Chapter 38
I was behind the bar, helping Angel restock drinks after our lunch rush, and in anticipation of the dinner one to follow, when I looked up as someone walked in the front door. It took me a moment to register who it was: Nate.
My eyes immediately shot around the restaurant in search of Elijah. The last time I’d seen him, he was on the patio, talking to guests and helping the busser clean off tables. But he wasn’t out there. Maybe he was in the kitchen.
I quickly walked around the bar and met Nate in the middle of the dining area. But I kept walking, out the front door, hoping he’d follow. He did.
“You’re back?” he asked, when I stopped halfway down the sidewalk, hopefully out of view of the windows.
“No,” I said. “Just for the weekend. How did you know I was here?”
“Mac told me. He didn’t know we’d…”
Mac, a food delivery guy and a tattletale, apparently. “You corrected him, hopefully.”
“You’re wearing your hair down,” he said, instead of responding to my statement. The waves had settled a little from that morning, but they still flowed over my shoulders free, unlike normal.
“Yes.” I patted my hair. “What do you need, Nate? Why are you here?”
“I miss you, Sutton. I made a mistake. I was being selfish and needy.”
I shook my head. “No, you weren’t. You’re allowed to want someone who’s invested in the relationship.”
His expression softened, and I realized he probably thought I had done some reflecting as well.
That I was telling him I would be different or something.
“Not me,” I blurted, then tried to smooth it over by adding, “I mean, I wasn’t invested and there was obviously a reason and you need someone better than me. ”
“The reason was that you had just had the busiest year of your life opening this place and I wasn’t very understanding. And then your mom had her accident.”
“I think that’s only part of it,” I said.
Because now I had experienced what it was like to be truly invested in someone and have someone be truly invested in me.
It was an all-consuming feeling. And maybe time would take away the all-consuming nature of it, but I’d never felt this at any stage with anyone else.
That had to mean something. It was new, but it was something. I could feel it.
As if I conjured him with my thoughts, the deep voice of Elijah, from behind me, said, “Are you okay out here?”
I turned to see him as he stepped outside, lingering by the door but ready to jump into action if I asked it of him.
“Who the hell is that?” Nate asked.
“Who the hell are you?” Elijah returned, walking several menacing steps forward. I was beginning to see why he might’ve been intimidating in a boxing ring.
I put one hand on Elijah’s chest as he approached, keeping him back. “I’m fine. Will you just go inside?” I asked. “Please.” I gave him my best pleading eyes, and he nodded and only hesitated a few beats before he left.
“Seriously, Sutton?” Nate said. “It’s been two months.”
“It’s been longer than that and you know it.”
“Maybe for you,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I really was. I didn’t want him to feel however he was feeling. But I also knew how I felt.
“This guy is from your childhood farm town? He’s moving here for you?”
“No. Don’t. Just let it go.”
“I thought you said you’d never do long distance.”
I rubbed my arms, goose bumps suddenly forming along the length of them.
“Wait, were you cheating on me with him?”
“What? No!” A wave of anger rushed through me, and I took a deep breath. It didn’t matter what he thought, I knew the truth. “Bye, Nate.”
“Whatever,” he said. “I don’t know why I came.” He stormed off, practically stomping his way to his car in the parking lot.
I watched him leave, hoping he got whatever closure he needed. I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t needed closure. I’d felt nothing but worry when I saw his face. Worry that he’d make Elijah feel insecure or unsure of us. I hoped it hadn’t.
I walked inside and straight to the back. It was like I instinctually knew that Elijah would be in the office, waiting for me.
He was pacing when I walked in. I paused by the door.
He stopped moving and asked, “You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“Was that Nate?”
I nodded.
“He came to see what he was missing?”
“Something like that.”
“And did it make you see what you’d been missing?”
I shook my head. He took one step forward and I rushed toward him, folding myself into his open arms. “No. Not at all. It made me see that he and I may have had a long relationship, but it wasn’t very rooted. You know?”
