Twenty-One #2
He sat, but his new position did nothing to improve the mood of the room. She wasn’t familiar with this strange vibe she was getting from him.
Scooting to the floor, she rattled a ball, rolling it toward Anakin. “He’s so cute.”
Elliot looked at her but didn’t smile. His eyes observed her from behind his lenses, and she had no idea what he saw or what he might be thinking. “What is that look, Elliot?”
He glanced back to the little boy. “Do you want children?”
Her belly did a delicate flip. “I think so. I’d like to have my career in order first, have some money saved up.”
His brow folded. “Maybe the dad will have money.”
“Dads don’t always stick around.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged, adjusting Anakin’s sock. “It’s just the truth. I’d rather know I can support my children if I have any.”
Lettie came into the room and scooped up the baby. “Dinner’s ready. I’m just going to change Sir Stinky Pants before we eat. You guys can head into the dining room.”
As Lettie carried Anakin up a sprawling staircase Nadia stood from the carpet. When they crossed the room, Elliot whispered, “My dad never left.”
This wasn’t the time to discuss something as personal as wanting children. But like her father, his had passed on. “Abandonment comes in all shapes and sizes, Elliot. Let’s not discuss this now.”
Their footsteps echoed and he whispered, “My father was incredibly loyal to all of us.”
“Well, mine wasn’t. He never cared what I wanted and the only times he spoke to me was when I’d somehow disappointed him. I don’t want to discuss this here.”
Her steps faltered, her brain catching up with her blinking eyes as they stepped through the vast doorway. The dining room was an average ballroom.
What is this place?
This home was absurd. Glancing at Elliot, she murmured, “Is this some sort of museum?”
Asher grinned, rising from the head of a grand table. “Why do you think it was so important for me to learn how to dance? Welcome to our ballroom.”
She smiled at Asher’s pleasantness, hiding the level of which she’d misjudged his wealth. She’d known he had money and was a successful businessman, especially when she heard what he’d done for Steve, but this was beyond affluent living. This was obscene.
She sat beside Elliot at the ornate table and settled her fidgeting hands in her lap. “It smells delicious.”
Asher grinned. “Lettie’s an incredible chef.”
His wife returned and situated the baby in the highchair, which was as ordinary as every other highchair she’d ever seen, conflicting with the rich surroundings. Her mouth twitched as she mentally tried to meld the luxury of the home with the couple’s ordinariness.
“Let’s eat,” Lettie reached for the breadbasket. “I hope casual’s fine with you, Nadia. With school starting, I’ve been trying to balance work and marriage and the little monkey all in one, so my game’s a little off.”
“Casual’s perfect.” It was her preference.
Though the serving dishes were ornate, they were filled with simple comforts like roast pork, mashed potatoes, and corn.
Once she saw how laid-back Asher and Lettie were, laughing when Anakin flung his potatoes on the floor and gesturing easily as they ate their meal, she let go of her insecurities and accepted a glass of wine.
Lettie was great, very easygoing and quick to laugh. “Don’t you love salads from a bag? I swear my culinary creativity would be dead if not for shortcuts.”
The more Lettie spoke, the more Nadia’s tension eased. By the end of the meal, she felt a strange pull to get to know Asher’s wife, finding her genuine congeniality refreshing and sincere.
“Let’s go relax in the den, Nadia. I cooked, so Asher does the dishes.”
She followed Lettie to the room with the couch and sat as she returned Anakin to his blanket of toys.
“He’s such a pleasant boy,” Nadia observed with a pang of envy.
Lettie smiled. “He’s my little angel.” She curled her feet underneath her knees on the couch and sipped her wine. “So, you and Elliot, that’s unexpected.”
Nadia cocked her head, a teasing pinch tightening her stomach. “Why do you say unexpected?”
Lettie shrugged. “He’s not the easiest to get along with and he never dates. Not to mention you’re like … supermodel gorgeous.”
She shrank a little in her skin. “I don’t know about that. I’d give anything for hair the color of yours.” Lettie’s hair had all the vibrant shades of fire. It was so alive compared to Nadia’s drab, Morticia black locks.
The other woman blanched and laughed. “No, you wouldn’t. But seriously, how did you two start seeing each other?”
Nadia explained the night she and Ian broke up and how Elliot sort of rescued her. “He just showed up at exactly the right time. We had some drinks and he did magic tricks for me.”
“Elliot did magic tricks?”
