Chapter 29
They seemed genuinely interested in whatever questions Alex had.
Eventually, the rest of them chimed in, perhaps to make up for the family argument I had witnessed.
I talked about home, Texas, my grandparents, and how moving away for college was both the easiest and hardest thing I’d ever done.
I mentioned Mom, how much she’d love this, and how it wasn’t just my dream I was living but hers.
Telling them about my life felt . . . exciting, easy.
Like I was opening up a new world for them, where Texas didn’t always mean Austin, Dallas, or Houston; sometimes it meant a small town hundreds of miles from the next big city.
Grandparents didn’t always mean a stinking rich grandfather, but Pops, saying he was fine when he’d needed a new hip for years, or Mimi, who still needed to work a few hours a week to afford basic groceries.
Family dinners weren’t an annoying weekly burden, but a rare commodity cherished and extended for as long as I could afford to stay away from college and work, which usually wasn’t long at all.
It must’ve been close to midnight when Mariette sent us on our way with her driver. The gentle rocking and whooshes of cars passing us was about ten seconds away from lulling me to sleep in the back seat, tinted window separating us from the front.
All it took for my body to hum awake again was the reminder of Elliot beside me when he sighed.
“What?” I asked, not sure why I was whispering.
“Nothing.” He didn’t seem entirely sure why he was whispering, either. “I didn’t know,” he said. “About your mom. Your grandparents.”
I closed my eyes again; they’d start stinging otherwise. “Couldn’t quite find the right moment to mention it between spilling coffee across your shirt and poisoning you.” With salt, but still.
He huffed from beside me, but the usual lightness in his voice was missing. I expected an I’m sorry. Are you okay? What happened?
Instead, he asked, “And you said she’s the reason you’re into fashion?”
“Yeah. She loved anything luxurious and different and pretty. Not that we could afford it, but—” I shook my head before it gently fell back against the window. “Yeah.”
Elliot hummed, let my words linger for one, two, three seconds. “Big Ashwood fan, then?”
“Don’t let it get to your head, Elliot.” But I feared—
“Too late.”
Exactly that.
He let his knee bump mine once, his way of saying, Hey, you know me. Also, I’m here, if you want to talk.
“As long as I can remember, it’s always just been Mom and me. Everything I know, I know because she told me. So when she . . . died.” I swallowed thickly. “It was hard, you know?”
I wasn’t sure when he’d found my hand on the seat between us, but he squeezed it. “Of course.”
“My grandparents are awesome. I love them . . . and I should really call them more often,” I mumbled to myself. “But still. That first year was rough. I was a bitch, honestly. Not at all considerate of the fact they’d just lost their daughter.”
I was rambling. Not something that happened often, either. But just how I’d wanted to tell his family all the good things, it felt inevitable that I tell Elliot some of the bad, too. Like a sudden itch that hadn’t been scratched in so long, I’d forgotten it was there.
“We never talked about Mom or what happened or how we were feeling. I don’t blame them for preferring to ask about school instead.
” A shrug, followed by a deep sigh as I let myself lean against the car window.
A yawn later, I added, “So the only way to remember her was creating. All the sketches in her notebooks and the rogue sticky notes across the house. When I ran out of those, I started designing them myself. It went terribly.”
Elliot snickered gently. “I don’t believe that even for a second.”
“I swear!” But half my conviction was lost because I was barely awake anymore. Another yawn. “Give a thirteen-year-old a sketchbook and a dream . . .”
But I never finished the sentence.
One minute, I was telling Elliot about Mom, trying not to cry against a car window, and next thing I knew, my head was leaning on Elliot’s shoulder.
His hand drove down the back of my head, and the way he straightened my hair against it felt familiar.
Comfortable. Lovely. Like tonight hadn’t been about showing me how hard his life was.
Like it might’ve never been about that at all.
All that challenge demonstrated was that I had no idea who Elliot Ashwood really was, and that any preconceived notions might not have been . . . entirely fair.
“You’re right,” I muttered, sleep still slurring every part of my brain.
The one that controlled my ability to shut up as well, apparently.
To make it obvious I no longer wanted to talk about Mom, I admitted, “The entire week wasn’t as easy as I expected.
” My eyes closed again, burying my head deeper into the crook of his neck.
