Chapter 5 Elijah
ELIJAH
“You okay? You seem…jumpier than usual,” Matt asks as he throws his duffel bag in the back of my SUV. Benny follows up behind him, chucking his heavy-duty suitcase in and rattling the whole vehicle. I shoot him a glare.
“I’m fine,” I say, but Benny only huffs out a sigh of annoyance. Or arrogance, but I guess that’s par for the course for Benjamin Anderson.
Honestly, sometimes I swear our friendship is just God’s sense of warped humor. Benny and I have nothing in common. Nothing except the Martin twins.
But despite our vast differences, if I found myself in trouble, I know I could call him.
Hell, he was the one who offered to let me stay here—at his townhome—with him when I came back to town to look for a new position and a new place.
And he extended the same offer to Matt too, even though he didn’t have to.
I try to remember those things when I think about how much Benny annoys me.
Like now, when I can tell he wants to say something, and whatever it is, I know I’m not going to like it.
“Just say it, Benny,” I tell him as Matt pulls open the back passenger door.
“Say what?” he asks with a shrug, but I can see the gleam of mischief in his eye.
“Whatever it is you’re going to say that’s bound to piss me off.” I close the trunk of the car, rounding toward the driver’s side, but Benny clashes into me. I look at him in question.
“I’ll drive,” he says, smiling that pain-in-the-ass smile that I’m sure all the ladies love, but that gets under my skin on a good day.
“The hell you—”
“If we want to get there on time, Eli, we need to punch it. Like ten minutes ago.”
“We would have left ten minutes ago if someone had gotten up on time, like I—”
Benny pushes me aside, not taking my words for an answer, and I roll my eyes. I grumble as I head toward the passenger door, knowing it’s probably best not to argue at the moment. He is right about one thing—we do need to get moving.
I settle into my seat, shifting to try my best to get comfortable. It’s still dark out, and I focus on watching the streetlights as I let my mind wander. A dangerous thing, really.
Because my mind can’t stop thinking about Sophie. About last night…
I get lost in the shining street lights and the memory I know I’ll never be able to forget as long as I live. The moment when Sophie Martin kissed me.
I’d imagined kissing Sophie plenty of times throughout our friendship.
And even now I can recall all those moments when I wanted to, but thought better of it.
But I guess old habits die hard, or maybe I’ve just lost my mind because she’s here, and those feelings I thought I buried when I left for college, when she left, are still as prevalent as ever.
Technically, I kissed her, but she didn’t seem to mind, all things considered.
Because she was drunk and freshly broken up with her boyfriend. And you took advantage of her like some sleazy asshole. Way to go, Eli.
I knew kissing Sophie was a bad idea. She’d just admitted she straight-up lied to her parents about her boyfriend.
But she told me the truth. Because she still trusts me, and that itself is a victory.
She was being vulnerable with me, and it made me think of all those times in the past she’d been that way.
How fucked up it was that I craved those moments with her.
The moments she was hurting because only I could truly make it better. Those moments she’d show up on my doorstep, tears in her eyes, and run to my arms.
The arms of her best friend.
And like the fucked-up person I am, I held those arms wide open for her.
I held her so many nights when she’d cry about some other asshole, feeling a sense of pride because for the briefest moment, whether she knew it or not, I could pretend she was mine, and I could give her the comfort she wanted. The comfort only I could give her.
But then things changed.
Sophie stopped coming to me. She left for college, and I did too, and then the phone calls and text messages fizzled out like fireworks in the night sky.
And then she was just…
Gone.
Suddenly, this entity, this sun I revolved around, disappeared in an eclipse and I never saw or heard from her again.
Until now.
I knew it was inevitable the day Sam and Raegan announced their engagement. I was happy for them, truly. If there are two people in this world who deserve each other, it’s those two. They’ve been friends since we were kids too.
Anyone with eyeballs could see a mile away that those two are perfect for each other.
But as excited and thrilled as I was that my friends were getting married, I was also filled with dread because I knew I’d see Sophie again. And when that time came, I rationalized that I’d do whatever it took to win back her friendship.
