The Adkins House

Dressed in Chelsea boots, faded blue jeans, and a black long-sleeved shirt folded to just over his elbows, I feel my mouth goes dry. Every time he's within my eyesight, a tension that coils low in my stomach, a pull that I can't define but can't seem to resist either. Gabriel isn't doing anything extraordinary. He's minding his business, simply standing a few feet away, his attention on his phone in the privacy of his own home. Yet his presence is magnetic, an invisible force drawing my attention to him, daring me to look longer, to linger. 

My mother's laughter caught with Gabe's mother's warms and melts my heart, and my eyes moisten.