Whatever it was, I wanted to help, because I still cared about him. And because no one should have to go through what he wasgoing through. I also still felt bad about having taken advantage of his hospitality and essentially coercing him into going out with me. I was pretty sure that he’d only done it because I wanted it. It hadn’t been that he wasn’tready—it was that he didn’t care about me. At least not that way.
All those reasons, and I still held out an arm to him, setting my phone down on the nightstand. “Come here?” It was both an offer and a question.
What Ishoulddo wasn’t going to stop me from making the offer, even if it should have.
Elliot crossed the room in silence, leaving the door open, although it’s not like there was anyone else in the house besides us. He sat on the bed, the weight of his body and emotions pressing on the mattress, drawing me towards him on a downward slope. Inevitable.
Kind of like how it had been inevitable that my heart would be broken. Was broken. It was my own fault for not listening when he’d told me he didn’t want a relationship. For not respecting Rule Two.
I reached out to put my glasses on the small table next to the bed, and I don’t know if Elliot thought I was offering, but he laid down, his back against my side, his head resting on the meaty part of my shoulder. I froze for a second, not sure what to do—what he wanted from me. Whether I should turn into him and wrap him in my arms, or whether I should stay as I was.
I wanted to do what he wanted, what he needed.
I wanted to hold his body against mine. Not in a sexy way—not at that moment, anyway. Just so that he would know I was there. That I would give him what he needed.
That I wouldn’t ask anything more of him than what he was willing to give.
And then he slid his hand out along my extended arm, threading his fingers between mine and pulling all of them into a soft fist.
I took that as an invitation, slowly—in case he resisted me—turning so that my t-shirt-clad chest pressed up against the skin of Elliot’s back, my un-held palm resting on his top shoulder. I felt him suck in a slow breath, then release it, pressing back into my body as he pulled my arm around his chest, drawing me even closer.
I didn’t know what to think—whether this was supposed to mean something or whether this was… I had no clue what this was. Part of me—the masochistic part—wanted this. Wanted to hold him even though I knew this wasn’t what we’d agreed to. It was more intimate. More emotional. More meaningful. This wasn’t what you were supposed to do with the guy you had been just casually having sex with before he broke it off.
This was what you did with someone you cared about.
And I did care about him. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.
What I didn’t know was whether this meant that he also cared about me. Or maybe I was just convenient. I had no idea. And I didn’t know how to ask—although I did know thatnowwas not the time, either way.
My heart wanted to hope. My brain should have known better.
I woke up,groggy, achy, and stiff—and not in a fun way—when Elliot got up, sometime after dawn. I wasn’t coherent enough to say anything to him as he shuffled out of the room, blinking blearily before managing to grab my glasses off the nightstand. By the time I staggered out of the room, leaning heavily on thewall on my way through the door, he’d disappeared, presumably back into his bedroom.
My knee was throbbing, and my back was so stiff I hadn’t actually managed to stand fully upright before I shuffled down the hall toward the kitchen and, hopefully, coffee. I could hear Elliot’s shower running, and I knew he was going to want coffee when he got out. I started the coffee maker, then shoved my clothes from yesterday into the wash, then went to shower myself.
I spent a lot longer in the shower than usual, although that hadn’t been my intention. But once I had hot water beating down on my back, I really couldn’t make myself hurry. So by the time I finished and pulled on the sweatpants and t-shirt Elliot had lent me last night, it had probably been a half hour, maybe longer.
Elliot had put my wet clothes in the dryer and left a mug out beside the coffee pot. I spooned sugar into the mug, added almond milk, then poured in the coffee, letting the hot liquid mix all three together. I’d taken three sips before the caffeine woke me up enough for me to wonder where Elliot was. I listened—I couldn’t hear anything.
He wasn’t stupid enough to have gone outside—was he? I walked down the hallway, checked in the garage, opened the door to the basement.
“Elliot?” I called, looking down the stairs into darkness.
“Right here,” came his reply from behind me.
I turned, a frown on my features.
His nose was red, his cheeks flushed. His hands were dirty, and he held some sort of root.
“You went outside,” I accused. “Elliot.”
He scowled at me. “It’s my fucking yard,” he snapped back.
“Yeah, well, some asshole skinned a badger in your fucking yard,” I retorted.
“I’d have smelled anyone approaching,” he told me.
“Are you sure? Even upwind?”
