Chapter 22
When I get back to my apartment around midnight, after Dane has thoroughly whipped Kwan in several games of pool, I notice a piece of paper taped to my door.
I have a surprise for you! Come by my place whenever you’re back (Doesn’t matter how late).
—Eli
Well, there go my attempts to ignore Eli and focus on everything else.
The walks have been normal since the biking incident and the plaque-evening weirdness. We’ve slotted back into our morning George routine, and there’s nothing tension-filled about an early stroll with a cranky dog.
But I haven’t gone to his apartment in a while. There’s something so much closer about being alone inside. Outside, in the thrum of the city, we’re two data points in a larger system. Inside, in apartments and apparently elevators, is where I get into trouble with him. Inside is where I get confused. And as we discussed—perhaps a little too much this evening—I don’t need any confusion.
But I can’t ignore a note like that. Not only would that seem weird but also I’m not immune to the promise of a surprise.
I walk downstairs and knock on the door. After a few short moments, it opens with vigor. Eli looks deliciously excited, like a kid in a candy store.
“Okay, you’ll never guess what I have,” he says, pulling me inside and looking giddier by the minute.
“A problem with illicit substances?”
He admonishes me with a look. “ No. I’m just excited.”
My lips curl into a smile. “I can see that.” But as much as I’m intrigued by his uncharacteristic delight, something on the table is distracting me. “Are those black-and-white cookies?”
“Oh.” He turns, like he’s remembering something almost as exciting. “Yes, I made these.” He grabs one and hands it over to me. They’re not warm anymore, but the icing hasn’t hardened, as though he just made them and then left them to set.
“You made black-and-white cookies?” I ask.
“Well, I liked yours, and I keep thinking if I do more New York things, it’ll feel more like home.” He shrugs, watching as I take a bite.
“These are really good,” I say, trying to enunciate with my mouth full. He’s talked about his baking, but I’ve never actually tasted anything he’s made. I’m surprised by how fluffy and perfect they are. “Did your grandmother make these with you when you were a kid?”
“Oh yeah,” he says with a grin. “When Nan moved here, she started out making biscuits and shortbreads and everything British. But then I think, as she put it, she wanted to date some New Yorker, so she got really good at black and whites. Eventually she said it made her feel like a New Yorker herself, so she didn’t miss the old stuff.”
“Are you missing home?” I ask, knowing that isn’t why he asked me here but wondering it all the same.
“I’m ...” He pauses, the lightness dimming for just a moment. But then he shakes it off. “It’s fine. Anyway, I did want to give you a cookie. But I actually have something better for you.”
“Something could be better than cookies?” I ask as he pops away to go grab something from his room.
“Oh yes!” he says, practically running back and holding out his hand. And there, laid flat in the middle, his palm curved to keep it safe, is my button.
It’s the button I lost on the bike ride and assumed was gone. It’s twinkling in the light, looking like a shining star against his skin.
“You found my button?” I ask in disbelief.
I know I can see it right in front of me, and I know it’s unique enough that it can’t be anything else, but it seems so illogical.
“I ... yeah,” he says with a shrug, tipping his hand into mine so the button falls softly onto me.
“But it was lost.”
“Well, it was always there,” he says quietly. I hold it nearer to my face, as though seeing it up close will make it all make more sense. “I shouldn’t have let go while you were biking.”
I snap my head back to him, my eyes questioning. “So what’d you do? Go inch by inch through all those thickets to try and find a single button?”
His brow furrows, and I wish I could take the sentence back—because it seems like that’s exactly what he did. And he’s interpreting my words as incredulity, not the sincerity that I meant. I can’t wrap my head around it. He did this? For me?
“I just thought I’d be able to find it,” he says, shrugging again, like he can shrug off the weight of my stare. “I thought you’d be excited.”
My hand darts out to his shoulder, desperate to correct whatever thought is now burrowing. “I am excited. It’s from one of my favorite shirts,” I explain. “I just can’t believe you did this for me.”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Not you ,” I emphasize. I’m backtracking once again and trying to fix what I know I’m saying incorrectly in my stunned state. “I just can’t believe anyone would do this. For me. For anyone. It’s a huge pain. It’s methodical. It’s a lot of work!”
