Chapter 10
Vaughn
KNOCK, knock!
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!
Heaving myself out of bed, I drag my feet all the way to the door.
The view through my peephole immediately perks me up.
It’s Eli, and he has coffee. My heart races, and there’s no time to think before I disengage the locks and whip open the door.
His huge smile signals that he’s just as happy to see me as I am to see him until.
..he isn’t. His entire face falls. He looks. ..stricken. What happened?
He’s looking down, so I look down. My pajamas.
He’s looking at my pajamas. My pajamas are cute as hell.
I don’t see the problem here. Swiftly, he drops the coffees to just below his belt line.
He clears his throat before speaking. “Ah good morning. I can wait out here while you change, if you want.”
Still failing to see the problem, I look down at my pajamas again. “No. I’m good. Are you good?”
“Mmhmm. Great. Good. I’m good.”
His face is telling a different story than his words. He does not look like he’s doing great or even good. His eyes are looking everywhere but at me. I move back from the door and gesture with one arm for him to enter. He keeps the coffees below his waist and still doesn’t offer me one.
“One of those for me?” I ask, knowing the answer but not sure how else I’m going to get my hands on that macchiato.
Eli drags in a deep breath and closes his eyes for several seconds. He’s trying to compose himself.
“Is there something wrong with my pajamas?” My tone is irritated because I happen to know that I wear cute pajamas, and these are some of my favorites. It’s a pink satin short set. The top has lace spaghetti straps, and the hems of both the top and the shorts are white lace.
Eli opens his eyes and he’s...annoyed. Finally, he hands me the macchiato. No, ‘hands’ is too soft a word. He shoves the drink into my hand and practically stomps off to the couch to take a seat.
“Did I miss something here? You seemed happy when I opened the door, and now you’re all huffy.”
He glares at me. The ooey gooey cinnamon roll of a human being glares at me like I just kicked a puppy. His puppy, even. “I was fine until you answered the door with sex hair and nothing more than scraps of thin pink shit covering THAT body.” He gestures dramatically to all of me.
My hands instinctively go to my hair. My fingers work to tame the tangled mess, but there’s just too much of it. It’s a lot of hair. It’s long, wavy, and super thick. Fingers aren’t going to cut it, and I don’t even care. He’s riled up. He’s riled up because of ME. It’s about damn time.
I don’t even try to hide my enjoyment, and in turn, he makes no attempt to hide his annoyance.
“Well, it serves you right for interrupting my beauty rest.”
His head is laid back on the couch, and he doesn’t turn it as he moves his eyes to me. “It’s 9:00 a.m., the sun’s been up for hours. I wanna hang out before you go to work.”
He wants to hang out. He brought me coffee, and he wants to hang out, and he definitely had to hide a stiffy. Today is going well. I love today. “How do you know I work today.”
“Proxy Twins”, he replies as he takes a drink of his coffee.
“So, what...you three are friends now?”
He mulls this over before responding. “We’re not, not friends.”
Okay. He’s won over the Tweedle Twins. “So, you just assume I’m free and I want to hang out with you?”
“I brought coffee.”
This is a legitimate response and does, in fact, earn him hang out time. I’m actually about six light years over the moon about him being here, but there’s no reason for him to know that.
“So, are you coming to Cornerstone tonight?”
He’s already looking at me, per usual, but his response is still slow. “Not tonight. It’s not really my scene.”
My eyebrows scrunch together. He was there a couple of nights ago, but it’s not his scene?
He wasn’t even meeting anyone. He was alone.
Or was he meeting someone, and they just didn’t show up?
Does he have a girlfriend? He didn’t even try to kiss me last night.
He kissed my forehead, but he might even kiss his sister’s forehead.
Does he have a sister? Damn. Is this just a really lonely guy who needs a friend?
“Were you supposed to meet someone there the other night?” I hold my breath and wait for his answer. Please say no.
“The opposite, actually.” He pauses, but I can sense he isn’t done speaking, so I remain silent. “I didn’t want to run into anyone I know. My friends don’t really hang out at Cornerstone.”
“Ah. You were hiding out. You know you could’ve bought a case of Coke and a whole bottle of Jim Beam and just stayed home. It would’ve been a hell of a lot cheaper.”
“Not likely. My drinks were free.”
That’s right. Jax returned his card and comped his tab after he Jet Li’d Chase.
There is so much to this man. He’s some sort of badass, but he doesn’t advertise it.
That probably means that he is a badass to the extreme, so he doesn’t need to flaunt it.
He’s also the absolute sweetest thing under the sun.
His smile is a near permanent fixture on his face.
He got his little feelings hurt about not knowing my real name, but then, he got down on his knees to plead for forgiveness.
“You’re difficult to figure out.” I find that it’s best to just say what I think for the most part. I don’t like to play guessing games, and I don’t like to be deceived.
He finds my statement amusing in some way because he’s stifling a laugh. “Something funny?”
“I like that about you. That say what you think thing. It’s different.”
His are the last words spoken for a while as we sit in companionable silence watching multiple episodes of Chopped.
I’m not exactly a skilled chef, but I try, and that’s what’s important.
I love this show, but Eli is enthralled.
He may have forgotten that I’m here. I haven’t caught him looking at me in close to two hours.
He has leaned in closer to the TV at least nine times to get a better look at an ingredient or a technique.
“I’m hungry.”
Eli stands quickly at my words. “I can make you something.” He looks concerned as though I said I’m near starvation rather than ‘I’m hungry’.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll be eating Chinese takeout for the foreseeable future.”
“Ah, yeah.” He does the neck rubbing thing again. “Sorry about that. You don’t have to eat it. I can throw it out.”
