Page 64 of Take What Hurts

Mackenzie pulled back and stared at Elliott, all softness and hunger and fire and desire. And when Mackenzie crashed their lips together, murmuring “I want” into her mouth, Elliott was flying.

THIRTY-FIVE

ELLIOTT

“So, this is it, huh?”

Six weeks after they’d agreed to “make it work,” Elliott stood in the middle of her new living room. Her fingers worked at the skin on her thumb, and she gnawed at her bottom lip, looking sideways at Hannah, whose eyes darted from the lofted timber ceiling to the yellowy-brown paint on the walls, to the mud brown of the shag carpet on the floor, to the stuffed elk head hanging above the blackened fireplace. That had been a “gift” from the previous owners, and Elliott had been too polite to refuse. The guy had been so excited about it. Now Elliott squirmed where she stood—steel-capped boots sinking into the carpet pile.

“I know it needs a bit of, well—” Elliott shrugged, searching for the appropriate word to describe what the house she’d fawned over as a child—and that she now owned—needed.

Hannah’s eyes came to rest on Elliott, a small smile pulling at her lips. “TLC?”

Elliott huffed out a laugh and nodded in acquiescence. “Well, yeah. But,” she plowed on quickly, “really it’s just paint, and new flooring, and some new fixtures and fittings. A bit of a scrub.” She shrugged.

Hannah crossed the room and placed her hands on Elliott’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “Ell. I think it’s amazing, and I think it’s going to be even better once we do all those things.”

“We?”

Hannah pulled back, hand on her chest in mock offense. “Do you really think I’d let you redecorate this place alone? Did you see your apartment in Seattle?” Elliott rolled her eyes, arms crossed over her chest as Hannah wandered over to the tins of paint piled near the kitchen, inspecting the labels. Elliott winced, knowing what Hannah would find. After a beat, Hannah let out a loud breath of exasperation. “It’s all gray. Literally just different shades of gray. Not even a white in there.” She stood up, eyes narrowed at Elliott, hands fisted on her hips. “Why?”

Elliott threw her hands in the air. “It all goes together.”

Hannah shook her head. “No. It doesn’t. And particularly not with your goddamned gray furniture. Bring these to the car. We’re going to do this properly.”

Forty minutes later they had hauled the tins of paint back into the hardware store, and while Hannah perused the wall of paint swatches, Elliott negotiated with the poor employee behind the paint desk, who, eventually, graciously allowed them to replace the paint with the new colors Hannah had picked. Elliott, who had been allowed only minor input on the colors, was big enough to admit the rich, moody forest green, the lightly tinted warm white, and the warm earthy clay colors that Hannah had picked would work far better than Elliott’s choices.

Except for one. Hannah had allowed Elliott one choice, and Elliott was certain it would be beloved.

Then, leaving Elliott to wrestle along behind her with the cart full of literal gallons of paint, Hannah strode away to the section of the store stuffed full of throw pillows and rugs in an explosion of colors and patterns that made Elliott’s head spin. Elliott gripped the handle on the cart with both hands and watched Hannah pull cushion after cushion off the shelves and study each one as though Elliott’s home was going to grace the cover of some luxury interior design magazine. Once she’d selected several oversize cushions in various colors that Elliott assumed would go with the paint she’d picked, she threw a variety of throw rugs on top of the cushions and, hands on hips, gave a nod of approval.

“Okay, that will do for now.”

Elliott, slightly sweaty under the arms as she stared at the cart stuffed full of items she wasn’t sure were going to fit in the trunk of her Subaru, snapped her head up to look at Hannah and gaped at her. “For now?” It came out as a squeak. “What more is there?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Elliott, I’m not letting you spend money on a home only to let you allow it to languish in design purgatory simply because you have the taste of a prepubescent boy who thinks that a monotone color scheme is ‘moody’ and ‘edgy.’”

Elliott’s mouth dropped open, and she scoffed. “That’s not—” she stammered, defensiveness surging up her throat. “Fuck off.” Hannah’s eyebrows hit her hairline in challenge, and Elliott. Well. She burst into laughter, Hannah following, until they were wiping their eyes over the fucking throw rugs in the middle of the store.

Once they’d managed to stuff the Subaru full of all the paint and the cushions and throw rugs, as well as a floor rug that Hannah had spied on their way to the registers and that Elliott’s house apparently “had to have,” they were on their way back to Heston. For the first ten minutes, they drove in silence, but then Hannah spoke. Her voice was soft and mildly tentative, and so unlike Hannah.

“Elliott, can you tell me again how this all happened?”

Elliott glanced sideways at Hannah and frowned. “What do you mean?”

Hannah scoffed and threw her hands in the air. “Elliott, you quit your job. You bought a house in, like, six weeks flat.” She started to tick the things off on her fingers. “You moved with no job and, as far as I know, no other plan. You’re with Mackenzie, but also, not with Mackenzie because Mackenzie is apparently staying in Seattle?”

The stone in Elliott’s stomach expanded, and she picked at the ever-growing length of thread on the stitching of the steering wheel. Because Hannah was right. Two months ago, if someone had told her this is what her life would look like, she’d have told them to stop taking whatever drugs they were on. But though she’d always had a problem with acting impulsively, she wasn’t sure this was one of those situations. Because, as she’d made her choices over the last couple of months, there hadn’t been the usual niggle in the back of her mind telling her to slow down. To consider the different angles. To think it through.

No.

From the moment she’d told Mattias she was done, it was like somebody had taken a chainsaw to the branches and foliage and overgrowth that had hidden the path forward from her for so many years, and for the first time in her life she could see, like a fucking apparition, the next step—the next decision—laid out in front of her. And fuck. It felt good and safe and right to make the next decision.

So when she’d turned up for the first time with the Realtor and met the owners of the little house she’d loved for so many years—owners who had fallen over themselves to sell it to her when they’d learned she was a local kid—Elliott hadn’t hesitated to sign on each of the many, many dotted lines that went with buying a home with a mortgage. It hadn’t mattered when she’d walked inside, Mackenzie’s hand grasped tightly in hers, and discovered the whole place needed work. She hadn’t hesitated when Mackenzie told her she wanted to be with her, even if it meant being nearly two hours away from each other, or when a new UW graduate wanted to take over the lease on her apartment, or when her parents asked her whether she wanted to do some administrative work for them at the clinic while she worked out what the next step was in her career.

She hadn’t hesitated. Because there was nothing to hesitate over. Elliott and Hannah had had this conversation many times over the past weeks. Sometimes over text messages, sometimes over coffee, where Hannah would sit, eyebrows furrowed and hands wrapped almost protectively around her cappuccino, and Elliott would patiently attempt to help Hannah understand her decision-making. Apparently to no avail.

Elliott shrugged, fingers tapping on the wheel. “Honestly, Han,” she sighed. “I can’t explain it any more than I already have. It all just”—she paused with a frown—“felt right. It still does.” She laughed. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I just feel like everything is going to work out.” Her lips pulled apart in a smile as the familiar swoop in her stomach, which she had come to realize happened whenever she thought about Mackenzie, made her giddy. “As long as I’ve got Mackenzie and you and my family, I think I can work the rest out, you know?”