17. 17 #2
My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. “What the hell?”
Elias playfully punched my arm. “Kidding.”
Williams just laid a hand on his chest and laughed. “Go get some rest, okay? There’s some couches you can sleep on until we land, and I’ll make the guard stand outside the door so you can have some privacy. Just keep it PG, please.”
Elias stood. “No need to worry. Been there, done that.”
“Elias Tadeo Correa,” I scolded. “Why would you say that?” Every drop of blood in my body rushed to my face.
The President dismissed us gently, needing to return to his work, and Elias was only amusing him, distracting him from his job.
We were led down a narrow hallway to a closed off sitting room.
Couches, chairs, and tables were all affixed to the floor, seatbelts hiding in the cushions.
It had a similar navy carpet to the room we’d just been in.
The secret service agent didn’t speak, just stopped at the door and gestured to the room with his hand.
Elias rolled me to the couch. “Do you want to lay down?”
“I want to fucking clobber you for saying that. That’s what I want.”
“If you didn’t react like that, he would’ve just thought it was a joke.” He kneeled in front of me, grabbing my wrists lightly. “No punching. No shoving. You’re stronger than you think and it hurts.”
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Lay down with me but know that I’m mad at you.”
He slid me from the chair to the couch, plopping me down a little too hard.
“Ow?” I exclaimed. I thought he might have done that in response to my threat.
He understood my tone. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t on purpose.”
Squeezing in behind me, he set his arm under my head, and my eyes shut as soon as he was settled. Long day. Longer week.
Going toe-to-toe with evil scientists was one thing, but being shot was something else entirely. It hurt. Everything I did hurt: breathing, laughing, god forbid I needed to sneeze.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to think about work, or what was going on behind closed doors around the world, but I couldn’t spare the energy.
There was too much to think about, too much to research and experiment with, that if I began to brainstorm, I’d go stir crazy. I couldn’t do anything about it.
We’d fought before I risked our lives, so we’d need to come to a resolution there. I’d essentially accused him of puppeteering my life, and even if I’d exaggerated the severity, I had some real feelings about it.
He drew shapes on my arm while I tried to rest, and although sleep was beckoning, my mind wouldn’t slow down. Work. Us. Gunshot wound. Us. Work. Us. Literal hole in my leg. Over and over, the words floated around in my head like little flies, buzzing when they got too close.
Inhaling deeply, Elias spoke. “Is this where we talk about our feelings?”
“How’d you know?”
“My superior intellect,” he said. “Also, we’ve been lying here for a while and you haven’t fallen asleep. Something is on your mind.”
“I’m trying not to think, but I can’t quiet my brain,” I admitted.
I heard his mouth open and close a few times before he spoke. “Do you think I’m domineering?”
I struggled to find the words to be honest but not hurtful, and it took a minute before I could formulate an answer. “I think you are strategic and that you are protective.”
“Hmm,” he considered.
“Sometimes I find that you have a hard time letting go of things, giving up control.”
“I want to be good to you.”
“You are good to me.”
He’d done nothing wrong, and he certainly wasn’t acting maliciously. For a while, I hadn’t even noticed, but when I thought about it, he spent so much of his time nudging me in what he thought was the right direction. I couldn’t tell if he was helping me grow, or if he was holding me back.
“Okay, then I want to be good for you.”
“You are,” I said, and I felt that I was being truthful, all things considered.
“I did this to you, you said it yourself.” His hand had stopped moving, and now it rested on my arm.
I groaned. “That was unfair of me to say. I don’t hold anything against you.”
He was silent for a beat. “I want to be with you.”
How badly I wanted to get inside of his head and squash whatever had convinced him that I was going to blindside him.
My words didn’t always come out the way I wanted them to, but I thought I’d done a decent job in explaining to him how I felt.
He was everything to me, and honestly, I might’ve been a little codependent.
He was my first thought when I woke in the morning, no matter what my mood was.
Elias was my best friend, my lover, and all I could think about.
“Cassie, say you want me, too.” His voice was quiet, light.
We were tucked tight together, and I could feel his heart racing behind me, pounding against my back. His arm around me pulled me closer.
“I want you, Eli,” I breathed. My chest felt so heavy, so tight. “Always.”
“If I try really hard, do you think I can make you happy?”
I felt my heart crack, a little piece of it breaking off.
I didn’t know this side of him. He’d shown me in glimpses the past few days, this soft, damaged part of him, but he normally kept his insecurities close to his chest. Elias never pried into my thoughts like I demanded access to his.
Respectful, he let me express myself how I needed to and nothing more.
He always knew what to say. I just didn’t.
“You have no idea how happy you make me,” I said.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t think I meant what I said the other night, that I couldn’t be happy with this life.
I just really want to be with you in that dream world.
Just you and me and nothing else. But that world isn’t real, this one is, and I’m ecstatic to have you.
” I brought his hand to my lips and kissed his knuckles.
I wanted to turn around and kiss him, but the pain in my leg would stop me before I started.
“I don’t really know where to start, to be honest.”
He kissed my cheek and laid his head there. “Please.”
It was easy to forget that he was a man. He was so much grander. Yet, he was human, and it frequently slipped my mind that he needed the same assurances that I did.
“You’re kind. You’re patient. You know, you act like such a brute, but you’re so smart.
Uh, I guess I’m just listing off positive attributes.
” I paused for a moment, getting my thoughts in line.
“Everything about you makes me happy, like a deep inside type of happiness. Getting to know you and be around you and share a life with you brings me so much joy. You’re the greatest person I’ve ever met. ”
His lips pulled up into a smile. “Aw, you’re so sappy. Gross.”
“You asked me to be sappy.”
He was quiet again, contemplative.
“Cassie?”
“Yes?”
“Do things feel different between us?”
Without a doubt I felt the heaviness he did. Initiating the conversation, he’d asked how I felt and pushed me to speak, like I’d done so often to him. Finally ready to feel the weight, he stopped running away. “I think you’re finally starting to let me in a little bit.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I am.”