Another smile tugs the corners of Elle’s mouth as she takes it. “Thank you.” She looks down at the envelope, and then she lifts the flap to peek inside. Her ponytail falls over the side of her shoulder, and I can almostfeelthat silky hair wrapped around my fingers. She sucks in a quiet gasp that sounds exactly like the many, many gasps I heard from her lips during moments I really need to stop thinking about. And then she looks up at me with an expression that pretty much guarantees I won’t stop thinking about those moments orherfor a long,longtime.
Her eyes are wide and spilling over, and the sight of it is like a blunt object straight through my heart. And if that’s not bad enough, she closes the distance between us, throws her arms around my waist, and presses her cheek to my chest. And now, I actuallycanfeel that silky hair again because it’s trapped under my palms as I let myself brace my hands on her back.
“Elle, I really…”
“I’m ridiculous for crying right now,” she says with the tiniest hitch in her throat. “I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat lately, and it’s just because I’m so happy. I can’t even tell you how happy I am. I know you and I can’t get along to save our lives, but I hope you know how grateful I am that you did this for me.”
Wrong,I want to say,we totally can get along. We had dozens of moments of getting along once we got out of the office, and now we’ll never be in that office again, and we could be really, really good together.
“I know, Elle,” is all I allow myself to say. “You told me enough that I completely get it.”
She shifts in my arms and lifts her chin to rest on my shoulder. Her cheek is right next to my neck, and I can feel her tears dampen my skin. “I’m about to go over there and pay off my loans, and I honestlyneverthought I’d be able to do that. I’m going to put the rest in savings, and I’ll never have to worry about being forced to move back in with my parents again, and I… I just… I just… Ican’t even.”
I’m at a loss for words that don’t include something like,you have no idea how good it feels to hold you again or how much I’ve missed you or how much I just want to be with you.
“I really am happy for you, Elle,” I say as I find myself closing my hand around her ponytail to stroke the length of it. Shifting to a more casual tone, I add, “You really should let me take you for that cheesecake to celebrate. I’m not doing anything after this.”
“Oh.” A tiny, nervous laugh shakes her shoulders as she slips away from me. She wipes her eyes and looks up at me again. “I would like that, but my stomach is not happy with me today. Likeat all.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a half-eaten sleeve of saltines, showing them to me as proof of her upset stomach. “I’ve had nothing but crackers all day, and I’d hate to ruin thistwo-million-dollarcheesecake by puking.”
I wince. “Are you sick?”
Elle slips the sleeve of crackers back into her pocket. “Honestly, I think the past couple of weeks has given me an ulcer or something. I’m under a lot of stress. It’s agoodkind of stress, but it’s still stress. And it’s really jacking with my stomach, and making me cry at the drop of a hat.”
Despite my disappointment, I offer a sage nod. “Makes sense.” I draw in a silent breath and slip my hands in my pockets, rocking on the balls of my feet. “Well, I hope you feel better soon.”
“Thanks.” She smiles again before lifting her sable brows brightly. “But, hey. Maybe a rain check.” She bumps the side of my arm in a friendly manner, and she’s just being nice, and that’s going to have to be okay. “I would like to try that cheesecake, so maybe we could go another time.”
My mouth quirks sardonically. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” She sweeps her eyes across the lobby and then waves me to follow her to one of the kiosks with blank deposit slips and pens. “Here, come here.”
I join her at the kiosk as she’s scribbling on the back of a deposit slip, and she pushes one across the surface toward me. “Write down your phone number for me so I don’t have to call Bertie and lie again.”
I fight the urge to make any kind of external reaction as I scribble down my number for her asecond time, butmother fucking YES.
This is a victory of some kind, and now I have a game plan.
I’ll wait. Maybe even as long as a month or two, but then I’m going to hit her up. I might even go so far as to make some new friends or something so it can be a group thing. I lost my previousinwith Elle, but this is definitely a new one. And I can work with this.
“Once things calm down for me in a few weeks,” Elle says as we swap papers, “we should go get that cheesecake and hang out.” She points at me with the pen, the tiny cord attached to its end doing a small flip, as she raises her eyebrows. “And I do meanhang out. I don’t mean… you know…” She waggles her head. “Not theotherkind of hanging out.”
I chuckle knowingly as I fold the paper in half. “Right.”
Wrong.
This is anin,and I’m going to take full advantage of steering it towardus.
“Right,” she echoes, and then offers a wave. “Anyway, thanks for meeting me.” Her gaze lingers on mine for a second as though she wants to say something else. “I hope everything’s going well.”
I recall the text thread between her and Celia from a few weeks ago. Elle knows I’ve got shit going on with Archer, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to expose that mess to her now or ever. Maybe by the time I finesse this enough, at the very least Archer will no longer be my problem, and I won’t ever have to go into gory detail about all the ways I’ve failed him for our entire lives.
I would venture to guess that someone like Elle, the social worker with a psychology degree from mother fuckingColumbia,would have a lot of opinions about me based on that. Opinions that definitely donotfavor she and I beingus.
“Couldn’t be better. Take care of that possible ulcer.” I shake the paper at her. “Because I expect a text in a few weeks asking for cheesecake.”
Elle laughs lightly. “I will.”
I offer one last wave as I turn to leave, still holding the paper. Back in the bank, she’s holding the second piece of paper I’ve given her with my number on it. And if that’s not full-circle, I don’t know what is.
