12. Sully
CHAPTER TWELVE
sully
HONESTLY, IT SORT OF pissed me off.
That Ellie was here.
She’d made it sound like we were going to talk today. Like she was going to wait to hear what I had to say about this entire thing before she just upped and moved in.
But no. She wasn’t even going to let me pack my shit up before she came in and took over, and it was making me rethink everything.
I’d thought I could do this, give this proximity a chance, but now that I was here?
Fuck, I didn’t know. Ellie already took over all my waking thoughts.
And now, seeing her here, taking over my goddamn house, too?
I knocked on the door like I didn’t use to live here, and Ellie whipped it open within seconds.
“Oh, hi.” She looked shocked to see me, her eyes running up and down my body like I might not be real. And even though she hadn’t meant it like that, it did things to my insides. Made my skin crawl with a familiar want. “I was going to call you in a bit, but this is…this is better.”
Better, was it?
I wasn’t convinced that having our conversations in person really was better, considering that being within a few feet of Eleanor Summers without touching her was most definitely my personal brand of torture, but what did I know?
I raked my fingers through my hair, needing to do something with my hands. “Couldn’t wait to move in, huh?”
“Your mom told me I should come see the house before I decided for sure if I wanted to live here. She said she’d made a few changes since…” She drifted off, but I could fill in the blanks. “Since the last time I’d been here, but I honestly haven’t noticed anything different.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “Well, my mom asked me to come by and get some of my things out of the way for you.”
Ellie sighed, like she knew exactly what that meant. My mom, the orchestrator.
“Oh, Annie…” she muttered and then opened the door wider for me. “Well, come on in.”
“Look at you, acting like you own the place already,” I said dryly.
She looked horrified by that implication, her eyes growing wide. “Sully, I—”
“It’s fine.”
I was not making it sound like it was fine.
“Is it?”
“Oh, yeah.” Guess I was going to try the sarcasm route, then. “I love the fact that my ex-girlfriend is moving into my childhood home and displacing all my stuff.”
She stepped back as I strode into the foyer of the home, bracing myself for the impact of being back here.
But it didn’t smack me over the head like I’d been expecting.
It was more of a gradual sensation that trickled down my spine, washing over me in waves.
The floral wallpaper. The faint scent of Mom’s baking, somehow woven into the core of this place.
The worn oak on the banister, from where we’d grab it as we launched ourselves up the stairs as kids.
“You don’t have to do that,” Ellie muttered.
I’d been looking around the house so I wouldn’t have to look at Eleanor in the house, but then I wasn’t sure what was worse. Seeing the backdrop of all my memories or seeing the woman who was present in all of them, standing there and looking just as beautiful as ever. Like we’d never even left.
“Do what?”
“Move your stuff.”
“It’s fine,” I repeated and then forced myself to look at her—like, really look at her.
My God, she really was something. Today, she wore jean shorts and a strappy black tank top, looking effortlessly hot.
Her hair was spun into a topknot, her bangs wispy in how they framed her pretty face.
But it wasn’t her clothes or her hairstyle that caught my attention—no, there was just something about her, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Something that was different from what it had been in Boston.
“I also don’t have to move in,” she pressed, oblivious to my ogling. “I meant what I said last night. I really did want you to think about it and let me know what you thought. I can find another place to live—”
“It’s fine, Eleanor,” I insisted, but maybe I should really find another word to use other than fine, considering she was sawing her teeth across her bottom lip, worrying.
Which made it really hard not to stare at her mouth.
And even harder not to fold her into my arms. “Really,” I said, softer.
Sighing. “If you want to live here, then by all means. My mom’s right. Someone really should.”
As conflicted as I was about this entire thing, there was also truth to the fact that a part of my brain didn’t mind it. The idea that she was here. That she was back where she’d once belonged, even if we no longer belonged here.
“Sully—”
“So, is it work?” I asked, needing to know and also needing her to stop calling me that when she never used to before.
“What?”
“Why you’re here.”
“Oh, no.” She was fidgeting now, tucking her hands in her back pockets and looking anywhere but at me. “It’s not work. I’m, um, working fully remote now.”
Interesting.
And entirely unhelpful.
“What is it, then?”
“Yeah, that’s…what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.
” She clapped her hands together nervously, twisting them.
“It’s just you keep showing up out of nowhere and catching me off guard and—” She looked around the space, like something might jump out to save her from this conversation.
“I’m just going to get a drink of water. I haven’t been feeling…the best.”
I frowned, watching as she turned on her heel and strode down the hallway toward the kitchen, which was situated on the back side of the house. I followed her, studying the shade of her skin as she grabbed a glass out of the cupboard.
Now that she mentioned it, she did look a little pale.
“Did you eat today?”
“Yes. No. I mean…”
She didn’t seem to know how to answer that question, and it was a pretty fucking basic question.
“Sit down.” She was acting off, and I didn’t like it. “When my mom texted me a mile-long to-do list, she also mentioned that she stocked the fridge with a few things. I’ll make you a ham sandwich.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Eleanor.” Her eyes snapped to mine when I said her name, and something simmered in them. Something that made me drop my voice and say, “If I’m allowed to eat you out without any complaints, then I should be allowed to make you a goddamn sandwich.”
“No, it’s just—” A pretty flush rose from her neck to her cheeks, which had me cursing internally.
I shouldn’t have said what I’d said. I should have learned my lesson last night, when I’d muttered things about Boston and her eyes got all wide and inviting, like maybe she wanted me to do them again.
“I’m not really eating…sandwiches lately,” she said as she slowly lifted herself to sit on the edge of the counter, the same way she used to when we were young.
