by Megan Hart
"Such a gentleman."
He laughed and withdrew. "Wait. I'll get the door."
Elliott really was a gentleman, Simone thought as she waited, giddy, for him to help her out of the car. She took his arm to help her keep her balance on the uneven sidewalk, not because she really needed the help but because he offered it, and she wanted to touch him. Oh, did she want to touch him.
Serrano's was narrow and old, a wooden bar along one side taking up so much space there was room only for one row of tables along the wall until you went to the back of the restaurant. Brick walls and tin ceilings that were typical of a lot of places in old-city Philly. They were seated at one of the small tables along the wall with a nice view of the street outside.
"I've never been here," Simone said as Elliott pulled out her chair for her.
"No?"
She shook her head, looking around. "Nope. Do you come here a lot?"
"No," Elliott said after a minute. "But when you buy tickets for the concerts upstairs, you're encouraged to make dinner reservations because you get reserved seating upstairs. It seemed like a great place. But if you don't like it . . ."
She laughed and covered his hand with hers. "I like it. What's not to like?"
"It's old," he said, looking around.
"Relax, Mr. Worry. I like it," Simone told him, and they shared a smile.
It would've been unrealistic of her to expect him to change overnight, but whatever had prompted Elliott to decide he wanted to make this relationship something more than just sex had definitely changed things. He'd called her every day for the entire two weeks before this official date, sometimes just to say good night, though they'd ended up talking for at least an hour every time before he'd begged off in order to get some sleep.
He'd been surprisingly easy to talk to, once he got started. And funny! The man was a laugh riot, with a dry sense of humor that nevertheless hit her in all the right places. There'd been times he'd had her giggling so hard she couldn't talk, and that was a rare accomplishment.
They'd covered topics from favorite flavors of ice cream to musical tastes, even hitting the forbidden ones like politics and religion. They voted for different parties but were on board with most of the major issues. Simone was Jewish but not observant, and Elliott was a confirmed agnostic who'd been raised with no church background. He'd gone to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and Simone had gone to Millersville, but both of them had gone with academic scholarships.
"Elliott," Simone said quietly after the waiter had taken their drink orders and gone. "This is nice."
"I'm glad you like it."
She could have guessed he'd be a good date. A man who made a habit of dating women only a couple times would probably be good at the ritual of it. The pomp and circumstance of first dates, Simone thought, but thinking that took away some of the pleasure she was getting from all the effort he was so clearly making.
"What changed your mind?" The words popped out, blunt and unbidden, and she cursed herself for not being able to simply sit back and enjoy what was promising to be a very nice evening.
Elliott sat back in his chair and looked serious. "About . . .?"
"This. About dating."
"You did," he said.
That answer should have been enough, but Simone had never been a woman to settle for half measures. She tucked a curl of hair behind her ear, then toyed with the basket of cheese crackers neither of them had yet touched. She took one and put it on her small plate, but didn't eat it.
"What about me?"
"Everything," Elliott said, and then the waiter returned with their drinks and the moment to pursue that conversation was lost.
It was just as well. They'd only started the night. There was no sense in ruining it with icky emotions, she told herself as they toasted, clinking their glasses together. She should just enjoy the night for what it was, not waste her time worrying about what it might be.
They talked so much their food got cold and they had to pass on dessert in order to make the show in time. Simone, giggly and warm from several of Serrano's signature cocktails, clung to Elliott's arm as they climbed the steep and narrow stairs to the Tin Angel. The concert space was a black box with a small stage to the front, a bar to the rear, and small tables crammed into the space in between.
"Can I get you a drink?" Elliott murmured in her ear when they'd been seated close to the stage.
Simone shivered at the touch of his breath along her ear and neck. The room was heavily air-conditioned, but that wasn't why her nipples had gone so suddenly hard. She leaned into him.
"I've had two already."
"Do you have a limit?" Elliott's lips brushed her neck as he spoke.