Kissing her…when she was vulnerable, drunk, and on the eve of our departure to Paradise, was probably not the best way to rekindle a broken friendship, even though I’m not entirely sure what caused the break.
Was it something I said? Something I did?
I have no idea, and part of me wants to ask but…
words apparently don’t come out of my mouth around Sophie as easily as they used to.
Yeah, kissing Sophie is not the answer. It’s a recipe for disaster, is what it is.
But considering I haven’t heard from her in years, the fact that she wanted to talk to me in the first place is a victory. Confiding in me…secrets…like she used to do…
Well, it made it feel like the good old days for the briefest moment, and I guess I couldn’t resist slipping back into old habits.
I thought a lot about kissing Sophie—among other things I knew would never happen—when we were younger.
I thought so many times in the quiet of my house or my dorm that if I had the chance, I’d muster up the courage and just go for it.
But every time I found myself in her presence, I was too enamored, too scared shitless.
I thought that if I did she would freak out. Maybe even punch me.
I saw a girl punch Benny once when he moved in to kiss her at a party.
Guy had a black eye for like four days. But of course on him it looked badass and all the other girls loved it.
I swear, he’s the only man on the planet who can take a hit like that and come out on top with a new woman on his arm like it was nothing.
When I chased Sophie down at the dinner, kissing wasn’t what I was thinking about.
I only wanted to see if she was okay, because it was clear she was upset.
I knew she was upset when she came storming through Sam’s door like a bat out of hell, when she was evading his questions.
And Benny, the bastard that he is, spent the night over at Sam’s and didn’t even attempt to ask her if everything was okay.
Didn’t even attempt to try and make her feel better or—
I shift in my seat, not sure if I really want Benny to do any of those things with Sophie.
That’s my job, but I also feel like he should have tried anyway, because I couldn’t.
Realistically, I could have driven his ass home, but he and Sam were way too invested in whatever game they were playing and I know better than to come between those two when they’re like that, so I left.
I figured Sam or Raegan could give him a ride if need be.
I did not expect him to not come home. To stay there, with Sophie just down the damn hall…
“You’re quiet this morning,” Matt says, breaking into my thoughts.
“Tired,” I say, and it’s not a complete lie. I am tired. Tired of pretending I haven’t been in love with my friend’s sister for nearly the last decade. Tired of having to be the one in control all the time and make sure Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Tattoos are on their best behavior and staying on task.
“Uh-huh, sure,” Matt says. His enthusiasm at the tender hour of four am should be studied in a lab. Maybe it’s because he’s a few years younger than the rest of us, but I swear he has more energy than a damn squirrel on cocaine.
“It’s the ADHD, Eli, I can’t help it.” His words reverberate in my brain, and I try not to bite at him, knowing that some parts of his behavior he really can’t help.
And contrary to popular belief, I don’t like to piss people off. I like it when everything is harmonious, in sync. Not that my life was some perfect version of Pleasantville or anything before Sophie dropped back into my orbit, but still.
That kiss…
It’s got me all sorts of fucked up right now, and I know it.
And maybe they know something too, but I’m thankful Benny isn’t the type to press me on my problems or what’s bothering me.
My mind wanders as I watch the blurring landscape and streetlights out the window, back to Sophie and the moment I just…kissed her. Without a second thought.
It was like the earth’s gravitational pull had shifted, landing instead in the center of one Sophie Martin.
And I was but a mere asteroid, lost in her aura of energy.
I didn’t think twice about kissing her, and the moment I did, something inside of me switched, like a lever had been pulled and unlocked something I didn’t know existed.
She tasted sweet like sugar, bitter like wine. But mostly, she tasted perfect. And though she startled, likely from my sudden impulsive outburst, she relented quickly, easing up and parting her lips as if to invite my tongue into her mouth.
I realized then and there I’d made a grave mistake.
Because no other woman would ever taste this good. Now that I’ve tasted perfection, it’s going to be hard as hell to kiss anyone else ever again. Because no one could ever be her.
“Earth to Eli,” Benny says, pulling me from my stupor.
“Huh?” I ask as Benny turns down a long, winding road. One look at the radio and I note that we’ve been in the car for forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes of complete and utter dissociating on my part.