Keep This Promise

by Willow Winters

  “I’m not,” I whisper.

  “You are. Because you’re using my son as leverage to take yourself out of the equation. But this isn’t an equation or a poll where everyone gets a vote. This is my goddamn life!”

  I jump, hugging my arms to my chest. I’ve seen Eli slightly upset before, like when I agreed to go on a date with Warren or when I suggested Eli and Dr. Hathaway take Romeo to London. But those were nothing compared to Eli’s clenched jaw and tear-filled eyes taking me hostage in my own home. I can’t move. Not a single muscle.

  He swallows hard, keeping his jaw locked and managing to blink several times without shedding those tears. “You’ve made me feel like a truly awful father. And I know that’s not what you meant to do, but you have. The guilt, Dorothy … you’re fucking killing me with guilt. You’ve turned loving you into a fault. An epic error in judgment. A choice …” He shakes his head and sniffles. “You weren’t supposed to be a choice. Not you. Not Roman. But you’ve laid it all out there. If I choose you, that means I’d have Roman part-time. But that makes me a ‘stupid fucking idiot’ in your eyes. So what’s the point?”

  What did I do wrong? How do I excel at always messing things up? I spend so much time planning my moves and my words. I journal them and bounce them off my parents. How did a move that felt so selfless turn me into a monster? The judgmental enemy.

  “Just …” I ease my head side to side, grimacing from the pounding inside of it. “Just tell me what you want me to say … what you want me to do.”

  He hangs his head, closing his eyes.

  I glance back at the door. Eli brought a bag, but who brought Eli? I look at my watch. It’s almost ten o’clock.

  What would a neurotypical person do?

  I’m not sure. This exact scenario hasn’t played out in the movies or my novels quite this way. I mean … given his complete demeanor, I assume he might want to storm out, get in his car, and squeal his tires.

  But he can’t storm anywhere. I’m not sure he can even stand on his own.

  No car.

  My drive is gravel so no pavement for squealing tires.

  That leaves me in uncharted territory with only one question.

  What should I do?

  Pie.

  You can’t go wrong with pie, especially apple pie. I slide the plate from the console and kneel on the floor between Eli’s legs, giving the table his casted leg is on a tiny nudge. He opens his eyes, sharing a lifeless expression.

  I think I put that on his face. Another example of my plans not at all going how I imagined they would go. So I fork up a bite of pie and hold it up to his mouth. After a few slow blinks, he takes the bite.

  That brings a tiny smile to my face, even if he isn’t finding a single shred of happiness.

  Because of me.

  I take the next bite. The following bite includes the largest chunk of apple, the best bite of the whole slice. Slowly, I move it toward his mouth, hoping he pays attention to my offering, a peace offering of sorts.

  He takes the bite, but his emotionless gaze remains affixed to me. Such a waste. I might as well have taken the bite for myself.

  My bite.

  His bite.

  Mine.

  His.

  Yep, I take the last bite of crust, the one that’s a little crunchy but sweet with a thin sticky layer of apple filling clinging to it. Something tells me Eli wouldn’t appreciate it as much as I do.

  With the pie gone, things get awkward again.

  Nothing to say.

  Nothing to do.

  Yet a crippled man remains in my game room with his overnight bag by the door. And I need a shower. And my meds. And I had planned on working a few things out in my journals. But that’s all gone to Hell with the addition of Eli to my Saturday night. He’s about to quickly find out I have no fucking clue how to be a hostess. I don’t study things I never plan on doing, and inviting people to stay at my house is pretty high on my Unnecessary Skills To Learn List.

  “Eli—”

  “Shh …” He eases his head side to side. Taking the plate from me, he sets it on the arm of the chair and leans forward enough to slide his hand behind my head and pull me forward. We meet in the middle, a breath from our lips touching. “Just tell me you still think you love me too. Nothing else. Just that.”

  I know it’s a mistake to fall in love with Dr. Hawkins. I know he’s bad news. Bad for my heart. Bad for my schedule. Bad for my train of thought.