Her clit pulsed, her pussy throbbing. She crossed her legs, squeezing her thighs together. "Everyone has a limit, Elliott. Some people just have higher limits than others."
He pulled away just enough to look into her eyes. "And you know your limits."
"Yes." She smiled and nuzzled briefly at his cheek. "And I haven't reached them yet."
His hand pressed her knee for a moment, slipping beneath her dress to caress her bare flesh but not moving any higher. "I'll get you another drink. Same as from downstairs, if they have it?"
"That would be . . . delightful." Simone could hold her liquor, but she wasn't a heavy drinker and two cocktails made the world seem that much brighter.
Or it might be Elliott, she thought as she watched him wend his way through the maze of tables toward the bar. Elliott making her stomach flutter and heat spread all through her. Making her feel like she loved everything around her.
Oh, shit.
Don't, Simone, she told herself as she put both her hands flat on the table to keep them from shaking. Don't let yourself get carried away. This is one date, with a man who has admitted he doesn't do this. And yes, the sex is phenomenal, it's fantastic, it blew your fucking mind, but you can get sex from any guy.
But not any guy could give her everything the way she liked it.
Shit, she thought again as Elliott headed back toward her with two drinks held high to keep them from spilling. He saw her looking and smiled from all the way across the room, and everything inside her went as tightly knotted as a fist.
He turned her inside out with just a smile. Oh, she was in so much trouble. Yet there was no way to keep herself from returning that smile when he got back to the table or from letting him kiss and nuzzle her cheek when he set it down. No way not to let him hold her hand all through the concert, their fingers linked and his thumb passing back and forth over her palm until she thought she might start levitating from the sexual tension every single stroke sent between her thighs. She didn't need another cocktail to be drunk, not when being with him had so intoxicated her.
She'd never heard of the performer onstage, a young guy with a beard who played the acoustic guitar and sang like a dream. She liked his music, songs of falling in and out of love. She could totally relate. But it was hard to concentrate on the singer when every single touch from Elliott had her imagining all the ways he was going to touch her when they got back to her place.
Which was why, when he walked her to her front door and she fumbled with her keys, Simone opened her door but did not go through it. She stood on the small front stoop while Elliott stayed on the sidewalk, and that few inches, along with her heels, made her taller than him. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his face.
"I had a great time tonight," she told him.
Elliott smiled. "Me, too."
They stared at each other.
Everything inside her strained toward him. She'd already had this man naked and fucking her. Making her come. Making her hurt, which was even better. And now, all she could do was lean forward to kiss the corner of his mouth, light as a butterfly kiss.
"Good night," Simone whispered against his mouth.
She waited for him to ask to come inside, and wondered if she’d let him, when he did. The kiss lingered witho
ut growing deeper, each of them breathing in the other until Simone thought she would go crazy with the waiting. His hands settled briefly on her hips, fingers tightening.
Then he let go and stepped back.
It took every bit of strength she had, but she pulled away, too. They stared at each other for a few seconds before she said, “Thanks for the best date, ever.”
Elliott blinked, then nodded with a slow smile that heated every bit of her. “Good night, Simone.”
Then, before she could regret it, she went inside and closed the door.
Chapter 27
"Where's Harry? Where's he gone?" Molly's voice, querulous, penetrated the hallway outside.
"She's having a bad day," Betty, the day nurse, said sympathetically. She squeezed his arm.
Elliott, flowers in hand, almost turned around and walked away. Molly wouldn't even know it if he did. And Betty, so what if she judged him? Surely there were lots of residents here whose families never came to visit, much less as often as Elliott managed to. The only person who'd really be disappointed in him if he left without seeing her would be himself, and Elliott had disappointed himself plenty of times.
"But she was asking for you, earlier," Betty said.
Elliott sighed. "I rank up there with the dog, huh?"
"I'm sure you mean more to her than that." Betty gave him another sympathetic smile and went down the hall.