“Not a lot of work,” he mumbles.
“No, Eli, it is,” I say, my voice cracking a bit. “I’m really touched. You must’ve had to sift through a lot of uncomfortable brush, all while leaning over and ...” As I’m imagining it, it seems about as painstaking as painstaking could be. I look back down at the button, so simple but so irreplaceable, now back in my possession. “I just really appreciate it.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he says.
He looks embarrassed now, and I don’t get it. He’s the one who put the note on my door. He’s the one who went through all the effort.
“I don’t get how you were so excited to show this to me and now you’re acting like it’s nothing,” I say. “It’s so cool that you did this. I’m really speechless.”
He rubs the back of his neck and looks away, the way he always does when he wants to avoid. “I don’t know, I didn’t mean to make it such a big deal,” he finally says. “Like, now that you say it like that, I’m a little embarrassed.”
“You’re embarrassed ?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of overboard,” he says, flipping whatever switch he’s able to use whenever he wants to get his casual nature back. It’s amazing how he can do that. It’s such a skill to be able to pour ice over your emotions. Knowing him now, I find it sort of remarkable to watch the subtle difference when he shakes off his sincerity and puts the bravado back on.
“It’s not overboard,” I counter, not wanting to let him diminish. “It’s really kind.”
“Well, I thought you’d like it. And you do. So do you want another cookie? Or a cup of tea?”
He turns away from me and goes back to the table to get the plate of black and whites again, then he turns on his tea kettle. I don’t move, just watch him as he flits around and tries to burn off his own nervous energy.
“You like to say that I can’t take a compliment,” I point out. “But look at yourself—this reaction is weird even for you.”
He turns back and looks at me, staring so sharply into my eyes it almost makes me take a step back. I can’t read him. He’s watching me but doesn’t say anything. He’s holding something in, and I don’t know what it is, the air filling with that heaviness that sometimes threatens to permeate the easygoing nature of our friendship. It’s hard not to wonder why he’s had such a sudden turn. Why would he do something so out of the way and nice for me and then in a flash want to minimize it?
And I can’t pretend, when I see these rare pieces of him—the vulnerable, joyous, kind pieces—that I don’t feel like there’s something more between us. I can’t pretend like I don’t see all the ways he’s beautiful when he lets his doors open a crack.
And for some reason, right now, with this button held tight in my fist, I’m suddenly desperate to see more of it.
“Hearn said you minimized your plans for the roof,” I venture, knowing I’m playing with fire. I can’t help but wonder how much our friendship has needled at him the way it’s started to needle at me. I’m confused, and I have so many more confusing things looming, but in this moment I’m incapable of not pulling at the thread. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me. Maybe it’s that button. But I need to know.
He doesn’t answer immediately. He’s watching me, gauging. He purses his lips, and it’s distracting.
“I talked to Dane,” he finally says.
“You talked to Dane ?” I ask, mind whirring. She wasn’t with us when Hearn mentioned Eli’s changes, but surely if Dane had talked to him, she would’ve mentioned it.
“I asked her not to tell you,” he says, immediately able to see where my mind is wandering. “I didn’t want you to think I was looking for credit. I genuinely just wanted to do the right thing, and since I knew she’d already been looking at my plans—because of you—” At that he smirks, and I’m almost relieved to get that openness back instead of the weight of whatever’s sitting between us. I’m relieved to see that familiar one side of his grin curl up more than the other. “So I just asked her what she thought I should do to keep everything as unobtrusive as possible.”
“You did that for me.”
It’s not a question anymore. All these things, these seemingly small but actually huge things, they’re for me. I squeeze the button tighter in my hand—the button he went searching for on a fool’s mission. For me.
“Yeah, I did it for you,” he admits quietly.
“Why?” I ask.
He rubs a hand over his face, like he’s still searching for the answer. Like maybe he knows the answer but doesn’t want to quite admit it yet, even to himself. And maybe so he doesn’t have to look at me anymore while he responds.