  But I do it anyway.

  “I think I love you too … still.”

  A barely detectable grin breaks through his pain-etched face just before he kisses me.

  Well fuck.

  This isn’t part of the plan. I’m supposed to step away. Yes, out of the equation. But he does this thing where he cradles my head in his large hands and kisses me with his demanding lips. For a final goodbye kiss, it feels highly inappropriate. Too much tongue for goodbye. And then I moan. Cries, maybe even whimpers, seem more appropriate for a final kiss.

  Not moans.

  But I do it anyway.

  “You can’t choose me,” I say as soon as the kiss ends.

  Eli rubs his lips together and nods slowly. “I won’t. I’ll wait for you to choose me.”

  “What?” I rear my head back. “I already made my choice. I chose Roman having his parents back together. I chose Roman’s dad not kissing me like he’d rip off my clothes if he could.”

  He grins. And if I wasn’t so relieved to see him not looking at me like I took an axe to his heart, I would be upset that he’s not taking things seriously.

  “It wouldn’t be in record breaking time, but don’t fool yourself, Mayhem. I could rip your clothes off and locate your G-spot even with only half of my body working. If a resuscitated corpse can have an orgasm, imagine what I could do with two fully functional hands, my mouth, and a headful of dirty thoughts.”

  Well … gulp … damn!

  “Can you do me a favor?” he asks.

  I shrug. Blind promises aren’t my thing.

  “Can you let me recover? Can you give me a few meals with you, maybe a couple cups of coffee, maybe a playdate or two with Roman before you make your decision?”

  “I told you—”

  He kisses me again.

  If I didn’t love his mouth on mine so much, I’d be offended that he keeps cutting me off.

  “I won’t change my mind,” I say as I pull away.

  He kisses my nose and then my forehead. “Then it won’t hurt to wait until I’m recovered. Besides, you can’t dump me right before the holidays. That’s just cruel.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He smiles.

  “Whatever. Clearly you don’t know how my brain works. But … you’ll find out.” I climb to my feet.

  Eli grabs my hand and kisses the inside of my wrist. “Clearly you don’t know how my love works. But … you’ll find out.”

  “Where did you plan on sleeping when you showed up uninvited and unannounced?”

  “Your bed. I let you sleep in mine. You owe me.”

  “My bed is smaller.”

  “Then you’ll have to let me hold you so neither one of us falls out.”

  “If we zip in, that won’t be an issue, but you put off a lot of body heat, so zipping in could get too hot.”

  “Zip in? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll just show you.” I pick up his crutches. “You can lean on me too. I’m a lot stronger than I look.”

  Elijah

  Dorothy helps me to her bedroom via the bathroom for a quick piss and teeth brushing. I didn’t get a chance to inspect her room as much during my previous time there.

  “It’s not a twin bed.”

  “No.” She unzips her bed. Not a sleeping bag. Actual decorative sheets and bedspread, all-in-one thing that goes on like a fitted sheet, but it all zips up. “It’s for people who don’t like to make their beds or lose their covers off the side in the midd
le of the night,” she explains while helping me into bed.

  “I’m overdressed for bed.”

  Dorothy twists her lips. “Did you bring pajamas?”

  “Yes, they’re called underwear, and I already have them on. I just need to remove my shirt and sweatpants.”

  “You mean me. You need me to remove them for you.”

  “Yes.”

  She eases my shirt over my head. “Did Dr. Hathaway do this for you at your house? Undress you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Humpf.”

  “Did you just humpf my answer?”

  “No.” She slides my sweatpants down my legs, over my cast, and then pulls off my socks.

  “Jealous that someone else has been undressing me?”

  “No.” She folds my clothes and sets them on top of my bag. “Do you need extra pillows for your leg?”

  “An extra one for my leg would be great.”

  She positions a pillow under my leg and zips my side of the bed. Let me repeat … zips my side of the bed.