In the room, Elliott found Molly staring out the window with her mouth open and a silver strand of drool shining in the late afternoon sunshine. She blinked slowly, then closed her eyes. Her lashes made shadows on her sallow cheeks. Her hair had gone more gray.
"I'm dying," she said.
"We're all dying from the moment we're born. That's all we do our entire lives, is die." Elliott pulled the wilting flowers from the vase and dumped them in the trash, then replaced them with the fresh ones, the way he did every week.
When he came back from the bathroom with the vase of fresh water, Molly was staring at him. "Why are you so morbid?"
"Learned it from the best, I guess," he said with a shrug and set the vase on the dresser before pulling up the chair closer to the edge of the bed.
"I hate those flowers, you know."
Surprised, he looked at them. "Why? I thought you liked daisies."
"They sit on that dresser and die, day by day, reminding me that I'm dying, too." Molly coughed, the sound thick and wet.
"Hey," Elliott said softly. "Don't."
She might have been having a bad day earlier, but now she leveled him with a familiar piercing stare. She could so easily make him seventeen again, a long-haired, skinny kid in shoes with holes and dirty jeans, showing up on her doorstep with nothing to offer but his father's last name. She smiled at him, though, that same warm grin. It was crooked, now, pulling on one side of her face in a way that had gotten much worse over the past few months.
"I might be a morbid old bitch, but I have the right, don't you think?"
Elliott sighed. "I won't bring you flowers anymore, if you don't want me to."
Molly shifted restlessly, her hands moving on top of the crisp white sheets. Her hands had always been strong. Capable. Big knuckles and freckled skin. She'd been able to fix a drain, knit a sweater, and make an apple pie with those hands. She'd cut Elliott's hair with those hands, and now she could barely hold a glass to drink from.
"Where's Harry?"
"He's--" Harry, Molly's raggedy spotted mutt, had died five years ago, before she'd moved into Morningside House. "Harry went to live on a farm."
"Is he happy there? Chasing chickens? Digging in the garden?"
Harry, to Elliott's knowledge, had never chased anything. The dog had been fat and lazy its entire life, with a permanent, slobbery grin. "Yeah. He's happy there."
"Good," Molly said on a sigh. "Good, good."
He thought she'd fallen asleep, but when he got up to go, her eyes opened. Elliott paused. Her gaze had gone unfocused and distant, but she was smiling again. At least there was that.
"Elliott."
"Yeah," he said quietly, sitting down again.
"You're a good boy. A good son. Don't let your dad tell you otherwise, you hear me? Or that woman."
That woman, he knew, was his mother. He'd never been offended by Molly's term for her. She hadn't been much of a mother to him.
"I never had my own kids," Molly said.
"I know, Molly."
She sighed and shuddered a little. Beneath the sheet, her legs moved, and Elliott was suddenly and terribly reminded of Harry. How the dog would run in his sleep. It was a horrible thing, to think of Molly the way he did a dog, even if he thought she'd laugh at the comparison.
"Couldn't have 'em. Did you know that?"
"I didn't know." He'd always assumed she'd just been smart enough not to get knocked up by his old man, if he'd ever thought of it at all, and he'd tried to avoid thinking of anything remotely resembling Molly's intimate life with his father.
She sighed again, clearing her throat. "I never wanted kids, to be honest. I had five brothers and two sisters, and I was the oldest. I changed more diapers in my lifetime than anyone should ever have to. No, I didn't want kids. But I got pregnant, once. Me and your dad had been married for about five or six years at that point. We didn't have it great, but it wasn't as bad as it would get. And I thought he'd be mad about the baby. You know? I figured he'd be pissed, but he wasn't."
It had become a rare thing for Molly to talk this long on any subject, but for her to say something nice about his father was even more uncommon. He didn't want to listen to it, actually. He didn't want to hear about his father at all, even if it wasn't a profanity laced rant.
