17. Elijah
ELIJAH
“You’ve decided everything we’ve done for the past two weeks,” Stephanie said one morning. “Today it’s my turn.”
The two of them were lying in Elijah’s bed. Slow mornings had become a part of their routine lately. They didn’t spend every night together, but it was more frequent than Elijah would have dared to imagine it would be even two weeks ago.
“I haven’t decided everything,” he protested. “We’ve decided together.”
“No, we haven’t,” she said lightly. “You asked me if I wanted to go to the seafood restaurant at eight or at nine, not where I wanted to get dinner.”
“Have I been bossing you around?”
“Oh, I haven’t minded,” she assured him. “Your ideas tend to be good ones. I really liked that seafood place. It’s just that I’d like to show you one of my favorite places today, if you’re interested in that.”
He rolled toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “I would love to see one of your favorite places. Where are we going?”
Stephanie popped out of bed and went over to the closet.
She had started keeping a few of her things here.
Just the basics. Elijah told himself it didn’t mean all that much.
It wasn’t as if she had her own half of his closet or a drawer in his dresser.
She did have a hanger she used, though, a place where she hung up whatever outfit she brought over to wear the following morning after spending the night.
Today she took down a green sundress he hadn’t seen before and pulled it over her head.
As it settled around her, he was struck by how well it set off the red in her hair.
She looked amazing, and he leaned back against the pillows in his bed to enjoy looking at her.
“Get up,” she said, blushing. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Mmm, okay, come and help me.” He held out a hand to her for her to pull him up, but when she took it, he tugged and pulled her back down into the bed with him.
“Hey!” She burst out laughing. “Come on, get up.”
“You look too good in that dress. I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” she insisted. “We have places to be today. Things to do.”
She squirmed out of his arms and got back to her feet, dancing away from the edge of the bed so he wouldn’t be able to pull her back down. Elijah groaned theatrically and sat up, stretching his arms overhead, watching as she combed out her mess of curls. Her morning hair entranced him.
“What do I need to wear for this?” he asked. “You look gorgeous, but you always look good, so I can’t take any cues from that.”
“Anything,” she said. “Shorts and a T-shirt is just fine. We’re going to be outside.”
“Okay, now I’m really curious.” He got up and went to his dresser, fishing out clothes that matched her instructions.
“Don’t worry,” she grinned. “We’re going to have a great day.”
Both sides of the street were lined with hand-painted stalls, and there were barriers at either end blocking it off to traffic. The sound of excited chatter filled Elijah’s ears. He turned this way and that, taking it all in. “What is all this?”
“It’s a farmers’ market.” Stephanie was bouncing up and down on her toes with excitement. “You’ve never been to one before?”
“I’ve heard of them, but I guess I always pictured them taking place on farms.” Come to think of it, that didn’t make a lot of sense. “I didn’t realize you came to a lot of farmers’ markets.”
“I love them,” she said. “I always end up going home with something I wasn’t expecting to buy. Did you bring cash?”
“No.” He was mystified. “Who carries cash?”
She laughed. “That’s okay. Today’s on me. I kind of thought you might not come prepared. You’ve paid for our last three dates, so anything you want, just let me know.”
“I couldn’t let you buy things for me.”
“Elijah,” she said firmly, “I will be offended if you don’t. Now, come on. Let’s see what there is to see here.”
She took his hand and pulled him down the road, in between the two parallel rows of booths.
Elijah looked back and forth, marveling at the sights.
At one booth, he saw bags and bags of fresh apples.
Another vendor had the biggest green onions he had ever seen, with massive white bulbs at the ends, and Elijah was tempted to buy some just for the novelty.
But it was the next booth that finally caught his attention and pulled him in. “Popcorn!”
“Do you want some?” Stephanie asked, moving closer. It was hot and fresh, and Elijah’s mouth watered. “Yeah, you want some,” she concluded. “Can we get a large bag?”
The vendor scooped some out for them, and money changed hands. Stephanie plucked a kernel off the top and passed the bag to Elijah, who took a big handful. He popped it in his mouth and closed his eyes—the popcorn seemed to dissolve on his tongue, filling his mouth with flavor. It was excellent.
“We should get some of these,” Stephanie said. Elijah opened his eyes to see that she was holding a bag of unpopped kernels. “This is the stuff we’re eating?”
“That’s right,” the vendor said. He was a young man, probably in his very early twenties, and he seemed full of excitement and energy. “Those are our purple kernels. That’s my personal favorite, although the red is also very nice.”
Elijah looked down at the bag in his hand. “This popcorn isn’t purple.”
The kid laughed. “The hulls are purple,” he explained, pointing at the bag Stephanie held. “Not the inside.”
