Chapter 15
Hazel
Benji’s was quieter now that tourist season was nearly done. There was maybe a weekend for color cruisers—people who drove around, looking at the changing leaves clinging to the trees. The autumn chill had grown too frigid—my cheeks were chapped and raw after our walk—but the cold couldn’t touch the hot flurry of emotions inside my chest.
It was even enough to quiet the constant “to-do” list that was always growing larger. But maybe Elijah was right; maybe I could pass some tasks on to others… Maybe.
He sat across the table from me, his body relaxed in the booth. He looked down at our joined hands.
We hadn’t spoken much through dinner. Every time I opened my mouth, his eyes locked onto mine, conveying a promise that stole my breath. Instead, we waited for his credit card to be returned so we could go back to my place.
I was so deep in my anticipation that I didn’t notice Tara Nelson until she was standing at the edge of our table. Surprised, I blinked up at her stern, round face, surrounded by bleached blond curls held in place by a matting of hairspray.
“Hi,” I said. She was my parent’s age, and I didn’t know her well. Mostly, I knew her from when I went to school with her daughter, Lily. I remember Tara was always calling the school to argue about a poor grade she thought was undeserved.
She fixed her icy-blue gaze. “Hello.” Shifting her attention to Elijah, she spat out, “You should never have come back here.”
The man at the table next to us glanced over his shoulder.
I sank deeper in the booth. Blood rushed in my ears, and I felt my cheeks warm. My stomach instantly felt too full and queasy.
Elijah’s fingers flexed, tightening his grip on my hand. Outwardly, his demeanor didn’t change—his arm casually draped across the back of the booth, his shoulder lounged against the wall—but his green eyes took on a sharp focus I hadn’t seen before.
His tone was almost bored when he said, “Okay.”
“You’re trouble, and you don’t belong here,” Mrs. Nelson growled.
“Noted. Are we done?”
I didn’t know how he could seem so calm, especially when I was stuck in the freeze mode of fight or flight.
She shook her head—and not a single hair moved. “Your father is a good man. You have always been a bad son.”
Again, only the slightest twitch of his fingers betrayed any agitation he might have felt.
My spine straightened, and my chin jutted out. “That’s not true. He’s good.”
It wasn’t exactly an elegant speech, but the corner of Elijah’s mouth lifted.
“And you.” She focused her narrowed eyes at me, her mouth pinched in distaste. “You took advantage of him.”
“What?” I sputtered. I wasn’t used to doing anything that drew negative attention; in fact, most people didn’t even notice me. And just then, I wished I could fly back under the radar.
Go back to being unnoticed.
“You swept in and stole the clinic from him.”
“Stole? I bought it.”
“He built that business—”
“No,” Elijah interrupted. “My grandpa built that business. And while my dad ran it okay—not great—he certainly didn’t build anything, he coasted. I’m guessing what you’re actually upset about is the upcoming auction.”
She scoffed. “I’ve heard about your auction.”
“Good. Sterling has been working really hard getting the word out.”
“Our town used to be better than this. It’s shameful how quickly you’ve tainted us, but I would expect nothing less of someone like you.”
From the bar, Ben’s head jerked up at her raised voice, and he took unhurried strides in our direction.
Elijah sat up and crossed his arms on top of the table. “Every single one of the men involved volunteered their time to help someone in this community, while also raising money for the humane society. None of them asked you to be the morality police or fight on their behalf. But you’re still welcome to participate. Bring your money; I hear Brooks is auctioning off gardening. Scandalous.”
“Everything okay here?” Ben leaned a hip against our booth, taking in the scene.
Picking up his water cup, Elijah raised it to an inch from his mouth. “Yeah. Tara was just leaving.”
She clenched her jaw. “You are defacing your business by hosting that auction here.”
Ben shrugged. “Well, if you feel that strongly about it, I guess we won’t see you on Taco Tuesdays anymore. Have a good night.”
“No, you won’t.” She glared at me.
“That’s too bad.” But the neutral expression on Ben’s face did not convey the same message as his words.
She opened her mouth again, but he cut her off, “It’s really best that you just leave.” Setting our receipt and Elijah’s credit card down, Ben blocked Mrs. Nelson from continuing to berate us. “Keep the table as long as you’d like, no rush.”
For a couple of moments, nothing happened. She didn’t leave, and he didn’t move from our table. I could feel all eyes fixed on us, pricking like needles on my skin. Then, finally, she huffed and turned away, ranting the whole way to the door—using language she would never say in church.
“You two okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Elijah answered, his voice steely.
I nodded, but my wide eyes must not have been convincing because Ben’s eyebrows drew down in concern.
Elijah leaned closer to me. “You want me to take you home?”
I nodded again, not sure I could trust my voice. My embarrassment was sharp, and my eyes stung with unshed tears—which was humiliating all on its own. He wrapped a protective arm around my waist, but I couldn’t help thinking that it’d be easier for me to hide if he wasn’t right next to me.
Elijah was the source of attention everywhere he went, without his ever trying to be. Just being near him brought me under more scrutiny.
