start looking through the unclaimed clothing box for a white shirt or even just a plain button down Gabe can wear. Sometimes people don’t pick up their clothes. Maybe they switch cleaners and are too embarrassed to come back and get that one thing they left with us. People die and no one bothers to get their dry cleaning. All sorts of reasons. My grandpa is fond of saying you can learn a lot about people’s dirty laundry from their dirty laundry. I pull out a light blue shirt that will work well enough and run to meet Gabe at the front.
    “You do know I roll in this thing literally as fast as I used to walk.”
    “Sorry. I was getting you a clean shirt.” I drop it in his lap as he rolls past me.
    “Ooh, blue, I don’t think my boss will like that. She was pretty specific that I needed to wear a white dress shirt. So much so, my poor mother was at Ross the Saturday after Black Friday picking through the leftovers.”
    “Your boss sounds like a real bitch. Just put on the blue shirt. Feel free to keep it.”
    “Score! Second awesome thing about working at a dry cleaners and I haven’t even been here for ten minutes.”
    I smirk at him. “So, we don’t have a break room. You can either hang your jacket up by the back door on the hooks that are…” Well, those aren’t going to work. “…out of your reach. Or, you can stick it underneath the counter, here.” I