  “I’m going to shower, brush and floss, and take my pills. You good?”

  “I’m zipped up in Dorothy Mayhem’s bed. The only way I could be better is if you tied me to it and had your way with me—gently and with utmost caution for my injuries, of course.”

  Dorothy returns a blank expression. I think she gets my humor, minus actually finding anything humorous about it. “So you’re good. Okay. I’m going to shower.”

  By the time she makes it through her nighttime routine, I start to drift off to sleep.

  “I can unzip just the bottom if you need air on your feet.”

  I blink open my heavy eyelids, bringing wet-hair Dorothy Mayhem and her oversized Taylor Swift Reputation T-shirt into focus. “To keep my feet from getting claustrophobic in your zipper bed?”

  “To allow cool air to your feet to help regulate your body temperature.” She unzips the bottom of the bed. “I can leave it like this or actually let your feet out like this.” Peeling back the bottom covers, she exposes my feet. My good one and the one with just my toes sticking out from a blue cast. So many options and unexpected surprises with the zipper bed. Same goes for Dorothy Mayhem.

  “However you sleep in here will be just fine with me.”

  “Oh.” She shakes her head. “I don’t actually sleep inside it. I sleep on top of it so it’s always made up. If I get chilly, I grab a blanket. I just hate dealing with making beds.”

  I never let on to her just how much emotion I feel right now. She’d interpret it as me getting emotional over a zipper bed. It’s not that. Well, it is that. It’s everything. The twenty-year-old version of me might have found zipper beds a hard limit. I might have run away from a zipper-bed girl without looking back. I mean, she has a zipper bed. Just imagine what other oddities rule her life.

  Right now, it crushes me to imagine the day might come where nothing fantastical like Instagram emus, chicken-less soup from a can, and zipper beds won’t be part of my life—that she won’t be part of my life.

  Because … She. Chose. My. Son.

  Dorothy put Roman above everyone else. And in doing so, she made me love her in a way that rips the air from my lungs, shackles my heart, and claims my soul.

  “So you don’t care?”

  Quelling my aching emotions, I grin. “Just get in bed.”

  “Okay.” She shrugs, flips off the light, and slips onto the zipper bed next to me, pinning me in since she’s on top of the bedding and I’m zipped inside of it.

  I have her exactly where I want her, and I can’t really touch her. So I close my eyes and just find comfort in her proximity.

  “I love you,” I say after several minutes of her fidgeting, hoping it distracts her from the discomfort of sharing her bed with me, maybe calm her nerves a bit.

  “Okay …” she replies in a breathy voice.

  “Are you okay?” I try to pull down the covers, but I’m zipped in tightly and her weight beside me thwarts my attempts.

  “Yes …” She swallows so hard I can hear it. And I can hear her shallow breaths, slowly quickening.

  I turn my head toward her, squinting to see her face in the darkness. Jutting my chin to get as close as I can. Her face comes into enough focus that I can see her eyes close, her bottom lip trapped beneath her top teeth.

  You have got to be kidding me!

  “Are you…” I squint a bit more, nudging her body with my elbow to get her attention “…getting yourself off?”

  “Yeah …” Pant. Pant. Pant. “No …” Pant. Pant. Pant. “Maybe … oh god …”

  “This is not happening,” I mumble.

  “Fu … fuck, Eli!” She grabs my thigh, holding it for dear life as her pelvis lifts from the bed.

  I realize she doesn’t want me to read books on autism and generalize her into the typical stereotypes. But the part about some Aspies struggling to exhibit appropriate behavior in certain situations seems to fit Dorothy to a T. And I think I realized it the day she casually got naked in the back of her car at the pizza place.

  It feels like weird timing. If I were going to masturbate in bed without including my partner, I think I would wait until they’re asleep.

  After her hold on me relaxes, along with the rest of her body, she releases a contented sigh.

  “Why? Just … why?” I whisper, staring at the dark ceiling, praying that it won’t take all night for my erection to die down.