Molly looked at him. "He wanted a son, he said. Real bad. He wanted to take him to baseball games and play catch in the backyard. Fishing. All things his own dad hadn't ever done with him. 'Mol,' he said. 'I'm not gonna be a fuckup like my old man. I'm gonna be a good father.'"
Elliott grimaced, choking laughter. "Oh, please."
"That's what he said." She gave him a small smile, one that seemed more like her old self. "We'd had it pretty good up until that point. Not great, but okay. We had money. Your dad kept a job. Didn't hit the booze the way he would later. After."
Listening to her was like being in a natural disaster, a flood or a tornado. He wanted to get away, but all he could do was let it sweep him along. Elliott got up to pace, his stomach twisting and a little sick. When he licked his mouth, he tasted salt.
"I lost the baby, and your dad kind of lost his mind. It was my . . . fault. . . ." Molly said on a sob.
Elliott turned. "Nothing that he ever did to you was your fault."
"I didn't want the baby. I didn't take care of myself. I didn't love it. I tried to, but all I could think about was how much work babies are, and how it would change everything, and I didn't want it." Tears streaked her cheeks, and she batted at the sheets with ineffective fists.
Elliott pulled a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand to wipe her face. "Shhh."
"I won't shhh. You need to hear this!" She grabbed one of his wrists with surprising force. Her fingers slipped, not quite able to grip, but he didn't pull away. "I lost the baby, and your dad was so devastated, he lost himself in the booze and the other women."
"He had a son," Elliott said coldly. "He got the son he said he wanted, and he was still an addict who talked more with his fists than anything else. So don't blame yourself for what you couldn't control."
Molly quieted. "He never loved you the way you deserved to be loved, Elliott. I'm sorry for that."
It wasn't news, but it still stung to hear it. He sat on the edge of her bed, wanting to get up and walk away. To leave this room and this conversation and everything else. Her small, weak hand on his stopped him.
"He didn't have it in him, that's all. Like he didn't have it in him to love your mother enough to leave me for her. Or to love me enough not to have gone with her in the first place. You
r dad's a man with a lot of empty holes to fill, and he's never been able to fill them." She struggled upright, reaching for him.
"Calm down, Molly. Do you need me to ring for Betty?" He'd seen Molly get agitated before. She could hurt herself.
"No, no, no." Molly shook her head. Fine tremors shook her entire body, not quite a seizure but heading in that direction.
"I'm calling Betty."
Again, her hand shot out to stop him. "No!"
"Then you have to calm down," he told her. "You can't let yourself get so upset."
"There are things you need to hear, Elliott!"
"Fine. Ok. Let me get you some water." He poured some into a paper cup from one of the bottles he kept stocked in the minifridge he paid extra to keep in her room. He added a straw and held it for her.
Molly took a few greedy sips. "Be better to have a shot of vodka."
"You never drank vodka." Elliott managed a laugh.
Molly fixed him with a bleary look. "You have no idea what I was like when I was a much younger hellion."
He didn't have to. He'd known her as the woman who'd taken him in when his own mother tossed him out and his father had disappeared. He'd always only known her as that woman, and there was still the glimmer of her now.
"You're a lot like your father. I know you don't want to hear that, Elliott, but you listen to me. You have more than his hair and eyes, you have a lot of him in you. Even if he wasn't around you or there for you when you were growing up, part of him made you, and you can't get away from that."
He grimaced. "Thanks. That makes me feel great, Molly. Thanks a lot."
"But you're not your daddy. You know that, don't you?" More tears shimmered in her eyes and she tried to squeeze his hand. She looked down at the uselessly curling fingers. "You think I don't hate him for what he did to me? I do. Just the way I'm sure you hate him for never being there for you and leaving you with that woman who shouldn't have been allowed to own a rat, much less a child. But you can't hold on to hate."
"That's what they all say." Elliott took her hand between both of his.