Chapter 33. What He Wanted

Gabriel woke with his neck bent against the back of the sofa and Diana's blanket tucked around him.

She was gone.

For a moment, he lay still and listened. His mother was upstairs. Someone was moving a wheelbarrow along the garden path. Diana's heartbeat, which he'd listened to until sleep finally took him, was no longer in the room.

Then he saw the note beneath his phone.

Gone to work. Your mother packed enough beans for my entire department. Sleep. I'll call at lunch.

He read it twice, then put it in his pocket before standing.

There were people he could have called who would have come whenever he asked. He had spent years confusing that with never being lonely. Diana had left a note on a coffee table, and he already knew he would keep the ridiculous thing.

His mother found him in the kitchen making coffee.

“She ate before she left,” she said.

“I wasn't going to ask.”

“Then I've saved u