Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Raf
This damn elevator will be the death of me.
I was prepared to dislike this guy, I really was.
He clearly wasn’t interested in me. I’d even go so far as to say he seemed to actively dislike me or even be downright intimidated for some reason.
But now we’re stuck in here, and in a completely unexpected turn of events, Eli has started to relax.
He’s started talking. He rambles. It’s cute as fuck. He blushes. It gets me hot.
And he’s so fucking pretty. It’s ridiculous how fascinating I find his face.
Maybe I just haven’t gotten laid in so long that I don’t have standards anymore. Maybe I’m just conditioned to get turned on by a pretty face now, even if he clearly dislikes me, because my dick hasn’t seen any action in… Fucking hell, it’s been months.
Thing is, I’m usually so fucking picky. It’s what Levi, my brother, constantly teases me about because he’s the direct opposite of me in that way.
“Have you lived in Chicago your whole life?” he asks.
I look up into Eli’s curious gaze, and for a moment I forget what the question was. It takes me a bit to draw it out of the murky depths of my mind, which is now overly occupied trying to dissect my sudden fascination with this complete stranger.
I shake my head. “I was born in Michigan. We moved when I was nine. What about you?”
“Born and raised in California and moved here for university.”
“I almost feel like I should ask you how you like it. You know, as an almost native.”
“I prefer it to California.” He shrugs.
“That’s not a sentiment you hear too often. You don’t miss the sun, Cali boy?”
His lips twitch. “Do I look like somebody who goes to the beach a lot?”
I take the opportunity to take a long, slow look. Hey, he opened that window.
It’s true that he doesn’t have the golden complexion that suggests a lot of time spent tanning, but truthfully, the slightly paler look suits him a lot.
“No?” he asks knowingly.
“No.”
We keep our eyes locked, his gaze intense as hell and full of mystery. I want to unlock him.
“Do you surf?” I ask.
He snorts. “Why?”
“You asked me about polar bears. I’m returning the favor with a California stereotype.”
“I do,” he says.
“Do you?”
He hums. “Pretty well, too,” he says with a sudden bout of confidence he hasn’t shown yet.
Something jumps in my stomach. Excitement. Intrigue. He’s a whole mix of different sides.
“Not the best opportunities for that here,” I say.
“Spoken like a person who’s never been surfing. You can absolutely surf in Chicago, you just have to know where to go.”
Now there’s a hint of cockiness. Usually I don’t find traits like that attractive at all.
Turns out Eli might be the exception.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Now he looks downright pleased with himself, and that’s even more attractive. What the hell is happening to me?
“What do you do for fun?” he asks.
“I knit.”
He stares at me. Then his gaze moves up and down, not with appreciation but with dubiousness. I get that a lot.
“What do you knit?” he asks. I can tell he’s still not sure if I’m telling the truth or yanking his chain.
“Scarves, hats, blankets, socks. There are organizations that give them to people in need.”
The look in his eyes goes all soft. “They have volunteers who knit items for premature babies at our hospital.”
I nod. I’ve done that too.
Our eyes lock again, and we stare at each other for a long time. He looks away first.
“Damnit,” he mutters.
“What?”
He sighs, drags his fingers through his hair, and huffs out a breath. The next look he sends me is more of a glare.
I don’t understand what’s going on at all, and this kind of flipping between emotions, going from cold to hot to cold should kill this fucking attraction swiftly and for good, but somehow it doesn’t at all.
“You’re supposed to be an asshole,” he suddenly blurts.
I blink and stare at him.
“Am I?”
He nods vigorously. “A dick,” he adds. “But you’re not.
You’re not. No wonder he liked you, right?
Not that personality is that much of a dealbreaker when it comes to one-night stands.
I imagine. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had one.
I’m a relationship guy. Totally monogamous.
Boring, I know, but I can’t help it. But, like, you’re a fireman who knits hats for preemies.
Oh my God! You can probably have anyone you want.
Unless… unless it wasn’t just a one-time thing?
Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. I’ve just kind of been assuming this wasn’t, like, full-on cheating with a second relationship on the side, but then how would I know?
Because Chris was right, I do work a lot.
Like, really, a lot. I’m a shitty boyfriend because I have crazy long hours, and I have to study constantly.
I mean, I did my best, but that clearly wasn’t enough, and then if you have your pick between the boyfriend who’s never there anyway and the knitting firefighter who has muscles on top of muscles and is ridiculously hot to boot.
So, like, who are you going to choose, right? ”
He’s almost hyperventilating by the time he clamps his mouth shut and looks down, pressing the tips of his fingers to his forehead.
And I’m just…
Yeah, no, I’ve got no fucking clue what just happened here. Nothing he said made sense. Absolutely none of it.
“What?” I finally ask.
He waves miserably in my direction. “I get it, okay? I finally get it. If it were a choice between me and you, I’d pick you, too.”
“I don’t follow,” I say slowly.
“Of course you don’t, because I’m clearly as unmemorable as a blank wall. Chris was right. I am boring.”
I’m still so confused. “Who’s Chris?”
