Chapter 20
With a promise to call again soon, I hung up once I spotted Elliot on the stoop up to our building, foot anxiously tapping. The wind had done a number on his blond hair. Phone in one hand, keys in the other, he was looking in the wrong direction.
He’d changed into sweatpants and a shirt, and he was probably freezing his ass off out here. Even though the heights of summer were fast approaching, nights still got cool. If I hadn’t just run five miles, I’d be cold too.
“Waiting for something?” I watched his head snap in my direction, brows furrowing first in surprise, then disbelief, and finally . . .
Wait, no.
“What the fuck?” Anger. That’s what it was. “Where did you—” But one look down my body answered the question before he’d even finished it. Plainly, he added, “Are you crazy?”
From the end of the block, a thick native accent echoed through the street. “You better be quiet out there or I’ll shut you up myself!”
Lower, I hissed back at Elliot, “What’s your problem?”
“My problem?” He threw his head back in a laugh. “You. Running around the city in the middle of the night. Like it’s an open invitation for every creep around every corner.”
I ignored that. “I’m out at night all the time. And guess what?” I faked a gasp. “Sometimes when I go running in the mornings, it’s still dark.”
Standing on the first step, I looked up at him. Watched him shake his head before he groaned in frustration. He ran his hands through his hair, and I realized it wasn’t the wind that had messed it up. How long had he been out here? How often had he done that to calm his nerves?
“Never by yourself,” he said. Calmer, lower. The guy down the street was probably thankful.
“I don’t know anyone here besides you and Paula.” Who wouldn’t, under any circumstances, voluntarily get up that early.
He rolled his eyes like I was trying not to get it. Like it was my fault he was speaking in riddles, and like he wasn’t really in the mood to explain them to me. “No,” he insisted. “I usually send one of the guys with you.”
Elliot said it so nonchalantly that I almost brushed past it. Send one of the guys with you. “What?”
“When you go for those runs in the morning. When I know you’re staying at the office late, and I can’t walk you home. I leave my security with you. Just to make sure.”
I blinked at him, and he doubled down. “This isn’t some cute little college town, Maeve. Some seriously depraved people wander the streets.”
His words finally settled, and I stirred against my first instinct to .
. . appreciate the gesture. Probably because five minutes ago, I’d still been talking to my grandparents, and if I had the money, I’d do the same for them.
“Sending someone to stalk me day and night makes you one of those depraved people!”
From down the street, a familiar angry “Hey!” made its way to us, and I regretted raising my voice.
Elliot shrugged. “It’s not stalking.”
“Really? If—”
“You leave a place, and I tell them to make sure you get to your destination okay. It’s like asking a friend to walk you home—”
Now I cut him off. “Only that I’m not aware of their presence. Or who they are.”
His lips twisted into a smile, innocent and sweet. “They’re good at their job.”
“Elliot,” I warned.
“Maeve,” he singsonged.
I really wanted to hate the gesture. Wanted to feel the violation of my privacy, boundaries, and trust. Instead, my heart swelled and my pulse picked up.
My phone call with Mimi and Pops must’ve seriously deregulated my nervous system for a reaction like this. Sending his security after me was just another reminder of the power he held, power that he could easily use for nefarious aims. But I couldn’t get myself to believe it.
“What if . . . I don’t know . . . I go somewhere I don’t want you to know? What if I have secrets you can never find out about?”
He snickered, finally relaxed, and leaned against the stone balustrade. “Do you?”
I rolled my eyes.
“They’re not spies. Or private detectives. They don’t tell me where you go or what you do or who you’re meeting.” He raised his brows. “Sometimes you’re so much of a mystery, I wish they would.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, sheepish smile on his lips as his hands slipped into his pockets. A shiver ran down his body, just once. I could tell he was trying to play it off. “Call it curiosity.”
“You could just ask. What I’m doing. Where I’m going.”
“Sometimes I feel like you wouldn’t tell me.”
And he was right. Because there would always be a part of my brain convinced that he was doing all this to trick me. Taking me to fancy restaurants, buying expensive things, and almost kissing me in poorly lit kitchens until my guard was down and he could steal what undoubtedly belonged to me.
To avoid telling him all that, I asked, “How long have you been out here?”
“I don’t know. Five minutes. Ten. Twenty?” He rubbed his hands over his bare arms.
“And you’re obviously cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“We can go inside,” I offered.
“I don’t think I want to.”
My brows furrowed. Why wouldn’t he—“Oh,” I said. “Your girlfriend’s still there.”
Elliot laughed, and his head tilted to give me a look. “I thought you said you weren’t jealous.”
“I’m not.”
