Chapter 13 Ella #3
Our gazes met. From this distance, his eyes looked like galaxies.
In the very center of them were the dark stars of his pupils, surrounded by a nimbus of pale, white gold.
Toward the edges, flecks of green appeared, emerald, mint, seafoam, and olive tones intermingling to form an outer corona of vibrant color edged in black.
I wanted to launch myself into them and get lost in the expanse just beyond.
“Hi,” he said, the warmth of his breath rushing over my lips.
His greeting snapped me out of it. “Sorry, I just…”
I just what? Had to look at you? Needed to see your eyes up close? Wondered if you’d kiss me if I turned this way?
“I stripped the screw tip,” I finished, lamely, and ducked out from under his arms to retreat toward the toolbox.
I found the spare screwdriver and swapped out my still perfectly fine one – which he would notice was fine later, UGH – and turned back around.
He was standing right where I left him, hands braced on the fixture, shoulders bunched, forearms flexed, traps on full display.
If he were a painting, it would be titled Up Against the Wall, because that’s how everyone would want it when they looked at him.
“You coming back over?” he asked, glancing sideways at me.
I forced myself forward.
“I won’t bite.” He grinned, a mischievous edge slipping in that I feared he might have learned from me.
I pointed the screwdriver at him. “Don’t you dare go Austin Powers right now.”
“Hard,” he said in an offensively bad English accent.
I laughed. The sound was hysterical, but I was just so grateful that he had broken the tension that I could have kissed him. Still, I was careful not to actually touch him when I ducked back under his arms.
“You know what, on second thought,” I said, “why don’t you undo the last screw and I’ll hold the fixture. You can probably see it better from way up there.” I couldn’t deal with being framed by his arms right now. Or the feel of his body just inches from mine.
“Sure,” he said.
I offered the screwdriver up to him. He took it, and I stepped forward, away from his heat, to hold the fixture in place.
He lifted his hand to remove the last screw.
His fingers trembled slightly. It took him two tries to fit the tool head into place.
I’d worked alongside him for weeks, and I had never seen him fumble like this.
His hands were so steady that I’d made jokes about how he could have been a surgeon.
The sight of his shaky fingers completely undid me. It gave me hope. Hope that this wasn’t all in my head. That he might be as affected by our proximity as I was.
The screw came loose. I pulled the light fixture off the wall and ducked away to leave him with the remaining wires.
I set the ugly brass lamp in the middle of the floor, next to the one he’d removed on his own.
That done, I straightened, my mind a total blank, my body on autopilot as I picked up the painter’s tape.
I turned and walked toward the far edge of the room, hoping to work on the opposite side as him.
Space. I needed space right now.
“Ella,” he said, a dark note in his voice that I’d never heard before.
I stopped dead. Turned to look at him. He leaned against the wall, his shoulder propping him up, arms crossed over his chest, biceps straining against his t-shirt. The expression on his face made my pulse flutter. I heard a thud and realized the tape had slipped from my fingers.
“Yes?” I said, my voice whisper-light.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
Brave. Be brave, I urged myself. I took a deep breath. “The paint color or the sexual tension I may or may not be hallucinating?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Even now you make me want to laugh. Goddamn, woman.”
“So…it is in my head?”
He pushed from the wall and came to me. Hands big enough to palm basketballs rose to cradle my face. His gaze dropped to my mouth. “It’s not in your head."
Holy shit.
He brushed a thumb across my lips. I wanted to bite his finger, then drag it into my mouth and curl my tongue around its roughness to soothe the sting of my teeth.
Ben must have seen the open need on my face, because he shifted his thumb away, back to the relative safety of my cheekbone.
“Why isn’t this a good idea?” I asked.
He closed his eyes, leaned forward, and braced his forehead against mine. “Because I’m going through a lot of shit right now, and I don’t know if starting a physical relationship is a healthy decision.”
I had never, ever pushed him on why he was here.
