Chapter 32
I drove, since it was my trip and I had a hybrid car, making it the cheaper option.
Elijah was easy to road-trip with, I decided, as we approached three hours in the car together.
He selected good music. Only playing “Mamma Mia” once and mimicking some of my dance moves from the karaoke experience.
But when I backhanded him playfully on the arm, he laughed and changed the song.
“How long has it been since you’ve been home?” he asked now, as the traffic slowed in front of us.
“Six weeks? Seven?”
“What are you looking forward to the most?”
“My bed,” I said.
“Really?” His voice went low and throaty with the word.
I reached over and squeezed his leg. “Not like that.” Well, that too, if I was being honest. “My childhood mattress is shit, and I’m ready for my actual mattress.”
“Your childhood mattress is shit? It seemed fine to me. Comfortable, roomy.”
I laughed. “Room to spare even.”
“Exactly. We could’ve invited another guest.”
“Is that what you wanted? Another guest?” I asked, my brows going down.
“No,” he said quickly. “It was just a joke. A bad one.”
“It was funny,” I said. What I really wanted to say was What are we doing?
What do you want from this? From us? But I didn’t because I wasn’t even sure I could answer those questions.
Or maybe I was scared of his answers. For now, even though it was completely against my nature, I could live in the moment.
Let whatever was supposed to happen, happen.
And have fun while it was happening. Because he was making everything better right now.
And seeing as how everything was a lot, I needed this. Him. Even if only for a little while.
I held my key tightly in my fist as we walked down the hall of my apartment complex on the way to my fourth-floor apartment, nervous. We’d parked in the covered parking garage after a longer-than-average trip. We had not, in fact, beaten traffic. Or maybe I had forgotten how bad traffic was here.
“I didn’t expect to be gone this long. And I was supposed to have someone checking on my place while I was gone but…”
“He broke up with you instead?” Elijah guessed when I didn’t finish my sentence.
“Yes.”
“Were you two living together?” he asked.
“No, but I didn’t prep for a completely abandoned house.” Was it going to stink of rotting food? Was there going to be a moldy sink and a black-rimmed toilet? Why had I invited Elijah along on my first trip home?
I slid the key into the lock and turned.
No smell greeted me when I opened the door, which was a relief.
The only thing I’d packed when leaving my mom’s house earlier was a tote bag with my toiletries, knowing I had an apartment full of clothes I hadn’t worn in weeks.
I swung that bag onto the entryway table and made my way into the main living area, a small room with big windows and a brick fireplace.
It was attached to a decently sized kitchen with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.
I opened the long curtains on the windows to let in the last light of the day.
The sun was going down fast. A plant sitting on a table between the windows was completely dead.
Its soil cracked and dry, its leaves brown and crispy.
I picked up the pot and brought it to the kitchen, where I set it in the sink and turned on the faucet.
Elijah had wheeled his suitcase inside and shut the door behind us. He now stood watching me.
“I think it’s dead,” he said.
“But can it be revived?”
He tilted his head as if he didn’t think it could but was going to let me try.
“I feel bad.” I picked up another dead plant off the counter in the kitchen and added it to the sink.
“For the plants?”
I let out a breathy chuckle. “Yes. There are at least two more that I’m sure have met the same fate. Including my shower fern.”
“Shower fern?”
“You’ve never heard of a shower fern? Don’t act like it’s not a thing.”
“It’s not.”
“Well, I like to shower with living things.”
His eyebrows popped up.
“Plants, I mean. Greenery.” I gestured toward the very-much-not-green plants in my sink.
“Well, if you ever mean anything else, I’m here to help.”
I laughed and turned off the water. “Um … you can put your suitcase…” I pointed while moving toward my bedroom.
He wanted to stay in my bedroom, right? God, it had been too long since I’d started a relationship.
I didn’t remember what the beginning phases consisted of.
But we weren’t starting a relationship …
were we? Why hadn’t we talked about this?
And why was it on me to bring it up? He could ask me.
He could say, Do you want to date me? Are we exclusive? I’ll move to Los Angeles for you.
No, not that last one. He didn’t need to say that last one.
Shouldn’t. Why would he? He was in a hole with his dad that I knew he needed to climb out of.
And even once he was out of the hole, he’d already failed at what he had wanted to do—photography.
Why did I think he was suddenly going to try it again just because I was in the picture telling him he could?
He would probably stay at that boxing gym forever.
“This is the famous bed?” he asked, coming through the door behind me.