“I’m sorry.”
I looked up at him. “Why are you sorry?”
“I don’t know why I said that.”
I laughed and wrapped my arms around him again. “Because you care about everyone and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“You make it sound noble. Really, it’s about me. How I want to be regarded by everyone.”
“That sounds like something to bring up in therapy.”
He laughed. “I guess I should’ve. Should we go back? Have a couple more sessions?”
“You know that therapy exists without me, right?”
“Things exist without you? This is new information to me.”
I shoved him, but he just pulled me closer with a low laugh. I took a deep breath and smiled. I was happy. Like completely, to my bones, happy. It had been a while since I could say that.
“Is it going to be hard for you to go back to Clovis tomorrow after spending time here? Do you wish you could just stay? Are you sad?”
His words, after my thoughts had been the exact opposite, sent a jolt of awareness through me.
I was going back with him, but our days together were numbered.
Then we’d be separated. His ability to move here hadn’t magically changed, and my ability to stay there hadn’t either. Could I do long distance?
I straightened up and scratched at an itch that tickled the back of my neck. “I’m…” I looked up into his gorgeous eyes. “I’m not sad. I’m trying not to think about everything too much or analyze things.”
He raised one eyebrow because, even though we hadn’t known each other very long, he obviously understood some core things about me. “Really? And here I assumed you’d looked at everything from a million angles.”
“Nope,” I said. “Living in the moment.”
“I mean, a little thinking about the future wouldn’t be the end of the world,” he said, giving me some hope that he’d been thinking. That he had figured something out for us.
The city lights twinkled in the distance and a breeze picked up, making the flames in the firepit dance.
Elijah carried a glass of wine across the rooftop to me.
Selma, Raya’s fiancée, had put together an impromptu get-together since I was back in town, and even though it was after midnight, a handful of our friends showed up.
We were eating finger foods and drinking wine and enjoying the view.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the glass as he sat down in the chair next to me.
“Tell us how you two met,” Selma asked, also sitting near the fire.
Elijah smiled. “We met because my brother was trying to get out of going to therapy and made a ridiculous bet in order to do so.”
“He bet that a therapist wouldn’t be able to tell if two strangers were sitting in front of her for couples therapy,” I clarified.
“Seriously?” Raya asked. “A therapist would be able to tell if two people claiming to be together were actually strangers.”
“Right?” I said. “That’s what I thought too.”
“You’re telling me she couldn’t?” Selma asked.
“Apparently our chemistry is so strong it can fool even a professional.”
Elijah chuckled beside me.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Do you disagree?”
“Not at all.” He had that teasing glint in his eye. He was probably thinking about our chemistry.
“Wait, wait, wait, you actually went to this therapist as one of the strangers?” Raya asked.
I gestured between Elijah and me with my wineglass. “We were the strangers.”
“Oh my god,” she said. “That doesn’t seem like something you would do.”
“Wait, start over,” our friend Russel said, joining us at the firepit. “I only caught the end.”
I told the story again and he laughed. “Surprising.”
Raya was studying Elijah as she sipped her wine, like she was trying to figure him out, then her gaze shifted to me. “I don’t want you to leave tomorrow.”
I scrunched my nose. “I know. I don’t want to either. But I don’t think I’ll be there much longer. My mom is finally more mobile. She’ll probably kick me out soon. She’s barely tolerating me as it is.”
“How soon?” Elijah asked softly from next to me.
“I don’t know,” I said just as quietly back.
But in that moment, staring at his vulnerable expression, I knew no matter how far away from him I was, I wanted to make it work.
We could figure something out. A visiting schedule, a way for him to pay his dad back and stop working at the boxing gym sooner, a way for him to monetize what he really loved. We could do that. I knew we could.
Maybe he felt the same, because he reached out for my hand and pulled me over onto his lap. I willingly went.