Instead, I’d expended endless amounts of energy to keep my usual nosy mouth shut.
I didn’t know if it was the hormones or the fact that I was just so tired of being so careful, but I decided, for once, to ask the question that popped into my head.
To speak the name I’d never heard him say.
“Zach?”
He jerked away like I’d hit him. “Yes.”
“CTE?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know for sure yet.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. I’d always cried easily.
I’d always been overprotective of my friends and family.
I didn’t want anything bad to happen to the people I cared about.
Ben was my friend. I cared about him deeply already on that level.
The thought of him experiencing even a handful of the CTE symptoms I’d read about was enough to break my heart.
“I’m so sorry, Ben.”
I expected him to get awkward, like so many men did around a crying woman. Or to tell me that I shouldn’t be upset. He did neither. Instead, he slid his thumbs forward and wiped away the moisture gathering at the edges of my eyes.
“I may not have it,” he told me.
“Have you had any tests done?”
“An inconclusive MRI. Nothing since. It was a lot, just getting that one done. I’ve been building up my bravery for round two.”
My tears spilled free. This big man, who looked strong enough to hold the entire world on his shoulders, just confessed to being afraid. No way in hell was I getting this crush back into its prison.
“I’m here if you ever want to talk about it,” I told him. “Or if you need someone to hold your hand while you’re having the tests done.”
“Thank you.” He sniffed, grinning. “You keep this up, you’re going to make me cry too.”
“Trying to stop,” I told him with a weak laugh. “Once I turn the waterworks on, it just all comes out.” Most of this was for him, but some was a release of all the tension I’d felt the past few weeks.
He lifted the edge of his ratty old t-shirt to blot my cheeks. I knew I was truly upset because not even the sight of his abs was enough to jolt me out of it.
“I have bad days sometimes, Ella,” he all but whispered. His gaze moved across my face as he followed the track of his t-shirt.
I gripped his forearm. I needed him to understand what I was about to say. “I hope you know that I will never, ever repeat anything you tell me.”
He nodded. “I know.” And then, so quick it almost sounded like one word, “Ihavedepressionandanxiety.”
I took a few seconds to process this, thinking back to our interactions and struggling to find even a single instance where he’d exhibited the outward signs I’d come to recognize.
I hated that I hadn’t realized he was dealing with this.
It was time I redefined my parameters for how someone with depression and anxiety should speak and behave.
My narrow experience with them had clearly left me ill-prepared.
“Are you getting treated?” I asked. “I know it’s not really my business, but I’ve had friends and family members who didn’t, and the outcomes were unhealthy, to say the least.”
He nodded. “I’m on medication, and I talk to my therapist at least once a week.”
“Is this why you cut back on alcohol and caffeine?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought maybe you were an alcoholic.”
His expression darkened. “I got close to that point, before getting help.”
“Again, I am always here if you need anything. My mom has severe seasonal depression, and Megan has had anxiety almost her entire life. I know a little of what the bad days can be like, so tell me if you need space. Or if want someone to be there with you through them.”
He let out a shaky breath. “I will. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
We stood close, our toes almost touching. I wanted to reach out and hold him, comfort him, but after hearing that he didn’t think anything romantic would be healthy, I worried he’d misinterpret it.
“Can I hug you?” I asked. “In a friendly way, not an if-it-lasts-long-enough-I-will-eventually-try-to-touch-your-butt kind of way.”
He laughed and pulled me into a rib-cracking bear hug.
“I’m sorry if you’ve felt like I’ve been pressuring you in any way or angling for a more than friendly relationship,” I said. “I’ve actually been trying to do the opposite.”
“You want to be my nemesis?” he asked. He leaned back so he could arch a brow at me. “Could be fun.”
I shook my head. “Not what I meant and you know it. I meant that I’ve been trying not to have feelings for you.”
He pulled me back in and rested his chin on top of my head. “Yeah, same.”