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Until about an hour ago, I was ready to give Eli everything. To hand him my heart and trust him to guard it with his life. To treat it with care and respect. Deep down, I still do. Even if he called a secret meeting with Steve without telling me about it.
“So, you wanted her all to yourself tonight to tell her that?” Austin asks in confusion.
“That and the fact that I want to make our relationship official. You know, like when we were in middle school. Where we’d go on dates, sit in the back of the movie theater, and make out instead of watching the film. Hold hands walking down the sidewalk. I’d buy her dinner and bring her flowers when I pick her up. I’m kind of an old school guy when it comes to dating.”
Austin and Hayden are grinning at me as I stare at Eli with my mouth hanging open.
Did he really just tell my best friends he was going to ask me to go steady? To be his girlfriend?
He introduced himself as my boyfriend at the airport. I never corrected him, but he saw the expression on my face. I wasn’t okay with it. We hadn’t had the discussion. Now that’s what he wants to do. He wants to talk about what we are to each other. Where we see this going.
And here I was pissed because I thought he was lying to me about where he had been when really I have a feeling he was asking Steve for permission to date me.
He was telling our boss that we were together.
“Taylor,” I hear Eli say from beside me. When I look up, he’s extending his hand. I place mine in his, and the second I do, I feel a jolt of electricity pierce my heart. “Will you be my girlfriend? Will you go on dates with me and let me do nice things for you? Can I meet the rest of your friends and spend time with you away from work? You know, like a normal couple?”
“A normal couple,” I whisper, my lips barely moving.
If there’s one thing I’ve come to learn about my relationship with Eli … it’s far from normal.
“Well, not completely normal. That would be boring, and I have a feeling life with you will never be boring,” he adds.
“I don’t know if I can do that, Eli,” I confess, the words slipping past my lips before I can filter them.
I should have said yes. I wanted to say yes. But knowing that my identity would be revealed at some point, that my face might be plastered across the gossip rags, I can’t bring myself to say the one word that would make me happier than I’ve ever been.
Giving my hands a light squeeze, Eli’s smile doesn’t waver. “I think you can. I think you want to. I’m not going anywhere, so when you’re ready, I will be, too.”
Hayden and Austin swoon on either side of me but my only focus is on the hurt in Eli’s eyes. The hurt he’s trying to mask but even the best actor wouldn’t be able to hide.
