Chapter 32
The knocking on my door brings me out of a daze as I walk to it.
“Low?”
“You know there’s an undercover car outside, right?”
“Yeah,” I nod my head, opening the door wider for her. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, do you think they can hear me?”
“No.” But I nod, counteracting what I’m actually saying, before walking over to the window and opening the blinds enough so I can see them and they can see me. “I mean, legally they would need a warrant for that.” My voice rising as I say it.
The patrol officer’s eyes come up, looking straight into mine before they widen.
Could it be a coincidence? Sure. But I know it isn’t.
“Good. Cause you know Sherri sent me over with the last bit of the paperwork, just making sure it’ll stay confidential.”
Nodding my head, I nod towards my office. Closing the door, I reach over and hit the button for the blinds. Turning toward her once they’re lowered and starting.
“They can’t hear anything now.”
She gives me a questioning look.
“With the blinds down and the door shut, no signal can get through.”
“Oh, okay.”
“So what do I need to sign?”
“Um.” She pauses, looking around. “That’s not actually why I’m here.”
“Okay…?” I give her a questioning look as I move over to my desk, sitting down. She sits down in the other chair in the room.
“Technically, there is one signature that’s needed, but it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Drew has a date tonight.”
“What?”
“She’s going on a date.”
“With whom?”
“Some guy in our class.” She rolls her eyes. “I asked her why, and she said she wanted to make sure.”
Nodding my head, I know what she’s trying to say. I know what Drew wants to make sure of. “That sounds reasonable.”
“Eli.” Low glares at me. “You and I both know she makes terrible decisions. Let’s keep you from murdering anyone else.”
It actually makes me laugh out loud, and I nod. “She won’t listen to me if I call and tell her not to.”
“You’re right.” She nods. “So, show up.”
“That’s an awful idea.”
“No, it’s not.” She laughs again. “He’s a bitch. Scare the shit out of him, and he’ll leave.”
“I’ll think about it.” I nod. “Did you actually want me to sign whatever it is while you’re here?”
“Oh, yeah.” She laughs, reaching into her bag and pulling it out.
* * *
I told myself I wouldn’t go.
But, I am a liar after all.
When I enter the restaurant, I scan the tables for her.
“Sir, can I help you?” the hostess smiles at me as she gawks.
I’m not sure what it is, something about ever since I was fired people have been giving me more attention.
Maybe they can smell prison on me. That I’m a bad choice.
Or maybe I’m finally able to let the rest of the world see what only Drew has seen for the last decade.
Walking up to the table, her back towards me. My eyes running over her perfect flesh as she grabs her phone, pulling up a text thread.
“What the fuck?” She whispers to herself.
“Yeah,” I start as I slide past her, across the table and sitting down.
She wears a shocked expression as she slowly puts her phone down.
“I don’t think he’s gonna make it.”
“You flattened two of his tires?”
“What?” I shrug. I can see she finds it humorous as much as she’s trying not to let it show. “I did feel like it was a little poetic.”
She laughs, glancing away quickly. “I guess that’s fair.” She grabs her purse.
“Stay.”
Her cheeks flush. “Give me a reason I should.”
“We’re both here. There’s food, and I had to time it perfectly so the undercover cops in front of my house didn’t see me leave.”
She tries to hide her smile, but her hands drift away from her things.
“How’d you even find out?”
“We have a mutual friend, apparently.” I laugh.
“There’s no way.”
“She showed up at my house. Apparently she likes me better.” It makes me laugh again. “She told me about it. I know about your terrible decisions when it comes to men —”
“Hey,” she laughs, cutting me off. “You were one of those decisions.”
“Oh, I’m completely aware of who I am.”
“So you were a terrible decision.”
“At the time. Yeah.” Nodding my head as the server comes over.
“Can I start you two off with anything to drink?”
I pause, looking at Drew, who shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “Vodka soda.”
I can feel the server look over at me, but I can’t take my eyes off her. “Whiskey on the rocks.”
We sit in an awkward silence, waiting for our drinks. “Thank you.” I tell her before I look down at the menu.