I paused, hand on the refrigerator handle.
“You’re not eating sandwiches?”
“Like, sandwich meat. So if there’s any peanut butter, maybe?”
“Are you vegetarian now?”
“Not totally.” She opened her mouth and then closed it again. Changed the subject. “You don’t have to do that stuff, you know.”
“What stuff?”
If she thought I wasn’t going to go back to the sandwich thing, she was dead wrong.
“The list. From your mom.”
I laughed. “Oh, I have to do it.”
Had she met my mom?
She shook her head. “The house seems fine as it is. There’s no reason you have to clean anything out.”
I found myself grinding my teeth. The thought of Ellie living amongst all my things was a confusing stab to the chest. Maybe it was a testament to how much she’d moved on that she didn’t seem to care about having bits of me all around her.
“Which room are you staying in?”
The question just sort of fell out of my mouth before I could really consider it.
“I…” A crease formed between her brows. “I guess I hadn’t thought about that yet.”
“No?”
That was unfortunate because I badly needed to know now. I badly needed to know whose bed she’d be sleeping in.
I needed to know if it was mine.
And that it wasn’t one of my brothers’.
“Probably Natalie’s?” She cocked her head to the side. “That’s the one I slept in the most growing up.”
“No it’s not, Eleanor.”
Fuck.
Something else I shouldn’t have said, as evidenced by the way Ellie’s cheeks glowed.
I took a step forward, stuffing my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t have the urge to brush her bangs out of her eyes, just to see the spark in them better.
“Remember all those summers Natalie came home from college? When you’d have sleepovers and then leave the door open?
Sneak into my room after she fell asleep? ”
“But there were other times, too, before that,” Ellie pointed out, making a little sound in the back of her throat. “When we were just friends.”
I shook my head, annoyed at her denial.
“I don’t think there’s ever really been a time where I’ve thought of you as just a friend, El,” I muttered before brushing past her to grab the peanut butter and bread from the cupboard. “But okay.”
I could feel the way Ellie sucked in as I lingered beside her—like she was sucking me in, too.
It took everything in me to resist the pull, the proximity, the smell of her cherry blossom perfume, but I managed to step back, food in hand, and found Ellie blinking up at me, her lips parting and eyes darting around my face.
I could tell she was flustered, and I knew it was my fault.
I was poking too much, blurting too much, but I didn’t know how to not.
“You know what I mean,” Ellie huffed.
“Yeah,” I said dryly and tried to focus on the goddamn sandwich I was making her. I was starting to suspect she hadn’t eaten a single fucking thing today.
But then I froze, dropping the peanut butter jar and bread bag on the counter as terror seized my body, a thought striking me.
I’d been worried that Eleanor had come back because her mom was sick, but what if she was?
What if she wanted to live across the street from her mom because she wasn’t doing well and wanted to be close to family?
What if she wanted to be in Minnesota because of the proximity to the Mayo Clinic, one of the best medical networks in the world? What if—
“Here’s a knife.”
I blinked, finding Ellie holding a butter knife out for me, and I shook myself out of my thought spiral.
“Thanks.”
Silence settled over the kitchen after that, aside from the chime of my dad’s old grandfather clock that sat behind the chipped farmhouse table, and I focused on making the sandwich—peanut butter, no jelly. Ellie didn’t like jelly.
When I put it on a plate and slid it across the counter to her, I tried really hard not to stare until she took a tentative bite of the food.
She was nibbling.
Ellie didn’t nibble.
I clutched the edge of the counter.
What the fuck was going on?
“Is everything okay?”
I had to ask.
I had to know.
She nodded and then seemed to take a bigger bite of the sandwich—either to give an excuse not to reply to me or to prove that there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Or her.
“Mhm,” she mumbled. “Thanks for this.” It seemed to take her a visible amount of effort to swallow before she asked, “Do you want a bite?”
I shook my head.
No, I badly needed her to eat that whole damn sandwich. And then, if it were up to me, I’d make her another sandwich and watch her eat that, too.
“Do you want anything to drink?” she asked next, and I shook my head again.
But it reminded me of the reason we’d come into the kitchen in the first place. She’d needed a glass of water, and she hadn’t gotten that for herself yet.
I moved to get a cup and filled it with more ice than water.
“Here,” I said, my voice gruff as I set it beside the sandwich plate.
“Oh, thanks.”
She sounded surprised, like the notion of me caring for her was shocking, and the look she gave me could only be described as wary.
“Why don’t you…sit down,” she suggested. “So we can talk about why I’m here.”
Fuck, she was making me so goddamn nervous.
“Is this a sitting-down type of conversation, Eleanor?”
“Yeah, Sawyer.” Her voice was soft. Meanwhile, her gaze pierced straight through me. “I think it is.”
“You know I’m not good at sitting.”
I sounded like I was begging her, and maybe I was.
“I know, I know.” She nodded, looking pained. Sympathetic. Like she wanted to comfort me, but didn’t know how. Not anymore. “I know, Sul, but I’m just—I’m trying to figure out how to—”
“Please, for the love of God, just spit it out, El.” I couldn’t handle this anymore. “You’re fucking killing me. And scaring me.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, worried she’d notice the slight shake to them. “I can tell something is going on, and I need to know what the hell it is.”
“Okay.” She put her sandwich down and then wiped her hands on her shorts. “Okay.”
Her eyes dropped to the floor, and then when they flicked up to me again, I just knew the next words out of her mouth were going to change my entire, miserable life.
“It’s just…well, I’m pregnant.”