14. Elliot
14
ELLIOT
Scott corners me the moment I step foot in Ellie and King’s apartment. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I haven’t.”
“Liar,” he pokes me in the arm, making me take a step back. “You haven’t been texting me back, and you dodged my phone call this morning. What’s wrong?”
I want to tell him to take his pick. Between trying to help Hoax with his anxiety, finding out that King is going to propose to Ellie, and Grady offering me a friends-with-benefits style sex pact, I’m full up on secrets at the moment. As much as I hate to admit it, Matty was right; I’m a fucking terrible liar.
“Nothing is wrong.”
“Then why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not?—”
He grabs my arm, wheeling me into the kitchen. It isn’t as if that gives us any more privacy than we had at the elevator doors since this entire apartment is one massive open space, but it seems to make him think we’re less likely to be overheard.
“If this is about Hoax, he told me.”
“Told you what?” I’m not about to be tricked into outing Hoax if he didn’t actually tell Scott.
Thankfully, Scott gives me a don’t fuck with me look as he says, “The panic attacks.”
“Oh, good,” I smile, relief washing over me now that I have one less secret to keep. “I’m definitely not avoiding you now.”
“Uh, hold on,” Scott stops me from walking away by pressing a hand to the center of my chest. “Was that all?”
“Of course, it was.”
“Really?”
The elevator doors ding behind him, and I watch Grady enter the apartment. My eyes zero on the massive man, his backward baseball cap doing funny things to my insides. I’ve been buzzing out of my skin all day, thinking about what we’re going to do tonight. Grady told me to pick “anything I wanted”, which was a more difficult task than I initially thought. Anything is a broader scope than I had anticipated.
I decided that starting small was the way to go, especially with how overwhelmed I’d been from just a bit of verbal degradation. As much as I’m looking forward to more of that, I’m also eager to add to my list of experiences. I spent half the night looking up my favorite books and writing down the specific kinks or elements that I enjoyed the most. Once I had a list, it came down to research, which was surprisingly un-sexy.
Eventually, I settled on impact play. After an hour of looking through parts of the internet I had never been to before, I decided that yes, it’s something I want to try, but no, I am not ready to jump in the deep end.
I did go to a sex shop this morning to look at impact toys, just in case I felt differently about them in person, but ultimately decided that spending money on paddles and floggers that I may never use again wasn’t the best plan. Besides, there’s something about the idea of Grady’s bare hands on me that sends little shivers all over my body.
“Uh, what the fuck?”
“Huh?” My attention snaps back to Scott who is looking at me like this is the best day of his life.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“Elliot James Bennett do not fucking ‘ what ’ me right now.” Scott pulls me further into the kitchen, all but pinning me between him and the refrigerator. “You were eye fucking Grady, which, if I’m honest, isn’t new?—”
“Thanks, man.”
“But what is new,” Scott’s smile turns feral, the little metal hoop in his lip glinting in the overhead lights. “Is that Grady was eye fucking you back.”
My head whips to the side as I try to get a look at Grady around Scott’s shoulders. “No, he wasn’t.”
“Oh, yes, he was. Tell me. Now.”
“It’s nothing.” My voice squeaks—honest to God, squeaks —and I know I’ve lost both the battle and the war. “Okay, it’s something, but, ” I nearly shout the word when Scott starts dancing in little circles. “It’s not what you think.”
“This should be good.”
“We slept together?—”
“Holy shit.”
“But it was kind of an accident.”
“Sure, sure. Obviously, he slipped and fell into your gaping?—”
“You know,” I slap a hand over his mouth as embarrassment floods my body. “I could do without your commentary.”
The moment I move my hand, Scott huffs out a long breath. “Sounds boring, but fine.”
“Right, well, we, uh, slept together. Once. And then, he offered, or, well, he suggested, that we, uh?—”
“You have two more seconds before I abandon this conversation to go ask Grady.”
“Hewantstoexperimenttogether.”
“That wasn’t words.”
“Fucking asshole,” I hiss, rolling my eyes at him. “I told him I haven’t ever done anything fun in the bedroom,” I implore him to read between the lines here so that I don’t have to say the words aloud. “And Grady said that he has and that he’d be happy to…lend me his expertise.”
“His expertise? In the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Like a sex contract?”
“Minus the physical contract, but yes.”
“So, more like a sex pact.”
“That’s exactly what I called it!”
“Oh, cute,” he mimics my tone, then surprises me by flicking me between the eyes.
“What the fuck?”
“What are you doing ?”
“Me?” I splutter, slapping his hand away when he reaches toward my forehead again. “You’re the one flicking me.”
