Chapter 11
REESE
TRACK: Sam he got himself into this mess.
Instead, I felt vindicated, because that look on his face was the same one I’d seen that morning in the kitchen when Neil had asked us to go to dinner, so she knew I wasn’t completely unhinged for falling for it.
Anyway, it wasn’t like I was doing anything when I got the texts besides getting out of the shower. Pre-shower, I’d been on the phone with my realtor Caroline in California, who never seemed to not be working.
She’d asked me about the condo development I’d been interested in earlier this year, the one that was now under construction. “It’s your last chance to get in on the presale pricing, Reese. Now or never, in this market.”
There was no guarantee I’d get the place even if I made an offer, and I’d stood there in my kitchen, looking at the microwave dinner I’d been peeling the plastic back on when she called. Rufus had sighed wearily as if disappointed in me when I’d pulled it out of the fridge.
“Well, Reese?”
What did I have to stay in Quince Valley for?
Filming would be over in a matter of weeks, and this ridiculous thing I was doing with Eli would end with it.
Yet I’d still be working at his hotel, still in a restaurant, still hanging out with Rufus on Saturday nights eating lumpy frozen chicken penne.
“Okay,” I’d told Caroline. “Put in the offer.”
“Atta girl. Now, no guarantees, like I say.”
“No guarantees,” I’d repeated.
Then I’d gotten in the shower, feeling at least like I’d taken a step in the right direction, even if my stomach was turning over uncertainly.
Then my phone buzzed.
I spot Eli now, standing outside the bar in his handsome navy peacoat, blowing into his hands, and for a moment, I want to call Caroline back and tell her to cancel the whole thing.
Sorry, but there’s this guy here I used to love who I’m now fake dating, who still makes me feel like I’ve got a swarm of butterflies living in my stomach every time I see him. What? Do I have a future with him? No, there are no guarantees, remember?
I swallow hard, forcing myself to keep walking.
Up until last week, just seeing Eli in the hallway at work would have sent my stomach into knots. I took great pains to do everything I could to avoid seeing him at all. But now?
I couldn’t quite believe how much things had changed in such a short period of time.
At least for the time being.
Part of me still wants to run in the other direction, but I find myself coming right up to him, tapping him on the shoulder and folding my arms like I’m so put out to be here.
“Reese.” Eli’s face splits into that grin that makes my insides all woozy. Why the hell does he have to smile like that? Yet I feel my lips turning up too. My body responds all by itself to Eli Dunham, and I have to fight to keep a stern you-owe-me look on my face.
“Thank you,” he says. “Sincerely.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you put something in the water at Rolling Hills. If maybe that’s why I’m here doing this.”
“No, nothing in the water. Maybe you’ve just lost your mind all on your own?”
I have to bite my lips to keep from laughing.
Eli glances inside and clears his throat. “We should hug.”
I follow his gaze. Eli’s siblings, their partners—or in Jude’s case, his bestie—are sprawled around a table near the back that’s raised slightly, making it look like they’re on a stage.
They look relaxed and easy. Neil and Kelly are on the far side of the table, Neil looking easygoing and Kelly slightly stiff, but gorgeous as always.
Cassandra looks up then, and gives me a little wave. That makes everyone turn to face us.
Including Kelly.
I give Cass a wave back, then look at Eli. “Do I do it, or you?”
“The longer we stand here the weirder it gets,” he says, reaching for my hand. “In fact…I think I have to lay it on thick now that they’re watching.”
My stomach skips as he pulls me toward him. Before I know what’s happening, his hands are sliding into my open coat, encircling my waist.
“Is this okay?” he whispers into my ear.
The word comes out before I’m sure if it’s even true. "Yes." But my thoughts go skittering sideways as he pulls me closer to him, pressing my hips to his.
“I’m just going to act like I’m whispering something in your ear,” he says. His breath on my ear sends a tingling all the way down my spine, culminating in a heat between my legs.
His breath. That’s all it takes.
“You are whispering in my ear," I say, because acting irritated is better than showing him the truth.
“Good point.”
But I can't help myself. “So...what exactly would you be whispering if we were…together?”
“Hmm,” he breathes. He backs up just far enough to stare into my eyes. He reaches up and tucks my hair behind my ear. “Probably that you look beautiful.”
I swallow. “What else?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“I think I do.”