He looks up, then. “You know. The ex-boyfriend. The guy you were in the middle of”—he stares for a moment, opening and closing his mouth—“having relations with.”
I blink and try to catch up to what he’s saying. “I don’t know a Chris?” I finally say.
“Umm, okay. Uh, this guy? Blond. About yay-high.” He indicates with his hand somewhere just above his own head and then looks between me and his hand.
“When I’m standing up, of course. He probably talked a lot about his music.
” He rolls his eyes. “He does that a lot, and he doesn’t talk about just music.
It’s specifically about his music. I think it’s because he’s trying to sound like a tortured artist, but he’s kind of not.
There was this review of one of their gigs in somebody’s blog, and they called Chris’s band ‘almost a one-to-one copy of Nickelback, only somehow a lot worse.’ He was not happy and—”
“Eli,” I say. “I don’t know a Chris.”
He waves me off impatiently. “I mean, yeah, yeah, you might not know him intellectually or whatever, but you sure as hell know him physically.” He sends me a hopeful look. “Unless he wasn’t that memorable? It was about five months ago. An apartment in Lincoln Park?”
I shake my head and shrug.
“How many people do you sleep with?” he asks in clear disbelief.
I try to think this through.
It’s a tiny bit embarrassing how long it takes me to come to the obvious conclusion, but in my defense, he hit me with a lot of words all at once, and a lot of them weren’t that relevant to the bottom line of what he was saying, so I got a tad distracted.
“Ohhhh,” I say slowly. I dig out my phone and open the photos app.
I find the first photo I can and hold the phone out for Eli.
He sends me a dubious look but takes the phone. It’s pretty comical the way his eyes bulge.
“Umm,” he says slowly. “Did you know there are three of you?”
My lips twitch. “In some circles that’s referred to as triplets.”
He looks at the photo again.
“I’m on the left,” I say. “These other idiots are Levi and Dan. I’m gonna take a guess that you’ve met Levi.”
He looks at me again, but he seems to be lost for words.
“He’s an idiot, but he’s not actually a bad person. If your boyfriend was cheating on you, I’m pretty sure Levi wouldn’t have known about it.”
“No,” he says quietly. “He… he made it clear when it happened that he didn’t know.”
He wordlessly hands the phone back to me.
We’re silent for a long time after that. I’m processing, and I’m betting he is too. It makes sense now, the icy attitude when we met.
The only question is… what now?
Because I like him. I can admit that much to myself. In the light of these recent revelations, though, I’m not sure how much that matters.
The trouble with being identical triplets is that we look alike.
Shocker, I know. As I gather from Eli’s earlier rant, he walked in on his boyfriend and Levi.
I know my brother, and I know he’d never knowingly screw someone else’s boyfriend.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and I don’t think Eli will want to pursue anything with someone who looks exactly like the guy who slept with his boyfriend.
You could ask, a little voice in my head says.
I glance at Eli.
He still looks deep in thought.
My heart starts to beat faster.
Something stirs inside me.
I like him. That doesn’t happen too often. In fact, it’s something that rarely ever happens. By some twist of fate, it did with this guy.
I want the date that didn’t happen. I want to know more. I want to get to know him.
I open my mouth.
And right then, the emergency lights in the ceiling flicker for a moment.
Eli’s gaze snaps up.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the elevator starts to move. Eli scrambles to get to his feet, and I follow suit, albeit at a more measured pace.
We’re getting out of this elevator, but suddenly, I don’t want to leave. An insane part of me wonders if I could smash some buttons and bring the cab to a halt again.
I wait too long, though, because the elevator comes to a halt and the doors slide open.
Eli is frozen to his spot for a moment. A guy peers in at us.
“Hello, there,” he says cheerfully. “Sorry for the delay. Took me a bit of time to get here. Traffic, you know? It’s a good elevator but a bit finicky at times. Hope you didn’t have too bad of a time here.”
“We’re fine,” Eli says. “Thank you for the help.”
“No worries, no worries. You guys have a good evening.”
I glance at Eli, but he’s studiously avoiding looking my way. I don’t know what to make of it.
We head outside. It’s gotten chillier in the evening, and all the streetlights have come on.
We stop in front of the building and both end up standing so we’re facing each other.
What do I say?
Hey, I find you impossibly intriguing. Any ideas on what to do with that feeling because it almost never happens to me?
“Thanks for keeping me company,” he says, then immediately blushes. It’s borderline irresistible.
I open my mouth, ready to blurt everything I want to say out, nervous like I’m a teenager all of a sudden.
“And sorry,” he barrels on before I can get a word in. “This whole thing was basically my fault. You wouldn’t even be here without me.”
“No need to apologize,” I say gruffly.
“No, there is. And I am. Plus, there was this whole thing about me being a dick and trying to get proof you’re a dick and it being a whole mistaken identity and all, and oh, hey, I’m rambling again, so I’m just going to stop.
It’ll be a fun story to tell your friends.
One of these days. Maybe not right away, but you can look back on this one day. Fingers crossed.”
He clamps his mouth shut, eyes rounding in apparent horror.
“Bye,” he says, then he whirls around before I can say anything at all.
I’m left watching him walk away from me.