I took a happy breath. I’d missed my apartment, my bedroom, my life. “This is it.”
“Which side do you sleep on?” he asked.
“The right.” I pointed to the side farthest from the door and closest to the windows.
“Uh-oh.”
“Is that your side too?”
“It is. But I will concede since it is your bed.”
We slept on the same side of the bed. Was that a sign from the universe that this relationship was not meant to be? Stop. That was nothing to read into.
My eyes caught on a piece of paper on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. I walked over to it. A key sat on top of the paper with handwritten words that read: Got my stuff, here’s the only thing of yours that was at my place.
I stared at the key. Was that really the only thing? The key that I had given him before I left so he could water my plants and keep an eye on my stuff. I hadn’t left a T-shirt or a toothbrush or even a hair tie?
I looked at the backside of the paper. It was empty. I crumpled up the note and balled it in my fist, then tossed it in the trash can in the bathroom. “I … uh … this is the full bath,” I said, continuing to give him a tour of the place.
“Is this the one with the shower fern?” He poked his head inside. “Yes, it’s very dead.”
“That’s what happens,” I said, looking at the poor fern. “When it doesn’t get watered.”
“Maybe that’s what happens when it’s deprived of seeing you naked for so long.”
I laughed. “Could be.”
“We could solve that problem. Work on reviving that one, as well.”
“We could,” I said, exiting the bathroom.
He stepped in front of me, his brows drawing down. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Is it being back? Is it whatever your ex wrote on that note? Or didn’t write? Your dead plants? Your restaurant? What do you need?”
I shook my head because I really couldn’t pinpoint what it was at all, but he was right that it was something. I felt out of sorts.
I wrapped my arms around his middle and immediately relaxed a bit. I relaxed even more when he held me tight and rested his cheek against my head.
“You’re not worried about your mom, are you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I think I just need to see the restaurant and then I’ll feel better.”
“Do you want to go now?”
“Can we?”
“Of course. You’re the boss this weekend. I do whatever you say.”
“Whatever I say?”
“Yes, whatever you say.” He kissed my temple, then my neck, and ended on my lips.
I kissed him back, wishing I was the kind of person who could completely relax right now, let him throw me on the bed and forget everything for an hour.
Maybe I could be.
My hands went to the bottom of his T-shirt and snuck their way inside, brushing along the smooth skin of his back. He let out a low hum and my insides set fire, my body melting against his.
His hands brushed along my ass, then down to the back of my thighs, where he lifted me up and walked several steps until my back was pressed up against the nearest wall.
I sucked in a surprised gasp of air but then wrapped my legs around his waist. I could feel him hard against me through my jeans.
I dug my fingers into his hair, and his tongue thrust deeper into my mouth, eliciting a moan from me.
Then he was kissing my neck, and his hand slid up my side until it was cupping my breast in a firm grip. His mouth went back to mine, almost desperate. Or maybe that’s how I felt. Desperate for him to feel every inch of me. For this fire inside me to combust.
With that word, my mind suddenly imagined a cell phone falling into a fryer. And potatoes. Boxes of potatoes. And really cheap art and how everyone must’ve hated our really cheap art.
“Where’d you go?” he asked.
I unhooked my legs from his waist and he slid me down the wall.
“I’m just worried about the restaurant and…”
“It’s okay. You’re not a machine. You’re allowed to worry. Let’s go.” He nodded toward the door.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
I pointed to the bathroom. “Give me a minute.”
He pulled at his jeans. “A minute will be good for me too.”
“What were you more nervous about me seeing? Your apartment or the restaurant?”
“The restaurant,” I said as I pulled into the lot next to our building and parked, shutting off the car.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve put a lot of work into it and you’re an artist and you’re going to tell me it’s boring.”
He laughed. “First, I am not an artist.”
“You are.”
He unbuckled his seat belt. “Disagree. But second, I would never tell you it’s boring.”
“But will you?” I turned in my seat to face him.
“What?”
“Will you say it if it’s true?” I grabbed hold of his hand with both of mine.
“No.”
My brows shot down. The fact that he’d lie to me to save my feelings actually wasn’t a good thought, even though he probably thought that’s what I wanted to hear. “No, I’m making a request. Will you please tell me if it’s boring?”
“Oh. You want me to.”
“And how to fix it?”
He smiled. “Not sure I’ll know how to fix it.”
“If you have any thoughts.” I put his hand on my cheek and let his warmth sink into my skin for a moment.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “I’ll tell you.”
“Thank you.”
“For the love of god, I hope it’s not boring.”