My gasp is dramatic as I clutch my chest in feigned heartache. “You DO NOT waste Wu Chow.”
“Right.” His eyes narrow in concentration. “So, we eat it then?”
“We eat it.”
“Got it. I’ll heat it up.” He goes to the kitchen and starts pulling takeout boxes from the fridge.
Then, he gets a couple of skillets and places them on the stove.
He’s moving around the kitchen like it’s his own.
He seems to be completely comfortable. In fact, he always seems to be at ease.
The only times I’ve seen him question himself was the morning after the chaos and immediately after he snuck into my apartment.
Even then, those moments of uncertainty didn’t last.
“You know you could just put the boxes in the microwave. It would be more efficient.”
His palms hit the counter on each side of the stove, and his forehead meets the oven vent. He’s collecting himself. This is not an absurd notion, but he’s acting like it’s purely ridiculous.
“The point is not efficiency. The point is flavor. By reheating it on the stove, we preserve the flavor.” He doesn’t look at me when he explains why I’m wrong.
I’m in no mood to argue since my only job is to sit and wait for the flavorful food to be brought to me, so I remain silent.
Eli makes our plates and places mine in front of me, taking the seat beside me for himself.
“Thank you. It smells great.”
“It’ll taste great, too. Now, start with chapter two.”
My book. He wants to pick up where we left off with the book.
“I’m eating.” I say this, implying that it’s an inconvenience when all I’m really thinking is how excited I am that he’s interested enough to hear more.
Eli gives me a rare, bland look, conveying that I’m being ridiculous and not fooling anyone.
“We both know you’re going to talk non-stop while chewing beyond your mouths capacity of Chinese take-out so you might as well entertain me with a compelling story.”
I desperately want to be offended, but did he just refer to my book as compelling? Best I can do is not squeal and hug his neck.
After we eat surprisingly fresh-tasting takeout, and I tell Eli the next chapter of my book, we clean up the mess and play a few hands of Uno. It’s almost sad how badly I massacre him AGAIN.
Eli rarely has his phone out, so I’m curious what he’s doing when he’s staring at it intently and typing away.
“What are you doing?”
“Googling how many draw four cards are supposed to be in a deck and the likelihood of one player getting all of them.”
Eli tells me he’s going to head out. I’m not ready for him to go yet, but I’m also not willing to say that out loud.
“What time do you get off?”
“We close at midnight on weekdays. It usually takes a half hour or so to clean up, so I get out around 12:30 most nights.”
He closes the distance between us, entwining his fingers through my hair once again, tilting my head back, and kissing my forehead.
The contact of his lips on my skin sends small electric shocks throughout my body.
I’m in real trouble if this man ever advances past my forehead.
When he got on his knees, I lost the ability to form coherent thought.
He kisses me on the forehead, and it shocks my entire system.
Heaven only knows what will happen when he puts his lips on mine.
That’s, of course, assuming that he ever will.
In certain ways, I feel like we’re moving at light speed.
He’s slept in my bed, and I’ve seen him every day since the night we met, but in other ways, he’s barely moving at all.
He hasn’t really kissed me, and he doesn’t even sit beside me when we’re together.
I know he’s comfortable in my apartment and around me.
He cooked in my kitchen. That’s pretty comfortable in my book.
Am I being friend zoned? This is all so weird.
“I’ll see you later. Be careful getting to work.”
“Yeah. I will.”
He turns and walks out the door again leaving me feeling confused, but this time there’s also an emptiness.
“Vaughn!” His voice rumbles through the door.
I run over to the door and have my hand on the knob before I realize what he wants.
Chain Lock. Deadbolt. Knob. Got it. My eyes are trained on the peephole throughout the entire locking process.
As soon as the last lock clicks, Elijah winks at the peephole and marches down the stairs.
My forehead hits the door, and I silently swoon in peace.
The rest of the day and my entire shift seemed to drag by.
Each minute feels like an hour, and each hour feels like an eternity.
Jax and Marshall are off tonight, so it’s just me behind the main bar.
Working alone keeps me busy enough that I at least don’t have too much downtime.
Downtime makes even the best of nights interminable.
It’s finally time to clean up and go home. I put away the clean glasses and wipe everything down before tossing a salute to Amir.
“Good night, handsome.”
“Good night, Pyaari.” I looked this up once, and I’m pretty sure it means sweetheart.
Amir is from Pakistan. We hit it off on my first night working at Cornerstone. He’s my favorite bouncer, and he always watches me walk to my bike.
Schlepping toward my bike, I notice another bike in the space just past mine.
There’s a hulking man, still wearing his helmet, leaning up against it.
My steps falter, and I stop walking. Looking back at Amir, I see he’s gone.
He never leaves the door until I’ve pulled out of the employee lot.
Where did he go? WHY did he go? I turn back to the man to see him pulling off his helmet and I’m more than relieved to see Eli.
I’m elated. It’s 12:30 a.m. and here he is. For me. He’s here....for me.
“Amir remembered me from the other night and let me back here so I could accompany you home.”
“Oh, so you think you’re coming home with me?” I use a playful tone, but his face falls anyway.
“No. Not like that. I’m not coming in. I just want to make sure you get there safely.”
I laugh as he fumbles over his explanation. “Kidding. I know what you meant. Although, I have been getting myself home in one piece for quite some time now.”
“I know. It’s more for me than for you.” He’s smiling again, and the smile reaches the inflection of his voice.
Together, we mount up and slide on our helmets. He’s a bike guy. Of course he’s a bike guy. I’m going to have to sample his food because there has got to be a flaw in there somewhere. There are far too many green flags for this man to be true.