  “It helps me relax so I can get to sleep easier. I usually journal before bed, but I didn’t figure you’d want the light on.”

  “Well…” I adjust my uncomfortable erection “…you thought wrong.”

  “Okay. Sorry.” She rolls to her side, planting her ass against my hip. “I’ll journal next time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  My Baby Girl

  Dorothy

  “Oh … crap …” The alarm on my phone chimes. “Shit …” I cringe, peeling myself from Eli’s torso. How did this happen? He had surgery less than a month ago. And I’m on top of him!

  Before I can completely ease off his body, he blinks his eyes open.

  “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you? I don’t remember crawling onto your chest. It’s not like me. I just—”

  “It happened early on.”

  “Oh jeez.” I wrinkle my nose, leaning over to shut off my alarm. “So I woke you up?”

  “Yes.” He grins on a small yawn, covering it with his fist.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” He chuckles. “You’re a featherweight.”

  “Did you get back to sleep easily?”

  “No.”

  “Eli … I’m so sorry. I’m not used to sharing space. I’ve never shared my bed with someone else.”

  He runs his fingers through his dirty blond bedhead, leaving his arm resting behind his head, flexing his muscles.

  God … he’s so hot.

  “I struggled to stay awake.”

  I shake my head. “You mean, fall asleep.”

  “No. I could sleep forever with you on me like that, much like I can with Roman. But I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I wanted to smell your hair. Absorb the warmth of your body. Feel your heart close to mine.” He offers a sad smile. “I wanted to make a memory that time can’t erase.”

  I let his words swirl around in my head, finding a way to make sense of them, finding a place to keep them. But they don’t fit in my mind, so I tuck them away in my heart because that’s where they landed when he said them. “For the record…” I grab workout clothes from my closet “…loving you has been unexpectedly good.”

  “Good?” He chuckles.

  “Perfectly adequate.”

  “Doesn’t get any better than that.” He pushes to sitting.

  “Let me help.”

  “I’m good. Well, if you could unzip the bed, I’d be good. I just need to make my way to the bathroom.”

  I unzip his side of the bed. “How are you getting home? Don’t you have
brunch today?”

  “Mom is bringing brunch to my house. My sisters and their families are coming over too. This is really the day for you to skip work to come to brunch.”

  I help him get up and situated with his crutches. “Sounds like the perfect family gathering. Roman should be pretty excited. And Dr. Hathaway, I assume, will be there. So that’s good … oh … was she at your house last night? I mean … how did you coming over here go over with her?”

  “I don’t know.” His words are a bit strained as he takes his first few steps toward the bathroom with the crutches. “I didn’t tell her I was coming here. It was a spontaneous, last minute decision. They were at the park. But my mom went back there after she dropped me off here, so Julie found out eventually.”

  “I bet she was pissed off. I hope not at me. I didn’t invite you over last night.”

  Eli glances back over his shoulder. “If you didn’t look up to Julie, at least on a professional level, would you still think I should be with her?”

  “If you could love each other, then yes. For Roman … absolutely.”

  “Jesus …” he mumbles, continuing toward the bathroom.

  “What?” I follow him around the corner.

  “If you’re not going to let me be with you, then stop making it so easy to love you.” He pushes the door shut behind him.

  I leave. He seems a little upset. I thought we were okay, but maybe we’re not. When I get to work, Mom messages me to let me know that his dad picked him up.

  I really should not have fallen in love with Dr. Hawkins. What was I thinking?

  Elijah

  I need a shower.

  Instead, I receive the Sunday brunch welcome wagon as soon as my dad helps me inside my house. I feel like an errant child who just got dragged home from a friend’s house after breaking curfew. Except my mom took me to Dorothy’s house, so I have no reason to feel guilty.

  “Hey.” I give my family a tight-lipped smile as I enter the family room filled with my sisters, their families, Mom, Roman playing with his older cousins, and Julie.