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By the time I made it back to the room and showered, El was asleep on her side of the mattress. I hesitated, watching her turn in her sleep, thinking of how sweet her little body felt, safe in my arms. I bowed my head and released the breath holding my lungs captive. Resigned to old vows and guilt-tangled fantasies, I grabbed the spare blanket from the dresser and curled up on the murder sofa.
Avoiding Elora was about as easy as circumnavigating viruses in a kindergarten classroom. If my self-preservation instincts were better, I would’ve bailed on the lessons today, except for the fact that two of my favorite speakers in the lineup were scheduled two hours apart from each other. But…she was everywhere. And when I concealed myself in a corner of her absence, attendees were still discussing her talk yesterday. Like a song on the wind, her name seemed to carry, keeping me on edge everywhere I went. Because every time it surfaced, I winced at the image of a pissed off Jameson, who would inevitably react in one of two ways. Option one—and this was the most favorable of the two—is he’d knock my ass out with one right hook. I was tough, but not grew-up-on-the-Bearing-Sea tough. Defending myself wouldn’t have been an option under the circumstances. Option two—and realistically, the more likely of the two—was that he’d go inside that thick skull of his, and let that betrayal deepen until he couldn’t look at me without the fires of hell in his eyes, and that would be the end of our thirty years of friendship. As for Rhyett…I wasn’t sure what to expect of Rhy. But disappointing Rhyett Rhodes was in the same ballpark as murdering a six-year-old girl’s pet rabbit. It likely didn’t help that my neck was kinked from cramming myself onto the loveseat in the corner and failing to sleep for the majority of the night.
Immanuel Kant would tell me that my loyalty to them needed to supersede this gnawing, aching desire in my gut. To slink into the shower for a date with my fist, burn off this tension on my own, and send her on her way on Saturday. On the opposite hand, the fathers of Utilitarianism would argue that if I made Elora happy, her joy would make Max, Mara, and her sisters happy. Maybe—maybe Pax and Finn would side with us? Lord knew my mother would be beside herself, finally having the hope of a daughter-in-law on the horizon. That meant more joy could be derived from me succumbing to my own weaknesses than disappointment. Right?
But the moral reprehensibility of breaking that promise…
My stomach flipped uneasily every time I reached this point of my inane internal debate.
Forty-eight hours. I just needed to endure this for forty-eight hours, and we could go back to our lives. Mine, alone, renovating my townhouse back in Mistyvale, teaching at the college, and hating most of the world. And El could return to… Well… blessing anyone lucky enough to rub shoulders with her on her widespread adventures. Nobody would be any the wiser. It’s not like Taylor Swift and some gelato crossed a line we couldn’t come back from.
But fuck, I wanted to. That was the problem.
Pursuing Elora would likely end my two closest friendships. But avoiding her after leading her on would be the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. Which was a much more agonizing thought than it had a right to be.
I spent Thursday tucked away in men’s bathrooms, and fleeing the lectures before they wrapped up so that I could exit the building and hide somewhere off campus to eat during the breaks. But I’d successfully avoided a direct confrontation with the world’s most glaring distraction. I went out with a few professors from mainland universities, and nursed a beer late into the night, hoping to return after she’d fallen asleep. It was the subtle vibration of my cell that had me pulling the cursed thing from a back pocket and swiping it open.
Jameson
Good luck tomorrow, man. How you feeling?
Fuck, wouldn’t you like to know? No, actually, you probably wouldn’t like to know that the prospect of winning the grant now soured my stomach, because those funds could go to Elora. Could go to her school. Could back up a mission she’d put her whole heart into. And you really wouldn’t like to know that if the only thing I accomplished in life was making your little sister smile, it would be enough.
Broderick
Prepared. Competition is tough. Did you know El was entering? She’s in the top three with me.
Three dots appeared and vanished twice before my screen lit up with a picture of Jameson and Noel with beanies tugged tight over their heads, and noses red with cold. Cursing, I swigged the last of my beer before swiping to answer. There was no hello. Not that I expected one with James. Just a curt demand for more information.
“Hold up. My El?” No, fucker. My El. I just don’t have the balls to tell you that. “She’s at the conference?”
“She gave an entire speech yesterday about women in leadership. Do you ever check the family text thread?”
An irritable scoff came through the speaker. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are twelve of us, plus Skittles and Brex. By the time I get back into cell service, they’ve rattled off hundreds of updates about lunch plans and who’s going to visit who. I’m not about to sit and scroll for hours to catch up. Kinda figure if it’s important, I’ll hear about it.”
“Well, you didn’t hear about this.”
“Apparently not. That’s sick. I mean, she speaks all over the country these days, so I guess I’m not surprised. What the hell is she competing for?”
“Her and Mara Correa are working to secure funding for their women’s business school.”
There was the subtle scratch of a rough palm over unmanaged stubble. “I thought Pax bought into that.”
“He’s a silent investor, but he’s not bootstrapping the whole thing. El says they need a few million just for the building. She’s got a five-year plan for moving the project into the green, but she needs the five years funded first.”
“Tracks. Damn.” His dark chuckle made me bristle, irritation staying my hand where I rocked my beer glass on its rim.
“What?” I bit out before adding, “If you say it feels like old times, so help me…”
His chuckle turned into a full laugh before he pointed out, “You said it. Not me.”
“This shit sucks.”
“Oh please, you two seemed to love wiping the floor with each other as kids.”
“This is different.”
“Why?” he asked flatly.
