Chapter 28
twenty-eight
ROWAN
“Do you want to keep hanging out?” I ask Ellie while we wait for my car from the valet.
She looks at me with a tired smile. “Sure, I’m having a good time.”
I try to contain my giddiness, but I can’t help but bounce on my toes a little that she still wants to hang out after something that felt intimate.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
She holds the bouquet of flowers to her chest. When I turn my head, I see straight down her dress, and I snap my head back up. The small glimpse I got of her cleavage was enough to make my dick twitch. I’m innocent. I didn’t do it on purpose. I’m just a very tall man who is standing next to his noticeably short, cute friend.
A friend I once dated and have seen naked before. Someone I pined for, for years. And still have the ring I was going to give her.
I also haven’t been touched in so long, and the small physical touches that Ellie gives me set me on fire. I haven’t felt like that from any other woman I’ve been with. I never had that spark. I never craved for them to touch me more.
“Can we just go back to your place?” she asks. “Hang out with Milo? Maybe watch a movie?”
I put my hands in my pockets when I feel them start to sweat out of nerves. Being alone with Ellie at my house isn’t anything new. But after taking her out to dinner, and again, not specifying if it was a date, it could lead to other things. And I don’t want to mess anything up.
“That sounds good. Have a movie in mind?” I ask.
The car pulls up, interrupting our lively conversation, and I open the passenger door for Ellie. I notice how gently she handles the flowers, making sure they don’t hit anything, and lay them on her lap.
“I love this band,” she exclaims when she climbs into the Jeep.
I turn to look at her, catching her eyes on me when I get in.
“I know you do.” I glance at her while Radiohead plays in the background.
I took the cover off the Jeep before I picked up Ellie, taking advantage of the warm weather, we were having today. When I let my eyes wander to her, the night lights streaming across her face give her a beautiful glow.
Her hair flows around her, and I’m taken back to a time when we would take nightly drives as teenagers. We didn’t always have a destination. Sometimes it was just to spend time together under the night sky. I would find a secluded place for us, and we would lay on the hood of the car, talking while the softness of the music played in the car.
That was the first night I kissed her. The first night that I got to feel her soft lips on mine.
I see a smile on her face as she looks out to the ocean. The moon makes it sparkle against its light. She reminds me of that sparkle. Always shimmering.
“I gotta pee so bad,” Ellie blurts out just as we pull up in front of my house.
She rushes out of the car and does this sort of waddle walk toward the house and up the porch. I’ve already passed her, opening the door quickly for her, and she runs inside.
I watch her slip on the hardwood floor as she runs. “El, be careful.”
I put my keys on the entrance table and hear Milo running down the stairs to greet me.
“Hey, buddy.” I bend down on my knees, giving him a kiss on the top of his head while he wags his butt and lets out happy whines. “I know, I’ve missed you too.”
Ellie returns with a sigh. “Whew, I feel so much better. Lighter even.”
I straighten. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
Milo walks to her, and she cups his face and kisses the top of his head.
“Okay,” she claps. “What will we be watching?”
She throws herself on the large sectional in my living room, making herself comfortable. She’s done this a thousand times. She comes over, we hang out and just talk, so why does it feel different? I sit beside her, grabbing the remote to turn on the TV.
She looks at me excitedly. “Ooh, let's do what we used to do in high school.”
“Choose a random movie? I think it was easier with DVDs because we could spread them out and blindly pick a case. How would we do it now?”
She gives me a look that says, are you really underestimating me? and takes the remote from me.
“What genre?” she asks without looking at me.
“Horror.”
“Horror? What are you trying to do? Get me to jump in your arms when I’m scared?”
“That’s the plan, yeah.” I let myself get more comfortable, leaning into the couch and draping my arm across the top.
Her eyes roll, and she selects the horror genre through one of the many streaming services I have. “Okay, this is how it’s going to work. We are going to close our eyes, and I’m going to slide my thumb down the circle thingy?—”
“Circle thingy?” I interrupt.
“I don’t know what this thing is called. This is like a futuristic remote.”
I nod. “Okay, you’ll slide your thumb down on the circle thingy.”
“And then you’ll say stop, and I’ll pause the scroll. Whatever it lands on, that’s what we’ll watch. Sounds like a plan?”
“I don’t know if I trust this process, but fine.”
“What’s not to trust?” Ellie looks away from me, closes her eyes, and scrolls.
I count to three and say stop. I open my eyes but look at Ellie first, and she still has her eyes closed.
“Are you going to open your eyes?” I ask.
“I’m scared. What if it lands on a really bad movie?”
“Then we can laugh at the really bad movie.” I gently put my hand on her leg, making her jump just the tiniest bit. “Sorry.”
“You can’t do that when I have my eyes closed, and we’re choosing a horror movie.”
“Sorry, sorry. Are you going to open your eyes, or are you going to make me tell you?”
“Okay, okay.” She peeks with one eye and then opens the other. Ellie starts to shake her head and looks at me. “I’m not watching The Conjuring . No way.”
“Hey, you’re the one that did this. It was your idea. Now we need to stick to it.”
I get up from the couch and walk toward the front of the living room.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“I’m turning off the lights,” I say without looking back at her.
“No, we are not turning off the lights.”
“It wouldn’t be a true horror movie if we watched it with lights on, now, would it?” I flip the switch and walk back toward the couch.
She looks up at me with a worried expression because the movie that it landed on is a movie she is terrified of.
Again, she did this.
“I’ll stay close to you and protect you. I promise.” I sit down next to her and take the remote from her, hitting play.
Ellie groans and pulls one of the throw pillows on the couch to her chest, clutching onto it.
“You’ll be fine.” I wrap an arm around her shoulder casually while she whines into the pillow.
I smile at her, wondering if she will, in fact, get scared to the point that she wraps her arms around me. She shouldn’t have asked me to choose the genre. That was her first mistake.