“Yeah, just watch yourself.” She doesn’t look up from her menu as she continues. “One wrong word and I’m out.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. Elias, I drove myself here. I can drive myself home.”
I chuckle to myself, lowering my menu after deciding and waiting until she looks up at me. “No, you can’t.”
I couldn’t have timed it better if I tried. When Drew’s mouth gapes open, the server comes back with our drinks.
Once we’re alone once again at the table, Drew shakes her head. “Is my car outside?”
Keeping my face as stoic as possible, I shake my head.
“Low.”
I laugh more this time. “Low doesn’t have a spare key to your car.”
“Fucking Liv!?” she nearly shouts.
Making her blush as heads turn around us to see what the commotion is all about.
“I’m gonna kill her.” She whispers to me.
Letting the moment go, I start once more. “I didn’t tell Low I was going to come.”
“She’s aware now.” She laughs, holding up her phone. “I told her I was going to kill her.” Putting the phone down, she tilts her head. “And how am I getting home?” she flirts with me.
“I’m taking you.” I tell her, looking at her over the top of the glass.
“No —”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Her eyes widen.
“Come on, Sketch, it’s just dinner and a little conversation. Positive, better conversation than whatever-the-hell-his-name-is. And as soon as I drop you off, I’ll go back to respecting your distance.”
“Really?” she cocks her head like she’s calling me on my shit… and honestly, she is.
“Mostly.”
She smirks. “Until the next opportunity you find.”
“Probably.” I shrug.
“And it’s never just dinner and conversation with you,” she says, cutting her eyes.
“All I’m asking for is dinner and conversation. The rest is your call.”
“My call?” she rolls her eyes.
“Your call.” Waiting for her to meet my eyes before I finish. “It’s always been your call, since the moment I tasted you.”
Her eyes widen causing her to pick her drink up and sip it. I can tell by how she coughs on it that as much as she’s trying not to, she’s imagining us in the shower, her hand on my cock…
Her cheeks are still flushed when the food is brought over to us.
She doesn’t make my eyes until she’s taken a couple bites of food.
* * *
We pull up outside her building, and I sigh, not wanting her to go up.
Killing the engine, I slide my helmet off as I grab hers while she’s holding it out to me.
“You’re not gonna walk me to the door.” It’s not a question.
“Ok.”
“But can we take a walk?”
“Whatever you want, remember your call.”
We’re on the beach before she says anything. “You should have let me pay for dinner.”
“No.”
“And why not?”
I just shake my head, not wanting to have this conversation.
“You got fired. What? 4 months ago?”
“Yeah,” I shrug. “And they’re giving me a pretty good severance.”
“They’re giving you a payout so you don’t sue.”
“Same thing.” I laugh.
“But you haven’t gotten that yet, and you don’t look like you’re struggling.” She pauses as if she’s putting all the pieces together. “And you were able to get Terri that money pretty quickly. How were you able to pay for that week?”
“I may have forgotten a couple of details when we were talking the other day.” I can feel her looking at me as I pause. “I was never on Z’s payroll.”
“I feel like that’s established.”
“But I’m on Ash’s.”
“What?” she looks confused as she stares at me. “He’s been dead for…”
“I know. I can’t explain it. When we agreed to all of this, he insisted on paying monthly.
When he died, I thought the payments would stop, but they didn’t.
They’ve kept coming and I don’t know how to get them to stop.
I was going to talk to Z about it, but hates me at the moment.
So, I figured I’d give him a chance to cool down so I don’t die. ”
Slowly, we walk back towards her apartment when she starts again.
“Who are you?”
“What?”
“At dinner you said you’re aware of who you are. Being with you was never a bad decision.”
“The timing was the bad part, who I had to be to do that… having to lie to you,” I sigh. “I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. And I sure as fuck wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”
“Is that what he said?”
“Yes.”
“Is that specifically what my dad told you?”
“Well, no,” I pause, trying to remember the exact verbiage. “He said, ‘Don’t go falling in love. You can’t trust anyone outside of family with this’… son of a bitch.” I shake my head.
“After we ran from the cops, and you came and talked to him about your life, he asked me if anything was going on between us.”
