Chapter 33 #2
Hannah grabbed Zoe’s arm. “Let me save you, my baby. Take me to the VIP section so we can feel special.” Hannah pointed toward a private, roped-off bar area on the other side of the pool. “Who’s coming?”
“Me!” Kara said, as she and Orson jumped off their shared lounger.
“Me, too.” Maddy raised her hand for Orson to help her stand, then turned to me. “Are you coming?”
“Nah, I’m good here,” I answered.
“Rore?” Orson tipped his head back to Rory.
Rory shook his head with a soft smile. He shifted himself into the center of the lounger next to me. “I’m gonna stay.”
My heart thumped in my throat, matching the bass in the music as we watched our friends leave us.
My hand dangled in the water beside me. Rory was waving his hands, skimming the surface of the water, and when he reached my forearm, he gently moved his fingers down my skin.
He found my hand and delicately hooked his fingers around mine.
I looked over at him, still unable to see his eyes.
He was looking forward, and I was unsure if he could see me until I saw the edges of his lips lift.
“So, how did it go today?” I asked, pretending my mind wasn’t trapped in an eternal loop, thinking about how Rory and I were kind of holding hands.
“I’m so tired.” He chuckled to himself. “I got two hours of sleep.”
“Oh no! I definitely slept in.” I laughed guiltily. “You want to have a quick nap? I can tell the DJ to keep it down.”
“We Found Love” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris was pounding throughout the venue. People in the pool were jumping to the beat and making the water splash over the edges.
“Yeah, would you? That’d be great.” He adjusted his fingers to latch onto mine a little more securely, and my heart seized. “Your friends are fun. Hannah and Kare are a given, but Zoe and Maddy . . . I really like them. Thank you for letting me and Orson hang out.”
“Are you kidding? I’m so happy you’re here.” I allowed myself to give in to the moment. “I thought . . .”
Nope. Stop, Ellie. Too much.
“What?” Rory tugged on my fingers.
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“No, it’s nothing.” I shook my head.
“Too late. Say it.” Rory gripped my hand like he was holding a life preserver.
I looked down at our hands. We had never casually held hands before. I shook my head, befuddled. Sure, our fingers danced around each other when we were younger. We touched and tested each other, but how had we never properly held hands before? How was that possible?
“Ellie . . .” Rory’s voice softened. My eyes darted up to see a smile spread across his face, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. He tilted his head to the side, looking at me through his sunglasses. “Say it.”
I took a deep breath. “I thought this part of my life was over. You’ve haunted me. You’ve been like a shadow for years. You were always with me, but I could never get to you.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I’m almost uncomfortable with how comfortable I feel. It’s weird, don’t you think? How normal this is?”
“It feels pretty normal,” Rory said, squeezing my hand.
“It’s been years, and so much has happened, and I don’t know you at all anymore, but it still feels like I know you.”
“You’ve said that twice now.” Rory shook his head.
“Ellie, you know me. We could go a lifetime without seeing each other, and you’d still know me.
We were figuring each other out at the same time as we were figuring ourselves out.
Because of that alone, you know me in a way that nobody else does or ever will. ”
I looked at Rory and could feel every point of contact my body was experiencing.
I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel his hand wrapped around mine, and his thumb stroking my skin.
I could feel the water lapping over us, and the tension in my legs as my feet pressed into the lounger.
I could feel the tightness of his hat wrapping around my head and across my forehead.
I could feel my wet hair sticking to my shoulders and the sweat forming in the back of my neck.
It wasn’t the blazing sun burning me up; I was ignited from the inside.
My phone dinged from the small table next to us that was holding our drinks. I tore myself away from staring at Rory and leaned over to find my screen lit up with a text.
CRAIG SINICKI: How’s Vegas? You at a pool right now? Cuz I’m over here thinking about how wet you are.
A sharp, stabbing pain ripped across my muscles. I dropped Rory’s hand and clicked off my phone screen as fast as I could.
“All good over there?” Rory shifted his sunglasses to the sky.
“Sorry . . . Work stuff,” I said, attempting to slow down my heart rate.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just . . . Um—yeah. I’ve got some weird . . . No, I mean, it’s fine.” I pressed my lips together.
“You’re really convincing me over here,” he said sarcastically. “Do you need to go do something?”
