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“Whydon’tyou have a boyfriend?” Elliot asked curiously. “I mean… you should.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re smart, you’re funny, you’re beautiful,” he said, going down the list. He paused for a second, and I giggled.
“Keep going.”
“You’re super-creative,” he went on. “Motivated. Matter-of-fact.”
“All true,” I said.
“Best of all, you tell shit like it is. You don’t sugar-coat anything. You’re not afraid to speak your mind.”
Elliot’s eyes dipped lower, to where the swell of my breasts peeked above the water. Every time they did, my skin broke out in instant goosebumps. Above the surface, it wasthatcold.
“You’re basically perfect,” Elliot said with a shrug. “Except for this…”
He pointed down to just below my neck, and of course I looked. Almost immediately I regretted it, as he splashed me playfully with a big wave of water.
“You little shit!”
He swam backward, laughing, and his laughter was so pure I couldn’t even follow him. I wanted to sit there and listen to it, enjoying the expression on his face. It was so unlike anything I’d seen from him, it almost made me wonder if he hadn’t been replaced by a look-a-like or a clone.
“Seriously,” he asked again. “Whydon’tyou have a boyfriend?”
The question weighed more heavily than I realized. Eventually I shrugged.
“Probably because guys are intimated by me,” I lied. “I’m a lot to deal with. I have a lot to say.”
Was that a lie? Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t the whole truth, though. And Elliot knew it.
“Wanna know what I think?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure I did. Numbly, I nodded anyway.
“I think you’re afraid of getting close to someone again,” he said. “You’re afraid of loss. You don’t want to go through that same pain.”
The clever retort I had ready died on my lips. Instead, my mouth went dry. My head dropped a little lower, until my chin dipped into the pool.
“But you don’t have to be,” Elliot said.
“Oh no?” I challenged. “I don’t?”
“Nope.”
“And why not?” I demanded, my arms going wide. “Anything can happen to anyone! There aren’t any guarantees in this world.”
“I never said there were,” Elliot countered. “Shit, there are any number of ways things could go sideways for you, or me, or any of us. I just said you shouldn’t live in fear of them. And the reason you shouldn’t be afraid is because mostly, they’re beyond your control.”
Reaching out slowly with his thumb and forefinger, he tilted my chin level with his again. His eyes held zero judgment, no mockery. They were full of understanding, instead.
“Either these things happen or they don’t,” Elliot went on. “So why worry about them? If you spend whole your life doom-prepping and waiting for the other shoe to drop, you’ll miss out onlife.It’ll all be for nothing.”
Seconds ticked by as I peered back at him, searching his eyes for deeper meaning. What he said made perfect sense, of course. And yet…
“I could say the same thing about your business,” I said, keeping my voice low and even. “You spend your whole life flying around, making deals, buying and selling properties… and then one day it’s all over. In the end you realize you missed all those important life moments. The ones you should’ve been savoring and enjoying instead of working. The ones you could’ve been capturing the whole time.”
Slowly he nodded, falling into deep contemplation. He was actually considering. I could see the wheels spinning in his head.