“No, of course.” His smile sobered, like bringing Allegra up killed whatever there’d previously been between us.
I wasn’t sure if I should regret it. If I should’ve just danced around the obvious until we inevitably went upstairs, where we’d both be reminded of his ex-girlfriend still in our apartment.
“She’s passed out in my room,” he added. “I don’t think she’s going anywhere tonight.”
Which was cool. “Makes sense.” I nodded grandly, tried to ignore that feeling in the pit of my stomach. “She’ll probably sleep better that way, right? Knowing you’re there, in case she needs—why are you laughing?”
Wide grin. Dimples. Crinkles around his eyes and nose. “I’m obviously taking the couch.”
“That’s not obvious,” I said, but I could feel the color rising to my cheeks.
“She’s my ex.”
“Well, you’re still the first person she wanted to see after she broke up with . . . Nils?” I guessed.
“Nick,” he corrected. “And technically, the first person she saw was Rowen.”
“Asking for you.”
“We’re friends.” He gave me another one of those looks as we ascended the stairs. Isn’t that obvious? it said. “When they make up, Allegra and I will be back to seeing each other on a biweekly basis. You’ll have me all to yourself again.”
That’s not what this is about, I wanted to argue. But I was much more interested in Allegra’s relationships. “You think they’ll get back together?”
“On-again, off-again relationships are kind of her thing, if you couldn’t tell.” He huffed. “But let’s not talk about my ex-girlfriend.”
“Let’s not,” I agreed. But—“Was she your first love?”
“Only,” he corrected. “So far. But—”
“You’re still friends, though. Did you just fall out of love?”
“It happens.”
“But—”
“Maeve.” I was absentmindedly playing with my necklace until he caught my hand in his and forced it to still. Forced me to look up at him, too. Amusement and annoyance in his gaze—no matter how contrary the two seemed.
“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered, just as he interlaced our fingers to pull me up the stoop to our building.
I shouldn’t have gasped at the feeling of him in my palm, his cold fingers against my clammy skin. But my pulse picked up once more, and I was so stunned, I couldn’t further acknowledge it.
Us, holding hands.
“I’m flattered, really. That you’re this interested in my love life,” came from somewhere in front of me. I couldn’t pinpoint anything other than where we were touching.
“I’m not—”
“And you’re cute this way, really.” He unlocked the door, threw a glance across his shoulder that was as teasing as it was appreciative.
A look that made it hard to think anything other than He’s so handsome. “What way?”
“Jealous.”
“I’m not—” I repeated, then almost gave up when I concluded that I . . . was. He just didn’t need to know. “I’m not jealous.”
“Right.” We climbed the stairs up to our apartment, and once his hand had slipped out of mine, at least I could focus on my surroundings again. Did I have to zero in on the gray sweats hanging low on his waist, though? Probably not. “When you’re not jealous then.”
I snorted from behind him, earning me another look. Immediately, my laughter died out.
“I’m cute when I’m not jealous,” I repeated. “So just . . . all the time?”
Once I reached him on our floor, he was smiling again. With me, at me—not sure. He wasn’t stepping out of the way, either. Toe to toe, chest to chest, nose to nose. That’s how close we were again.
The lights went out, and the staircase fell into darkness. Bad idea, our guardian angels chanted in unison. “We have company,” he reminded.
“You have company.”
I felt the huff of his laugh against my skin. “Okay,” he said. “I have company.”
“Well.” I snickered—or tried to. “At least you’ve got someone waiting in your bed.”
“Maeve.” The way he said it was everything—frustration, disbelief, amusement, and a warning all in one. “If I wanted her, I wouldn’t be here with you.”
I said nothing.
“I wouldn’t have stood out there half an hour, waiting for you.”
“You said it was twenty minutes.” Like that was the point.
“I wouldn’t still be playing with the possibility of kissing you. After you’ve told me not to twice already.”
My breath hitched again, and it brought a satisfied smile to his lips. Don’t say that, I wanted to argue. Don’t bring me closer to that point of no return with every word coming out of your mouth.
But Elliot had other plans—apparently had rehearsed his next line to push me one last time as he turned to open our door. His back to me, he said, “And I wouldn’t take you to that fundraiser tomorrow night. I’d take her.”
He was trying to master that pull-push-turn combination to unlock our apartment, so he couldn’t see the way my head shook vigorously.
“That’s not fair.” It was the only thing I still saw clearly.
“The only reason you’re taking me to that is to show me how hard your life is.
” Any other words out of my mouth would’ve probably been Do it. That’s how close I was.
Elliot smiled across his shoulder, let his eyes linger one last time before he managed to get the door open. “Sure,” he said. “That’s why.”