“No. All good.” I knew he didn’t believe me, so I decided to change the subject. “So, are you thinking about coming out tonight, or was joining us here your plan since you didn’t get any sleep?”
“I’m coming tonight. Orson, too. Is that still okay?” Rory reached over to his drink and took a sip.
I put my hands back into the water, hoping Rory would slide his fingers through mine again. I looked over at Zoe dancing in the VIP area. Her back was against Orson, and she was pushing her ass into his crotch.
“I don’t think Zoe will be bothered.” I laughed. “Did Orson come to Vegas to piggyback off you for a free trip, like a sneaky little devil?”
“He’s my caddie. We travel a lot together.”
“He is? That’s amazing!” I shook my head. “I’m surprised I didn’t realize that. I’ve been following you over the years, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice Orson there, too.”
“Following me?” Rory smiled, and his head cocked to the side.
“You know what I mean. I’ve seen you on TV and online and all that.
Plus, you’re my dad’s favorite topic. I didn’t bury my head in the sand after we stopped talking.
” Avoidance was my usual go-to when anything in my life went awry, but I just couldn’t do it with Rory.
Not after Juniper and Albert Davis. Not again.
“Oh, I definitely did,” Rory admitted with a laugh.
“Really?” My heart lurched.
“You were with Ben Winters. Every time I saw his face on TV, I wanted to stab myself in the eye. I saw him on one of the late-night shows. It was awful.”
“Says you, my friend,” I said, remembering how quietly jealous Ben would get over Rory. He never vocalized it, but he would always touch his face and start sighing when Rory came up in conversation or popped up on our TV.
Rory looked back over at me. “So, what happened there?”
“With Ben? Long distance. Things change. Life moves on. He’s still a great guy, obviously. But yeah, kind of a lot happened there . . .”
“When did you break up?”
“After I moved to LA.”
“Wait.” Rory took off his sunglasses and put them in his lap. “Were you broken up when you came to the funeral?”
“Yeah. I’d been in LA for a year at that point, so we’d been broken up for about six months.”
Rory pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Seriously?” He pushed his hand up his forehead and through his hair with a tired laugh. His head fell back into the lounger. “I . . . I can’t even think about that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Um, it was your dad’s funeral? We hadn’t talked in years? Cameron, Orson, and your hot girlfriend kept cockblocking us? I mean, pick your poison.”
Rory’s laugh died out and transformed into a sigh. “Wow . . . Well, I’m sorry about Ben, even though it was a while ago. I know you really loved him.”
“I did, yeah . . . I gave Ben something inside me that I didn’t know existed until I met him. He has a piece of me, and he always will, and I don’t regret giving it to him.”
“Do you still love him?” Rory bit into his cheek uncomfortably.
“Yeah,” I answered honestly. “Unfortunately for me, it appears as though once I love, it sticks. It changes with time and all that, but it stays with me . . .”
“Did I stay with you?” Rory’s question came at me quietly, but still struck me directly in the center of my chest.
Here we go.
I smiled nervously and then took a deep breath.
Four. Three.
“So, my grandma is ninety-three. She spent her life unhappily married and separated from my grandpa for fifty years. He never gave her a divorce. Now she’s in a nursing home, and it’s the end of her life, and she turned to my mom, out of nowhere, and told her this story about someone she used to love when she was twenty years old.
She asked my mom to find him. My mom was floored.
She had never even heard of this guy before.
So my mom tracked him down. He’s dead. And that’s that.
My grandma has been thinking about this person, quietly loving him, for seventy-three years. ”
Rory kept silent, kept watching me.
Two. One.
“I was afraid that was going to be me. I could be surrounded by a field of people . . . by everyone I’ve ever known, and everyone else in the world, too, and I’d still find you. I’d still only see you, Rory.” I let out a soft sigh.
Rory’s lips twitched into a downturned smile. “Ellie, look at me,” he said softly, using the words we used to say to each other.
“No, I can’t!” I cried, and he released his pent-up energy through a laugh.
I threw my hands up in the air, then slammed them back down in the water.
“And you were holding my hand. You’ve never really done that before, not like that.
Now I wish you hadn’t, because I’m afraid I’m going to feel your hand in mine for the rest of my life, whether it’s there or not.
” I laughed, and Rory grabbed my hand again.
He knotted our fingers together. I was feeling lightheaded.
“I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I don’t even know how you would feel if—”
“You know how I feel,” he said unwaveringly.