The her in question is his ten-week-old black rescue mutt. The this is the mess she’s made on the floor, which he’s now mopping up with his T-shirt.
I’m standing in his kitchen, holding a squirming fluffy dog, watching Hollywood’s biggest heartthrob clean up puppy pee.
It’s not a fantasy. It’s real life.
Usually, I’d have to pay twenty bucks (plus another forty for popcorn and a soda) to get this good of a look at Gabe Parker’s abs and lats. Today, however, I’m the one getting paid to spend a couple of hours with those body parts—as well as the rest of him.
“Gabe is just so likable,” his co-star Marissa Merino has been quoted as saying.
“A guy’s guy,” Jackson Ritter, another co-star, claims.
That’s the company line—that Gabe Parker is exactly as gregarious and charming as he appears on the big screen.
I know you’re reading this secretly hoping that I’m going to tell you it’s all a lie—that it’s the Hollywood machinery working overtime—that Gabe Parker is a womanizing creep who has an exceptionally effective PR team to build this image of a man so good that he can’t possibly be real.
But he’s real. And he’s spectacular.
He finishes cleaning up after his pooch, dropping his shirt into the trash before coming over to me, taking the puppy’s face in his hands, and cooing at her.
“It’s okay, honey,” he says. “It’s not your fault. I love you so very much.”
Have I mentioned I’m still holding her? And he’s still shirtless? He smells amazing, by the way. Like lumber, and peppermint, and the backseat of the Ford Focus where you had your very first kiss with the guy from Jewish summer camp who you knew had already kissed all of your friends, but had an eyebrow piercing and turned out to be really, really good with his tongue.
We’re only five minutes into our interview and I’m already at a disadvantage.
Unfortunately, Gabe puts a shirt on and the three of us—me, him, and the puppy—head out to grab lunch. He has a favorite place nearby. It’s not too crowded, he says, and no one really bothers him. Reminds him a little of home.
I brace myself for what I know is coming next—a big-time star rhapsodizing about the small town where he grew up and how he loves Los Angeles, but aw shucks, he really misses his hometown, where no one cared about fame or money.
This is not my first rodeo, after all.
He says it, of course, but the power of Gabe Parker is that I actually believe him.
Speaking of rodeos, I’m sorry to say that on our way to lunch, Gabe himself shatters part of the Montana Man fantasy by informing me that he’d never actually been on a horse before his role in Cold Creek Mountain—the first time that audiences saw him without a shirt.
“No ranches, no riding,” he tells me. “I grew up in a small town.”
Gabe looks like the kind of guy that should be a movie star. Heads turn when he passes, and it’s not just because he’s six foot four and holding an adorable puppy. He has that ineffable quality that we’d all bottle and sell if we could.
And yes, ladies—he is actually six foot four. Not Hollywood’s version of six foot four, which is closer to five foot ten, but actually a towering, tall hunk of a man. I know this for a fact because I’m Hollywood’s version of six foot four.
We get a table in the back where there’s a patio for the dog. It takes us fifteen minutes to get there, but it’s mostly because Gabe himself keeps stopping and talking to the waitstaff.
You see, they all know him. He’s a regular.
“Madison, honey, you look gorgeous,” he says when our waitress comes to take our order.
She’s radiantly pregnant, and waves off the compliment.
“I mean it,” Gabe says. “Your husband should say that to you. Every. Single. Day. On his knees.”
I’m pretty sure that if I were pregnant, my water would have broken at that exact moment.
But Madison just laughs and takes our order, giving Gabe’s puppy a pat on the head before floating off to the kitchen with more grace then I could have ever managed, pregnant or not.
We each get a beer and a burger.
We talk about his childhood in Montana. How close he is with his family, especially his sister, Lauren. She’s older by a year and Gabe’s best friend.
“I know it’s cliché,” he says. “But she really is.”
We talk about the bookshop. The one he bought for Lauren and his mom when he got his first big break.
“It’s a bookshop/craft shop,” he makes a point to say. “Lauren gets mad if I don’t include that as well.”
It’s called the Cozy. They have a website. Gabe recommends books on it, even though he’s said in past interviews that he was never much of a reader as a kid.
“My mom was an English teacher, so having a kid that didn’t like books was so embarrassing,” he says. “But I was just a late bloomer—I’m a big reader now. The bookstore was her dream. And Lauren’s always been good at making things—baking, crafting, that kind of stuff. She still knits me a sweater every Christmas.”
I bite my tongue to keep from making the obvious joke: “What are they made of? Boyfriend material?”
In case you’re wondering, he is single.
“Rumors,” he tells me when I ask about Jacinda. “We’re co-stars and friends.”
Jacinda Lockwood—the newest Bond girl for the newest Bond. She and Gabe have been photographed numerous times coming out of restaurants, standing close to each other on dark sidewalks in Paris, even holding hands a few times.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Gabe says. “But there’s nothing there.”
He orders a second beer. I’m a lightweight so I decline.
Remember this detail later, friends. Two roads diverge and all that.
I ask how he feels about taking on such an iconic part—about being the first American to step into the role.
“Nervous,” he tells me. “Anxious. I almost said no.”