“Maybe I would’ve expected it, if you told me how full your calendar is, that it’s your fundraiser we’re going to, and that your family loves to argue. ”
He hummed a laugh, deep and guttural. “Maybe.” It was another one of those ways I shouldn’t be witnessing him as: sleepy. “You’re awake?” he asked unnecessarily.
My eyes fluttered open again. Familiar brick buildings, distant traffic that reminded me of the white noise I heard through my window every night.
The engine wasn’t roaring below us anymore, though.
I did a double take, and we weren’t moving either.
The tinted window between us and the driver was closed. Finally, I sat up.
“Think so.” I yawned. Stretched. Shook my head like it might shake the sleep out of me too. “Are we home?”
His lips tipped into a smile. “Mhm,” he breathed. “Have been for twenty minutes.”
“What?!”
“Didn’t want to wake you.” I only noticed he’d shifted halfway across the middle seat when he sat back up, and I tried to convince myself he hadn’t done that just so that I could sleep on his shoulder. Surely not.
“And you didn’t think I’d do that better in my own bed?”
“I considered carrying you.” And I could tell he meant it. “Ultimately, I doubted my ability to get you out of the car without waking you up.”
“Not your ability to carry someone up four flights of stairs?”
The look he shot me was almost comical. “I bench double whatever you weigh every week,” he deadpanned.
He didn’t seem to take the way I burst out laughing very well. “Sorry, sorry.” I waved his grim expression off. “It’s not that I don’t believe you’re strong—”
Elliot got out of the car, and as soon as he opened my door, I tried to salvage whatever I could. “I think you’re just underestimating how heavy a human being is!”
Or that there were human beings who weighed more than dainty, sweet Allegra Amato.
I couldn’t tell if he’d taken genuine offense, was playing around, or currently planning my disappearance. In a last-ditch effort, I said, “I’m kidd—”
Or tried to say.
The sentence was cut off. By a gasp, a squeal, an unidentifiable sound somewhere between the two as he threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. Like, for a moment, I was dainty, sweet Maeve Peterson.
Into the car, Elliot shouted a “Thanks, Lewis!” to the driver, then slammed the door shut.
His touch immediately burned through the fabric of my dress, and I was sure his handprint would be seared into the back of my thigh once he let me go.
Which he seemed to have no intention of doing.
His hand rode up higher until it was almost cupping my ass.
I think he suppressed a groan, but over my wiggling and laughter, I couldn’t be sure.
As soon as we ascended the stoop up to our building, Lewis drove off, and Elliot’s grip around me tightened once more. “Want to repeat that?”
The threatening undertone did something to me. I couldn’t be sure what.
“I’m—” I gasped another laugh when he squeezed the back of my leg. Turned out I was ticklish. “Kidding?”
“The other thing,” he demanded. And somehow, he managed to unlock the building without needing me off his shoulder.
I tried again. “It’s not that I don’t believe you’re strong?”
“Your compliments won’t save you, Peterson.” And this time, I could hear his grin.
The door fell shut behind me, and his grip loosened. I expected that my compliments had saved me. That he’d let me down and I’d get as far away as possible from the feeling of his hand very nearly on my ass. From the way I wished it had been below my dress, and ridden up a little farther.
Instead, I slipped from his shoulder into his arms, which was the opposite of far away. Not only was his touch searing through my clothes now; his eyes were boring into mine, and I couldn’t look away from that dimpled grin.
Instinctively, my arms wrapped around his neck. His smile deepened, and he started climbing.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, looking away. “I think you’re just underestimating how heavy a human being is. Is there anything you might have underestimated, Lucky?”
How much I enjoy spending time with you.
How nice it feels to be in your arms.
How easy it is to let myself be swept up in a man, and how unfair it was of me to judge my friends for the same offense.
Those weren’t the confessions he was looking for, though. And not any he’d ever get to hear.
“Oh,” I swooned, falling back in his arms, body hanging limply as he carried me up the stairs bridal style.
“I’m sorry for underestimating your strong arms, big muscles, huge biceps.
” I held on to them just to make a point, and didn’t want to let go again.
“Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, oh-glorious Elliot Ashwood?”
“Hmmm,” he thought, a laugh on his lips. “I’d have to consider. Anything that could make your offer more enticing?”
“Name your price and I’ll pay it.”