“Yeah. He’s really good at them.”
“Huh. I never knew he could do magic.”
Worried she might have betrayed his privacy, she whispered, “Maybe he doesn’t like other people knowing.”
Lettie didn’t seem too concerned. “So, you two are serious?”
It was odd, measuring her relationship under another person’s inspection, but Nadia never had a lot of girlfriends and maybe this was what they did.
“I like the way he talks to me. Most men don’t show interest in my thoughts and opinions, and they tend to act put out when I share them.
Elliot isn’t like that. I’ve never liked a man the way I like him.
He’s so sweet and patient.” She flushed at how deeply she’d fallen, sure she was under some sort of puppy love spell only magicians could cast. “And he’s very sensual. ”
Lettie blinked. “Elliot?”
Nadia giggled at the baffled expression on her face. “Yes, Elliot. He’s…” Her face heated another degree. “He’s domineering and incredibly passionate when he wants to be.”
Lettie glanced toward the kitchen door where the men still remained and back to Nadia. “Our Elliot?”
Why was this so difficult for her to imagine? “Is he different around you?”
She took a long sip of wine. “Well, out of all Asher’s friends, he took the longest to warm up to me. He’s very…”
“Precise?”
“I was going to say opinionated, but we’ll go with your word.”
Nadia frowned. “I don’t find him opinionated at all.
If anything, he’s overly cautious about other people’s feelings.
It takes a bit of coercion to get him to let down his guard, but when he does, there’s so much hidden inside of him.
” Keeping her voice low, she quietly confessed, “Sometimes I worry I’m not enough for him. ”
“Wow. Cheers to finding a side of him the rest of us missed.” They clinked their glasses.
“That’s a really special feeling, sort of how Asher makes me feel.
I used to be so intimidated by him. He was so closed off to the rest of the world.
I think that’s why he and Elliot are so close.
They have common inhibitions and hide a lot of vulnerability inside. ”
It was a relief to meet another woman involved with a man similar to hers. “Yes, Elliot feels things deeply. That’s another attractive trait.”
Lettie smiled, twin darts of pink forming on her fair cheeks, likely from the wine. “I think, regardless of what others see, you two make perfect sense. You’ll be good for him.”
Elliot was complicated, but in some ways transparently simple and kindhearted. How could anyone see something different in him? Or was she speaking of them as a couple?
“Do you mean what people think of us dating?”
She waved a hand. “It’s nothing. Asher was just telling me that Jet was worried Elliot might get hurt.” She leaned close and whispered, “He’s never really been in a relationship before.”
Feeling protective of Elliot’s past, she sipped her wine. She didn’t want his friends thinking she had any ulterior motives where Elliot was concerned. She only wanted to be close to him.
The baby crawled off the blanket and Lettie was distracted. When Nadia finished her wine, she excused herself to find the boys.
Cutting through the ballroom, she pushed the door to the kitchen open a crack and paused—
“But what if Nadia gets mad?” Elliot asked.
She drew back, unsure what they could possibly be discussing.
“Then apologize. I can only vouch for my own experience. I never thought Lettie would be into the things she’s into and, as much as you made fun of the whole Mr. Stone thing, it helped in that department. There was no personal consequence—at least for a little while. I could be … myself.”
“But you weren’t being yourself.”
“You’re wrong, Elliot. Pretending to be someone else let me be more myself than anything else ever has.
It took away any sense of blame or shame.
Don’t get me wrong, finding a balance between reality and fantasy wasn’t easy—I swore I’d lost her—but we made it work and look at us now.
Never in a million years did I imagine she’d accept me so completely.
She’d been blind to my flaws just long enough for me to find the courage to show her my true self. ”
“But you two still argue.”
“Of course,” Asher laughed. “What couple doesn’t?
But that’s over insignificant stuff. The truth is, once we stopped basing personal experiences on other people’s standards the instinct to compare ourselves to others sort of disappeared.
We’re happy and that’s all that matters to us.
We liberated each other, accepted who we are on the inside. ”
Nadia peeked through the crack of the ornate wooden door, but Asher’s body blocked Elliot’s expression from her view.
He patted Elliot’s shoulder. “Let her see the real you, not the idea you want to portray, but who you actually are. Love can only be genuine. If it’s not, then it’s not really love. ”
Love? Her heart fluttered at what she might be hearing. But then she frowned. Why was he telling Asher this when he should be sharing his feelings with her?