“Because you’re going to get hurt!”
I cross my arms, refusing to acknowledge that he’s almost certainly right. “I’m not.”
“Let’s say this sex pact doesn’t end with you sobbing on the floor of the bathroom eating raw cookie dough from the tube?—”
“That was one time?—”
“How do you think it will end?”
“Amicably.”
“As all experimental sexual relationships do.”
“Fuck you, dude.”
“I’m taken,” he snarks back before leaning his forehead against mine so we’re looking directly into each other’s eyes. “Just be careful, yeah? Don’t confuse sex with feelings, and call me if shit gets…well, I was gonna say hard, but it should be hard, so…difficult?”
“You’re the worst person I know.”
“And you still love me.”
“I really do,” I admit before shoving him away. “Now, help me find a snack.”
“Oh, I’ve got a snack for you. It’s big, and meaty, and—oh, shit. Sorry, dude.”
My eyes snap to the man Scott nearly backed into, only to find his bright gaze already locked on my face.
“I was just getting a beer,” Grady points to the fridge that I’m currently blocking with my entire body, but I can’t seem to bring myself to move out of his way.
“As fun as this is,” Scott huffs, slapping Grady on the arm as he exits the kitchen. “I’m going to find my boyfriend. We’ve got things to discuss.”
I don’t like the way Scott says things, but I can’t drag my focus away from Grady for long enough to demand Scott keep his mouth shut. “Uh, hi? Hello. Hi.”
Grady’s head tips to the side as his gaze drags down my body and up again. I wish I could read the look in his eyes, but there’s something decidedly closed off in his expression.
Realizing I don’t have anything to say that isn’t yet another version of hello, I point toward Scott’s back. “We were just?—”
“Discussing snacks?”
“Yes.”
“Do you,” Grady’s brow furrows as if he isn’t sure how to finish that sentence. “ Snack with Scott?”
It takes me a moment to piece together that he is not asking about food. “No,” I raise my hands as if that will somehow add to the sincerity of my words. “Scott and Hoax exclusively snack on one another. Or snack together? I’m not sure what the metaphor is here.”
A slow smile spreads across Grady’s face while I’m fumbling through my explanation, and he takes another step closer to me. He reaches for the fridge door, his hand closing around the handle next to my shoulder. I move enough that he can open the door, but I don’t step out of his way entirely.
“Does that mean,” he pauses, considering his words as cold air swirls around us. “That I still get to snack on you later?”
He’s so close I can feel the heat coming off his chest despite the open fridge six inches to my left. “Only if you want to.”
“Oh, I want to.” He grabs something off the shelf next to my elbow, and his hand grazes my arm. “I haven’t been able to think of anything else.”
“Me either,” I admit, trying to keep my focus on the fact that we are in a room full of all our friends, and getting hard right now is not an option. “I bought something for tonight.”
It isn’t a lie. I might have chickened out on the sex toys, but I didn’t leave the shop empty handed. Grady sucks a breath through his nose, reaching above my head to grab the bottle opener off the side of the fridge. “What kind of something?”
I watch the careful way he uses the bottle opener, his hand nearly slipping when I say, “Silk underwear.”
“Fuck, Elliot,” he groans, slamming the bottle cap onto the counter next to me. There’s something pleasant in being able to bring a man like Grady to his knees. I want him begging for me the same way I beg for him.
“They’re the prettiest shade of green.” I lean forward, dropping my voice to a whisper. “And there’s a little bow, right...” I let my hand trail down the front of my shirt, stopping just above my waistband. “Here.”
“Elliot,” Grady groans, his eyes locked on the hand still resting against my lower abdomen. “I won’t make it through this dinner if you keep talking like that.”
“Well, that certainly is a problem.” A nervous giggle escapes my mouth at the thought of turning Grady on. I’ve spent so many years imagining him looking at me the way he is right now, but it’s so much better in person than it was in my dreams. My eyes drop to his crotch, and I hear him suck in another sharp breath.
“You should be careful looking at me like that, Princess.”
I feign innocence, peeking up at him through my lashes. “Like what?”
“Fuck.” His breath ghosts across my cheek, and I shiver at the feeling. “What are the odds they’ll notice if we leave right now?”
“Mills would notice right away.”
Grady makes a sound almost like a sob before nodding dejectedly. “You better get in the living room then.”
“Just me?”
“I need a minute,” he admits, shifting his weight with a grimace. “I’ll meet you in there.”
I try not to look too smug on my way to the living room, but based on the wicked grin Scott sends my way, I’m unsuccessful.
