I hadn’t even realized I was crying until Eli reached up and brushed a few tears away.
“He was upset, of course. He didn’t understand it, but he was such a good guy. He was willing to give me the space I needed. He had hoped that I’d come back to him, but—” I choked on the word. “I wasn’t so sure. I was so excited to get a fresh start. I wanted a new chapter that was all mine. I wasn’teven thinking about Michael and how we’d end up. I was just thinking about me.
“The day it happened, I was supposed to meet him for dinner, but I was running late. It was raining so hard. He picked our favorite restaurant, probably hoping I’d sit across from him, we’d share our usuals, and I’d have a change of heart. But I was planning to tell him that I’d found a new apartment and I wanted to sign the lease.” I paused to wipe my face with my sweatshirt sleeve. “But neither of us ever made it to the restaurant. As I was leaving, I got the call. I felt completely empty getting into the cab to go to the hospital. I didn’t even call my mom. None of it felt real. When I got there, they assumed I was his wife and told me he had already passed. It was all over and I hadn’t even been there. When his family arrived minutes later, I could barely face them.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, our knees pressed together. I wanted to meet Eli’s gaze, but I was afraid of what I’d find. Shame? Judgment? Disappointment?
“Just so you know, I’m actively restraining myself from holding you right now.”
I finally looked up and saw my pain reflected in Eli’s eyes. I nudged his knee. He reached out and held it as if he would take even the smallest piece of me as a lifeline.
“You haven’t told anyone this?” he asked, his voice thick.
“No one but my therapist. Not even my family. Everyone loved Michael, including me. How could I break their hearts and tell them after all that? What would be the point? Michael was gone.” Those last words sounded hollow. “That’s the real reason I fell out of touch with our old friends. I couldn’t face them. They were so heartbroken for me. And it was all a lie.”
“You felt guilty,” Eli stated.
“How could I not?” I gulped. “He was on his way to meet me so I could gleefully break up with him.”
“It’s not your fault.” Eli’s finger curled under my chin and forced my eyes to meet his. “I need you to hear me when I say that it wasn’t your fault. And you’re not a bad person because of that. Not even close. You have every right to be torn up over what happened, because you lost a big part of your life and you never got closure. He was practically your family. So never feel guilty over what happened. It’s not selfish to want more. You were living your life for you. Everyone would have understood.”
I held onto his arm to ground myself. “You sound like my therapist.”
“She sounds really intelligent,” he said, giving me a half smile.
I wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite muster up the energy.
“She says I’m too hard on myself. If I don’t forgive myself and release the guilt, I’ll never allow myself to process my grief. And I’ll never be able to move on. I have this dream—it’s usually the reason I have trouble sleeping—but in it I’m always running late and I can never get to where I’m supposed to be going. Michael is always there too. I’m never quite sure where we’re going or why I can’t seem to get there, but the dreams happen all the time. She says they have to do with my fear of moving on.” I don’t tell Eli how Michael had been noticeably absent from my dream tonight and Eli had been in his place. I couldn’t even begin to process what that meant.
“I feel so ridiculously underqualified to give you any sort of meaningful advice,” Eli began. “But I do care about you. I really hope you believe it, because it’s true and I only want to see you happy. You can’t let this weigh you down, okay? Just because you were doing something for yourself doesn’t mean you didn’t care about him. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that,” I whispered, and I tried to mean it.
Eli leaned forward hesitantly. When I didn’t back away, hepressed his lips firmly against mine. I kissed him back, relishing the feeling of his rough hands cradling my face.
It was different than before. There was something there, a spark of potential.
This time it was me who deepened the kiss, prodding his mouth with my tongue until he parted his lips. Heat crept all the way from my lips to the rest of my body. I hadn’t even realized how much I had missed being touched until this moment. When I shifted so that my body pressed against his, he nibbled my bottom lip in response. His hands drifted down to my hips and he gripped me tightly before pulling me flush against him. Any discomfort I’d ever felt around him had flown right out the window. I craved his touch—wanted it more than anything in recent memory. I straddled one of his thighs and gave into the friction, moaning as a result.
Eli broke away from our kiss, panting against my lips.
My heart beat faster than a runaway freight train. I tried to catch my breath, but Eli’s proximity wasn’t helping.
“We probably shouldn’t get too carried away,” he breathed against my lips, pressing his forehead against mine. He gave me another long lingering kiss before pulling away again and groaning. “Fuck, I really wish we were anywhere other than here right now.”
“Why do you like me?” I whispered. I could hardly believe I had finally said those words out loud, but it was the one thing I really felt like I had to know.
“Seriously?” he gestured between the two of us, an exasperated look on his face.
“Not like that.” I bit back a laugh. “You’ve been dead-set on getting to know me from the beginning. I just want to know. Why me?”
He blew out a shaky breath. “Why you?Why me?I’m the one terrified you’ll realize you can do a million times betterthan me.Calla, you have no idea the kind of insincerity I’ve been surrounded by my entire life. From the moment I saw you run out of the lounge on that first day, looking like a deer being gunned down by a group of hunters, I knew there wasn’t an insincere bone in your entire body.”
I shuddered thinking back on it.
“And when I talked to you for the first time—and every time since—you’ve taken me seriously. To you, I’m not my father’s son, or some washed-up actor. I’m just Eli. And you have no idea how much that means to me. I savor every conversation I have with you, and they still don’t feel like enough. I’ve never met someone before who made me wish I knew them sooner.”
My breath caught in my throat before I leaned in and kissed him again.