Elijah’s chest was firm and warm against my cold cheek. We were watching a TV show I wasn’t paying attention to, my mind wandering.
Wandermight not have been the correct word. It implied that my thoughts meandered, took multiple routes, contemplated many things, and that wasn’t true. I had one thing on my mind—would my reputation be so tarnished by the auction that the clinic would fail, and I’d be buried under a pile of business loan debt as well as school loans, and I’d ruin the lives of my employees because of it?
Elijah’s fingers paused in my hair. “Care to share your thoughts with the group?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. We’d already talked about Mrs. Nelson, and I just wanted to move past it. I didn’t want my anxiety ruining any more of our night.
“Baby,” he murmured against the top of my head, “you’re thinking too loudly for me to hear the show.”
My lips twitched on one side in something like a smile. “Sorry, I’ll think quieter.”
He lifted the remote and the TV screen went black with the click of a button. In just a few awkward shifts, I was seated half on his lap, half on the sofa cushion, and he was looking directly into my eyes. “Talk to me.”
“I’m just spiraling a little.”
“Where are you spiraling to?”
I opened my mouth, but then closed it, too humiliated to tell him. Wasn’t I supposed to be above anyone’s opinions of me? Especially someone as mean-spirited as Mrs. Nelson?
“The town feeling too small?” he offered.
I nodded.
“You can talk to me about it.”
Biting my lower lip, I shook my head. “I already have.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I told you about running into my dad earlier.”
“Yeah.”
“He insinuated something from when I was a teenager. It… You probably heard of it.”
I cringed, knowing exactly what he was talking about. It was the top moment mentioned whenever Elijah’s name was brought up in a group. Remember that time… But the way he was leading into it now, with his shoulders tight and his eyes looking anywhere but at me, I suspected it’d gotten warped in the retelling.
It fit well with the trail of broken hearts narrative that followed Elijah.
“Pastor Lou’s daughter and the church shed?” I asked.
“That’s the one.” His eyes didn’t hold any of their usual light as he looked down at the floor. “So, I was seventeen, and my parents were recently divorced. There was so much shit being said about my mom, and I was trying hard to be a good kid and not draw any bad attention. That summer, my dad volunteered me to mow at the church—it’s got that two acre-lawn.”
He waited long enough that I hummed a confirmation.
His chest rose before breathing out in one big puff. “Anyway, Hannah—Lou’s daughter—was doing flowerbeds and stuff. We’d been around each other a lot through church functions, but we never spent time together. It wasn’t until that summer that I got to know her, and I started to like her. It took a couple of weeks for me to work up the nerve to ask her out. She said she liked me too, but she couldn’t date someone like me.”
My mouth hung open. “Someone like you?”
His eyes flicked to mine and then away. “Yeah, at that point I’d dated a couple different girls, and been caught partying. Hannah said we could date in secret, and I thought that was fine.”
“Elijah.” I waited until he lifted his head. “You didn’t deserve that.”
Something cold whispered down my spine, remembering how he and I had a secret affair. Had it made him remember that time?
“I know. I thought I did at the time.”
“You didn’t.”
“Thank you. But everyone knew she was good, and I wasn’t. What we did wasn’t really dating; it was mostly just talking behind the shed. It was nice. Wholesome. It took weeks before we even kissed.”
My stomach twisted, knowing that the rug was about to be pulled out. His story gave insight not only to the way the town could twist the truth, but also on the boy I’d idolized at the time.
“By the time we got caught… we were past the kissing stage. I don’t blame Hannah for not speaking up when her dad started saying terrible things about me. She was scared.”
He tapped his fingers on the armrest. “But it finalized everyone’s idea of me. For months, it felt like everyone was talking about me. Like everything I did was proof that my mom didn’t have control over me, and I was a bad influence on… everyone. It wasn’t who I was, but it was what they thought of me. It was shitty.”
Wrapping his arms around my waist, he held me. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to, but I just want you to know that I know firsthand what’s going on.”
I pulled back to stare into his beautiful eyes. This close, I could see a ring of dark brown circling the green.
“I hate the attention I’m getting right now,” I managed to say before my throat grew too tight.
His arms flexed—protecting me. “You have a lot of support, though. Ask Echo’s owner what she thinks of you. Or Patricia over at the humane society. Have you noticed how loudly she’s supporting this fundraiser?”
I shook my head, my eyes stinging.
A smile spread across his face, so beautiful and quick. “She’s not holding back her two cents.”
“No?”
“No.” He lifted his eyebrows, the grin still on his face. “She’s supportive.”
“It’s hard to hear the good stuff when I feel so scraped up by the bad stuff.”
He rubbed soothing circles on my back.
“I feel like I should be above it. Like, why do I care what they think?”
“Because you do.”
I lifted a shoulder, still not happy with the explanation.
“I don’t want to. I want to be bold like Nora, or at least apathetic like Brooks.”
“You aren’t them. You do care.”
I hid my face in his shoulder. “It’s embarrassing.”
“I don’t think it’s anything to be embarrassed about.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “It’s okay to be you, Hazel.”