“We hated each other.”
“That’s what I told him.” Shaking my head. “He told me it’s a lot easier to hate someone you can’t love.”
“What?” I whisper as I stop completely, looking at her.
Her hand comes out, touching over my heart, over where the invisible ink lies. “I hate, I love.” Her voice never rises above a whisper. “The ink was for them. The words are mine.”
Shaking my head, I’m not even sure what to say. Feeling so stupid. All the betrayal I felt towards him. Was completely unwarranted.
Her hand still on my chest, she looks up at me, and I can’t stop myself as I lean in, pressing my lips to hers. Instantly easing at the taste of her again.
“I do have to get up early tomorrow morning, though.” She gasps, pulling away and trying to hide her smirk as she looks up at me. “I’m taking the bar.”
“Sketch!” shaking my head. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”
“I’ve been studying forever. I needed to relax tonight, not think about it, which was the only reason I agreed to go out with him in the first place.”
“Well, let me get you home.” I laugh, holding out my hand.
She looks at it suspiciously.
“Just until I walk you to your building.” It’s a whisper.
Shaking her head, she laughs before tangling her fingers with mine.
We’re almost back to her building when I can’t help but laugh, shaking my head. “Now, really thinking about the tattoo, isn’t that creepy?”
“What?” she laughs.
“I mean. Your dad gave it to me to get, but didn’t tell me what it was. I was 18, I think. You were 14... Little creepy, Ash.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “I mean, it was kind of win-win-win for him.”
“How so?”
“Either no one but you and him knows about it because he doesn’t die. We never get together, so I never find out about it. Or…”
“We get together, and it’s his way of telling us he’s okay with it.”
“It’s more than that.” She whispers.
“What?”
“It’s their way of telling us.”
“How do you know that?”
“Please, do you think Ash Anderson knew what that meant? And he always just kind of knew things. People assumed he was oblivious to a lot of shit, but he paid attention more than people realized.” she laughs out as we walk up to the door to the building.
“Back home.” I tell her, not wanting to leave her, not wanting to go back to where we were before I hijacked her date.
“Thank you.”
“I told you I would.”
“Not for that.” She shakes her head. “Thank you for tonight.”
“When you need to keep your mind from racing while you’re waiting for your score, call me and we can pause the distance for a couple of hours instead of going out with someone like that.”
“You said until you drop me off.”
Nodding my head.
“But you haven’t officially dropped me off until I get up to my apartment, right?”
“You set the rules, baby.”
Slowly, she nods her head.
She meets me halfway as we both lean in, our lips pressing together, my hand coming up and cupping the side of her face as her mouth opens with mine, letting me in.
Pushing her until her back’s presses against the door, her hands coming up to my shirt, gripping on, neither one of us wanting to let this moment pass.
I’m falling forward as the doors opened, causing Drew to fall backwards. “Oh my, I’m sorry!” Drew’s neighbor, Mrs. Beverly, gasps as she looks at me. “Elias, it’s good to see you again.” She grins widely before we straighten up, stepping back out the door to wait outside the building.
We stand awkwardly as Mrs. Beverly walks to her car.
“Elias?” Drew asks, smirking.
“Shut it.”
“When did you meet her?”
“There were a few times in the morning we’d end up leaving at the same time. One time, when I got here, I helped her carry her groceries up.”
My eyes are drawn to where her teeth are biting onto her lip to keep from smiling. “Well, you seemed to have made an impact on her.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I lean in, kissing her cheek once and lingering long enough to say, “Get some rest. I’d wish you luck, but I already know you’re gonna crush it.”
Pulling away, I look down; her oceanic eyes drowning me.
Fuck it.
Cupping her chin between my index and thumb, tilting her head, forcing her to look at me, and whispering. “I love you.”
I don’t wait for her reaction. I can’t. I can’t take the possibility that I’m wrong. Turning around quickly, I start to strut back to my bike.
“Eli!” she calls after me.
I stop, turning to give her my full attention. I can tell she wants to say something. She needs me to know something, and somehow, without her saying anything, I know.
“I’ll be right here when you’re ready, Sketch. I’m not going anywhere.”