What the hell, Reese?
Eli pulls back so he can face me, arching a brow.
I pull him back to me. “Okay, now it looks like I said something weird.”
“Not weird so much as interesting.”
“Oh my God, Eli. Seriously?”
“Yeah. I want to know what you think I’d say next.”
His smile is so mischievous, so deeply sexy, my breath hitches. Shit. This isn’t good. I throw a glance inside, to where literally everyone at the table is staring at us, his sisters both with their hands over their mouths.
“Dammit,” I whisper. Then I reach up and give him a kiss on the cheek. It’s chaste, but it shuts him up.
It doesn’t do anything for the tingling licking at my core, though.
Neither does the shit-eating grin he gives when he wraps an arm around my shoulders and brings me inside. And somehow, despite myself, I’m smiling too.
To my utter shock and amazement, I manage to have fun with Eli’s family, despite the way his sisters pepper us with questions the minute everyone finished shuffling around to make room for me.
“When did you decide to get back together?” Cassandra asks.
I hesitate, but Eli helps out. “We were never really together-together,” Eli says. “This is new.”
“Who asked who out?” Chelsea asks, practically swooning. “Where was your first date?”
Luckily, I don’t have to lie, if we use what’s happened in the past few weeks as our framework for the truth.
“I asked Reese out,” Eli says.
“And our first date was at Ben’s place,” I say.
Eli’s smile makes my stomach flip, and I have to look to Nora to keep my feet grounded in reality.
Cassandra’s fiancé Blake keeps inspecting both of us like we’re on trial, though I get the sense his interest is scientific.
I also get the sense he wouldn’t say anything if he suspected anything—like he sees the bigger picture.
He gives me a kind of sympathetic smile when I meet his eyes.
He’s been on the hot seat with this family too, I realize.
Kelly keeps studying me too, and while her expression isn’t outright hostile, it’s definitely different than it was before.
Maybe it’s because of the way Eli rests an easy hand on my knee, which is up high, my ankle resting on my opposite knee.
He runs circles over my kneecap, and whenever he stops to gesticulate, he always puts it back.
It gets so I watch Kelly to see what her reaction will be. Did she feel that warmth of heat when he touched her? The thought makes me hot with jealousy, which is unlike me. And also makes no sense, seeing as what Eli and I have isn’t real.
But she obviously thinks it is. Each time his hand lowers back down on me, she almost flinches.
I want to ask her why? Why does she care, when her life seems so perfect now? When she gave up on Eli, after he gave her everything?
Luckily, Neil—the most gregarious person at the table, even with Jude there—commands enough attention with his stories about the current slate of contestants on Chef’s Apprentice that everyone can’t help bringing our attention to him.
“Augusta’s going to take it this year,” he says with confidence.
“Are you supposed to make predictions like that?” I ask him.
Neil winks at me. “Not at all. But wouldn’t you agree?”
“No comment,” I say. Though incidentally, I would.
Augusta Lopez is a stunning forty-something lawyer from Colombia by way of Pittsburgh.
She’s charming, and has a no-nonsense attitude and one of those sexy, raspy voices, thick with a Spanish accent.
“Though I will say I’ve never had my dishwashers showing up for work this early before. ”
“Todd?” Eli asks.
“Yeah. The only thing that makes him stutter harder than Augusta is when people tell him Eleanor is around.”
Jude perks up. “Eleanor Cleary?”
“The very same.” Eleanor Cleary is at the center of old rumors about Rolling Hills being haunted.
It’s so silly I don’t usually pay the stories any attention.
But Nora has been helping Jude do research on the actual woman people say the ghost is—Eleanor Cleary, who was apparently murdered at the hotel by her husband over a hundred years ago.
“Don’t encourage him!” Eli says, laughing.
“Hey, Eleanor’s story is fascinating,” Nora says, uncharacteristically lowering her video camera to speak up. “The book Seamus’s dad deciphered—”
“Who’s Eleanor?” Neil asks, interrupting.
A flicker of irritation goes through me at how he just interrupted Nora like that. It’s a sensitive spot for her, given how soft-spoken she is.
“Nora can tell—” I begin, but Cass interrupts now.
“Just a guest at the hotel,” Cass says. “From a few years ago.”
She raises her eyebrows at me, then jerks her chin to Neil.