His acceptance was a balm for my wounds. A safe place to vent my insecurities. He kept opening himself up to me, letting me see his vulnerability. I just wished he could see just how good he was.
I cupped his face in my hands. “It’s okay to be you, too.”
The tension rushed out of his shoulder, and his sigh tickled through my hair.
I lowered my mouth to his. I tried to pour all my feelings into the soft pressure of our lips. He held me closer, tighter, as if his arms alone could shield me from our small town. His mouth parted, and his tongue swiped over mine. I moved my hands down to rub gentle circles into his shoulders, and slowly, they eased.
The last thread of my defenses broke; the veil that I’d left as a fail-safe, the one I’d never unwrapped around my heart. The one that whispered, Just in case, was gone. And behind it, I was left unprotected.
It was terrifying.
It was overwhelming.
It was right.
The strong hold of his fingers on my thighs, and the way his mouth demanded more… it was all right.
I’d gone over the edge, but I’d gone over in his arms. I trusted him to not let me fall. If I ended up careening too fast into something unknown, I knew he’d be there with me.
He rolled, placing me under him on the sofa. Kissing over my clothes, he moved down my body, his touch reverent.
He bit the flesh of my thigh before looking up at me through his lashes. “Do you even know the little noises you make?”
I bit my lip and shook my head.
His grin turned devilish as he unbuttoned my jeans only to reveal wool-lined leggings underneath. “I miss your dresses.”
Giggling, I said, “They’ll be back in the spring.”
“They better.” He made a show of peeling my layers down my legs.
By the time I was in only my underwear, we were both laughing and hot. My laughter caught in my throat when he scraped his teeth along the inside of my knee.
His groan vibrated against my skin. “Like that fucking noise right there. I want more of it.”
He hooked my underwear on his finger and pulled them to the side. He took in the sight of me—my legs open, my breasts rising and falling with each short breath. His eyes were dark and hungry when they met mine, and I whimpered. One corner of his mouth turned upward, and he licked his lips. My core clenched as he lowered, never taking his gaze from mine.
His breath brushed hot against my skin.
I gasped.
The grip he had on my panties tightened, pulling them tight against my ass. He licked my clit once and moaned deep in his throat as if I tasted good, satisfying. My hips jerked.
His free hand snaked up my sweater, and his fingers found my sensitive, hardened nipples over my bra. My back arched at his touch as my hands tunneled into his hair. His beard tickled my inner thigh as he flicked his tongue over my sensitive nub.
I lost track of everything except for the way he sucked and drew me closer to my climax. I wanted it; I wanted the waves of electricity washing down my scalp and spine.
But I needed him.
I needed to look into his eyes while he was inside me.
“Elijah,” I pleaded. “I need you.”
He opened his eyes and sat back on his heels. His lips and chin glistened in the dim light of my living room. He looked incredible, half-dazed with lust. “What do you need, baby?”
“Just you.”
For a moment, he didn’t move. He held me trapped in his eyes.
His lips formed the words, Just me.
Running a hand over his mouth, he swallowed. He reached down and undid the button of his pants. “Take off your sweater.”
While I struggled to undress, I heard him stand and push his pants to the carpet. By the time I got the multiple layers of shirts off, Elijah was completely naked, laying a throw blanket on the carpet. The muscles in his back flexed with each movement. He was artful and lovely. Being able to see him like that made my chest tighten, as if my heart had grown too large for its cage.
Smirking, he asked, “You made it out of there?”
I giggled. I loved that even when our emotions and chemistry were intense, he could still make me laugh.
“It looked touch and go for a second there.”
I reached behind my back to undo the clasp of my bra. “It was.”
“Come here.” He lowered to sit on the floor, resting an arm on his propped knee. He was draped in lights and shadows, and nothing else.
The blanket was soft under my bare feet. He ran a hand up the back of my thigh to grip my ass, urging me closer, before placing kisses low on my stomach. Desire throbbed through me carried on my pulse, but I wanted to be open to him. To be bare to him in a way I had never done before.
I buried my fingers in his hair. Gently, I pushed him to lift his chin and look at me. “Just you,” I whispered again.
We’d already discussed our comfort with not using protection. His eyes never left mine as he leaned back on his arms, and I lowered to my knees. I hovered above him. Placing him at my entrance, I sank down. He slipped inside me, filling me.
I sighed, my head falling back.
After a few grounding breaths, Elijah took hold of my ankle to move it behind his back and then the other. Wrapped around each other, we started pulling apart and coming back together, over and over. His mouth sought mine as my hands memorized the path of his spine. Hugging him tighter.
Our hearts beat against our chests so closely, I couldn’t tell which was his and which was mine.
I was shivering, my feelings too potent. They’d become something more than an idea—more than a possibility, more than an inclination. They were so real, I could practically hold them in my hand. Like cupping a fire that didn’t burn, something I could pass from my fingers to his.
Tears stung my eyes as I came.
His forehead pressed into my sweaty neck as he shook and shuddered. He pulled in deep gasps as his fingers gripping my sides loosened one by one.
“Hazel,” he spoke my name as if it was sacred.
I said his name in the exact same way, “Elijah.”