There’s too much distance between us, and I can feel myself unconsciously walking over to him. My heart’s beating faster, and everything else that’s usually taking up space in my mind has dissipated. There’s only Eli and me, only this question hanging in the air. There’s only his breath and mine.
“You do things for everyone else,” he finally says, as though that’s a reason and not just the basic facts of my life.
“Trust me, I know that,” I chuckle. “But why did you do all of this for me?”
I’m standing in front of him now, in between the table and the counter, bracketed by his kettle on one side—now boiling and whistling at us—and the black-and-white cookies on the other. I move the kettle off the hot burner, and silence once again fills the room.
He sighs, and I can see it’s an effort for him. He did all these things on impulse, because that’s how he moves through the world. He wanted to find the button, so he just went for it. He probably threw on some long pants so he wouldn’t get scratched and set off for the West Side Highway without considering why. He probably ran into Dane in the elevator and asked her, Hey, what would you do if you were me? He didn’t mean to be so thoughtful.
But he was thoughtful.
And now I’m asking him to consider why.
I think I know why.
And instead of finding that scary anymore, I now find that it feels inevitable. For once I’m not thinking about J. I’m not thinking about what comes next. It’s only me and Eli and the way he’s not looking at me, like if he does, he’ll have to admit it too.
“Why, Eli?” I say, my voice quiet even amid the silence.
He fidgets. He picks at the side of a cookie and eats it. He drums his fingers on the table. He’s deciding.
And I wait him out. I need to hear him say whatever he’s thinking, and I’m going to let him cycle through all his discomfort to get there, to get back to the open part of himself that I like so much but that is so often hard for him to let others see.
But finally he sighs and looks back up at me again.
“When someone does something nice for you, you always seem surprised,” he says, his eyes on me a challenge now.
“I am surprised,” I admit.
“I wish you weren’t,” he says softly. He takes a step closer to me, and now I’m the one who can’t look right at him. I’m watching the way his hand glides over the top of his kitchen chair, the way it holds on, the way it smooths across. “I wish the people in your life did more nice things for you.”
“I’m fine,” I say, still looking away, now nervous at what I’ve started. Nervous that I poked so much that I made that inevitability happen.
But he gently places a finger under my chin and tilts my face up so I can see him again.
“I know you’re fine. But I can’t help how much I like seeing you smile.”
His eyes scan my face, impatient and longing, as though he wants to come closer but hasn’t quite decided. He lingers, watching me, unsure. He opens his mouth to say something and then closes it. Opens it again and then thinks better of it. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs nervously. He’s blushing a tinge so gorgeous I want to reach out and trace it.
And I can’t help but smile at the sight of his honest indecision.
“See, that ,” he says, removing his finger from under my chin and drawing it across my lips, slowly, reverently. “That smile. It does something to me.”
“I can see that,” I say, my body tilting unconsciously toward his, drawn in by watching this composed man succumb to trepidation, a long rope tightening around my heart.
His thumb sits on my bottom lip, and he watches, mesmerized but still unmoving.
“Are you going to kiss me?” I breathe out, so keyed up now that I can’t stop myself from saying it.
“Don’t you think it’s a bad idea?” he says, his eyes still on my mouth.
“Probably,” I agree, even though I can’t stop drinking in the way he’s looking at me. The way he seems to be holding himself back.
“We live in the same building. You used to kind of be my therapist.” It’s a quiet relief knowing that he’s also thought about it; that he’s batted around all these same complications and studied every nook and cranny of what-ifs. It’s the opposite of rashness, of impetuous desire, of a spur-of-the-moment bodily want. He’s turned it over in his head too. But he still went to find my button. “Wouldn’t that make things complicated?” he finally breathes.
I nod. “Definitely.”
“So tell me to stop,” he says with a groan.
But I already know I can’t.
“I don’t think I want to,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, centering himself. I wonder if he’s going to be the smart one. I wonder if he’s going to take all those excellent points he just made and let them convince him to take a step back.
But the opposite happens.