“We’ll take it.” She gave him some more money, and together the two of them walked on down the road.
“What are we going to do with those?” Elijah wondered.
“Pop them,” Stephanie said. She glanced at him. “You do know how to pop popcorn, don’t you?”
“I mean, in the microwave.”
She burst out laughing. “You really have no kitchen skills at all.” Her tone was affectionate. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you. We can do it tonight, and we’ll watch a movie in your screening room.”
Elijah nodded. That sounded wonderful. “All right,” he said. “But if we’re having movie night, we should get some candy too, don’t you think?”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
He pointed to a booth where hand-molded chocolates were being sold, and they made their way over and bought a box. Farther down the way, they found a stand that had sticks of hard candy in various flavors, and they bought peppermint and orange and cherry.
At the end of the road, one of the vendors was selling sandwiches made with his homemade pesto sauce, and they each bought one for the walk back up to the beginning of the market where they had come in.
As they strolled along, Elijah remarked, “I would never have come to something like this if it hadn’t been for you. ”
“I believe that,” she said with a smile. “I just hope it wasn’t too irritating for you being here. I know this isn’t exactly your scene, but I really wanted to come, and I figured you’d do it for my sake.”
“It wasn’t irritating at all.” His hand found hers again.
He had gotten used to walking hand in hand lately, and it had come to be something he really enjoyed.
That was odd. He had always assumed that hand-holding was the province of the needy and insecure, but with Stephanie it didn’t feel that way at all.
He just liked having her close. “I’m glad we came,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have done it on my own, but it was nice to try something new. I would do it again sometime.”
“Really?” She beamed. “I guess I hoped you would enjoy it, but it did kind of seem like a long shot.”
“I wouldn’t have liked it if I wasn’t here with you,” he said. “But I think… I think I could do just about anything with you and have a pretty good time. Honestly, we always do enjoy ourselves together.”
“We really do.” She bumped her shoulder gently against his and didn’t move away, and as they walked along together, Elijah couldn’t help reflecting on just how true his statement was.
He would never have come here on his own. If anyone else had tried to bring him, he would probably have dragged his feet and refused to allow himself to get into it.
It was Stephanie’s presence that had made this special, that had allowed him to have a good time. And he knew at once that he would go anywhere she asked him to. He would disrupt his habits, change the patterns he had spent years establishing, to make room for her in his life.
That was a frightening thought. But also, in a way, it was kind of a pleasant one. That he had managed to grow so attached to someone that he would be willing to change his own life around to make room for her… it was new.
It was exciting.
This farmers’ market, he sensed, had been only the beginning. He could hardly wait to see what she would introduce him to next.
He let her pick the movie that night, without any of his own input. It seemed only right, given the fact that the rest of the day had been hers. Might as well go on as they’d started.
He had never heard of the film she’d picked.
It turned out to be a post-apocalyptic thriller, and she was stunned that he didn’t know what it was.
“I can’t believe you haven’t seen this,” she said.
“I thought everyone in the world had. I thought you were going to make fun of me for picking something I’d seen a hundred times before, but if you’ve never seen it, this is actually important. You can’t not see this movie.”
He put it on, and she pulled the bowl of popcorn she’d made for them into her lap.
It was even better than the bag they had bought at the farmers’ market—hotter and fresher, and there was something delightful about curling up together around a bowl of it.
As the movie started, Stephanie rested her head on his shoulder, and Elijah felt a strange warmth spreading through him.
It wasn’t attraction. He was attracted to her—it was never far from his mind. But this was something different, something he had rarely experienced in his life.
Contentment.
Her hair spilling onto his shoulder, the way her whole body rose and fell with every breath she took, the way he could feel her relaxing against him…
she was so at ease, and that knowledge made Elijah feel at ease himself.
It was amazing to be holding her like this and to be able to stop worrying about everything else, to just be here in this moment with the woman who was coming to mean so much to him.
All he wanted to do was to sit here with Stephanie in his arms. He didn’t need anything else. They could have stayed like this all night and he would have been perfectly happy with it. He would consider that to be a night well spent.
Today was the kind of thing I would never have planned for myself. Not one thing has been what I would have chosen. And yet, it has all been perfect, because all of it was with her. And in spite of all the odds, being with her has become more important to me than almost anything else.
That proposition terrified him more than the images of apocalyptic horror flashing on the screen in front of him.
To be so attached to another person—it was dangerous.
Because you couldn’t control what might happen.
You couldn’t know. At any time, Stephanie might choose to go away, and there would be nothing he could do to stop her.
That hadn’t been a concern with any other woman he had ever been involved with, because he had never minded the thought of losing them.
But if he lost her, it would hurt. He would actually struggle with it.
And all he could do was hope and trust that she felt the same way he did.