Three hours, twenty-six minutes, and forty-three seconds later, I fake a yawn for the third time. “I’m exhausted,” I lie, poking Ellie in the side where she’s leaning heavily against me. “I think I’m gonna go home.”
“What? No,” she sighs, slapping a hand against the side of my face to leverage herself upright. “You suck.”
I cross my eyes at her, and she giggles while flipping me off. “Oh, sure. I suck. You enjoy snuggling up to your boyfriend while I sleep alone in my tiny twin bed.”
“In a shitty part of town.” Hoax adds, giving me an apologetic look when he realizes I heard him.
Scott, the fucker, laughs before raising his beer in my direction. “Behind a door that doesn’t latch.”
“With roommates that let strangers walk in off the street,” Grady grumbles. Silence descends around the room as all attention is suddenly on him. “What?”
“How do you know that?” Hoax is the one to ask it, but the smug way Scott’s smiling over his shoulder tells me that Hoax already knows the answer.
“Elliot’s my PT,” Grady shrugs as if that should answer why he knows my roommate. “We share stories about shit like that.”
“Oh, I’m sure you guys share all kinds of stories during PT ,” Scott nods, pretending he isn’t about to ask a question that will derail all of this. “Elliot, do you have any good Grady stories to share?”
“Grady stories?”
“Yeah, since you guys talk .”
Who needs a best friend, really? I think I did just fine without one for the last nine years.
“Uh, he told me about the time he went to the Mexican place that used to be in the giant banana. A waitress carrying a full tray of food tripped, and he very heroically saved her. Though, when Grady tells the story, he says, ‘ and I happened to catch her ’,” I mumble in a falsely deep voice that makes everyone laugh. It’s the story Grady told me during my panic attack. I hadn’t expected it to ever be information I shared with anyone else, but that restaurant has been closed for a few years now, so no one could accuse us of having gone there together.
Maybe I’m better at lying than I think. “Can I go home now?”
“Yes, yes,” Ellie shoos me away, but she yells my name when I’m halfway across the apartment. “You didn’t park on the street again, did you?”
“Yes, mother, I did.”
“You have to stop doing that,” she whines, throwing the blanket off her lap and getting up from the couch. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Ellie, I love you dearly, but what the Hell are you going to do to a mugger that I couldn’t?”
“There’s strength in numbers, duh.”
“Until you’re walking back to the apartment alone. Duh ,” I call back in the same sarcastic tone she used.
“I’ll go with him,” Grady offers, getting up from his seat on the floor. “I’m getting tired of listening to Mills snore, anyway.”
Everyone glances at the man in question where he’s dead asleep with his head in Charlotte’s lap. She laughs softly, her hands running through Miller’s dark hair. “Isn’t it cute?”
Several variations of “No” come from around the room, but Charlotte doesn’t seem to hear them. She’s too busy staring adoringly at her sleeping boyfriend. I’m happy for them, I swear I am, but sometimes when I see them so deeply in love, it breaks my fucking heart.
I want that. I want to run my hands through my boyfriend’s hair while he sleeps in my lap. I want to watch him move across the room and know that no matter where he’s headed right now, he’ll always come back to me. I want someone to tell me it will be okay, even if that might not be true. I want someone to rub the tingles out of my palms when I have a panic attack.
My eyes land on Grady as he walks toward me, a small smile tugging at his lips. He’s so fucking handsome that I want to cry, and for tonight, he’s all mine. I don’t think I’ll ever believe that this is actually happening, but I intend to make the most of it while it lasts. I will look back on this time when I’m old and grey and know that these were the good old days. This, right here, is the peak of my life, and I’m going to act accordingly.
The moment the doors close between us and the apartment, I move toward Grady. He seems to have the same idea because I suddenly find myself being pushed against the elevator wall as his lips devour mine.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Grady groans against my mouth as my fingers drag through his hair. “I don’t think I understood ‘single-minded focus’ until this moment. It’s like my brain is on a loop,” he kisses a path down my neck as he talks, and I do my best to listen to his words even as sensations explode across my skin. “And all I can think is, ‘Elliot, naked. Elliot, naked .’ It’s unbelievably distracting.”
“I’m honored,” I laugh, but it turns into a moan when he sucks on my pulse point. “If it helps, my brain is doing something very similar.”
“Good,” he huffs, his teeth nipping at my collarbone. “Because you’re going to follow me home, and we’re going to be very naked for the next twelve hours.”
I pull his face to mine, getting one more devastating kiss before the elevator stops on the main floor. “I’m going to hold you to that.”