Love and Other Words

by Christina Lauren

  With a strong grip, Elliot stopped me with a hand on my hip.

  “Shit,” he said. “Wait. Shit.”

  Suddenly he was pushing away, standing. I sat up, with fumbling words on my lips, but Elliot was already out the door.

  What had just happened?

  Did he…? Or did he just realize what I’d started and freaked out? In the end, did Elliot really want to be my boyfriend, or was he wrong about it all?

  I careened headlong into panic.

  This is how it starts. This is how the friendship goes from perfect and best friend ever to nothing but weird, dirty looks across the yard.

  I sat in the closet alone for an hour, staring at the pages of whatever book I’d slid from the big bookcase and not reading a single word.

  I would count to one thousand, and then I would go to his house and apologize.

  One… two… three…

  Twenty-eight… twenty-nine…

  Two hundred thirteen…

  “What are you reading?” His voice came from the doorway, but instead of walking in and flopping down next to me, he lingered there, leaning against the frame.

  “Hi!” I said too brightly, eyes looking anywhere but at his. I noticed he had changed his clothes. My face flamed hot and I looked down, staring at the book in my hands. The letters of the title slowly swam into a single word and I pointed at it lamely. “Um, I started Ivanhoe. No d.”

  When I looked up, confusion flickered across his face like a blink, and he stepped inside. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly, watching him stalk into the room. His lip turned up in a half-teasing smile. “Why do you say it like that? You’ve read this about fifty times.”

  “It’s just that it looks like you’re already about halfway through it.” Scratching his temple, he added quietly, “That’s impressive.”

  I blinked down to the page I’d randomly opened. “Oh.”

  It was tense and thick between us and it made my chest hurt. I wanted to ask him if I embarrassed him or… crap. Did I hurt him?

  “Macy…” he started, and I knew that voice. That voice was a let-me-down-easy voice.

  I tried to laugh but it came out as a gasp, going for casual but missing by about a mile. “I am so mortified, Elliot, seriously. I’m so sorry. Let’s not talk about it.”

  Elliot nodded, his eyes on the floor. “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry I did that, okay?” I whispered to my lap.

  “What? Macy, no —”

  “It will never happen again, I swear. I was just playing around. I know I’ve been all ‘let’s not be together because that could ruin things’ and then I went and did that. I’m so sorry.”

  He pulled a book off the shelf and I returned to Ivanhoe – starting from the beginning now – and read for two hours, but hardly understood a word. I blamed it on my state of mind. The idea that I might have hurt him, or embarrassed him, or made him angry ate at me like a drop of acid in my gut. It grew and gnawed at me and eventually had me so twisted inside that I felt like I might be sick.

  “Ell?”

  He looked up, eyes softening immediately. “Yeah?”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  A corner of his lip pulled up in a smile as he fought a laugh. “No.”

  I exhaled for what felt like the first time in a few hours. “Okay, good.” I opened my mouth and closed it again, not sure what else to say.

  He put his book down and moved closer. “You didn’t hurt me.” He searched my eyes, waiting. “Do you get what I’m telling you?”

  I watched as his eyebrows slowly lifted, and then he smiled that sneaky, sexy smile…

  “You mean you…” I made a circular motion with my hand, and he laughed.

  “Yeah. I…” He mimicked the motion, eyes teasing.

  My heart became a victorious monster in my chest, thrashing to climb out.

  I had made him come.

  “I was trying to make sure you went first,” he admitted in a low voice, “but the sound you made… when you asked me to move faster…” He swallowed, lifting a shoulder in a silent Oh well.

  “Oh.” I stared up at him, watching him fight the heated blush. “I’m sorry.”

  “Macy, don’t be sorry. I’m telling you it was sexy.” He looked at my lips, and his expression grew serious again. “It’s hard for me sometimes that we aren’t together. I never know where the lines are. I want to cross them all the time. We’ve kissed and touched, but then we’ll go back to being just friends and it’s confusing. What we did today? It didn’t even feel like enough for me.” He held his hands up, eyes wide. “I don’t mean you should do more. Just that I want it all with you. I think about it all the time.”

  I thought about how much I wanted that, too. And how, earlier, I wanted so much more than his body over mine, our clothes between us. I would have given him everything today. And still, the words that came out were “But I would die without your friendship.”

  He smiled and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “I would, too.”

  now

  thursday, november 23

  E

  lliot’s building is narrow, a faded turquoise stucco, and must have once been a beautiful Victorian before it was sloppily chopped up into four cramped apartments.

  The front door opens to a narrow hall on the right and a steep flight of steps leading to the upstairs apartments. Elliot lives in number four. Upstairs and to the right, he said. Each stair squeaks beneath my boots.

  His front door is flat brown, and before it is a thin doormat with the Dickinson quote The soul should always stand ajar.

  I lift my fist and knock.

  Is it possible I recognize the weight of his footsteps and the rhythm of his walk? Or is it that I know he’s the only one inside – because I’m early? Either way, my pulse accelerates so that by the time he turns the knob and swings the door open, I feel light-headed.

  Sometime in the past decade, Elliot figured out how to manage his hair and dress himself. He wears black jeans and a well-loved – either honestly or artificially – dark denim shirt rolled to his elbows. His feet are bare.

  Bare feet. Elliot’s apartment. Inside there somewhere is Elliot’s bed.

  If I’m not careful, I won’t even go home tonight.

  Holy shit, I’m a mess.

  “Macy,” he says, pulling me into a hug and drawing me inside with one arm around my shoulders. When he moves away, shutting the door behind me, the smile I see on his face could power a small city. “You’re here. You’re in my apartment!”

  Bending, he kisses my cheek, chastely. “Your face is so cold!”

  “I walked from BART. It’s chilly outside.” Heat radiates from the point where his lips pressed against my skin, and I put down the pie I brought so I can shrug out of my jacket.

  He pulls back a little, surprised. “You didn’t drive?”

  “I’m not a fan of cars,” I say, smiling.

  He takes my coat, quiet at this. “I could have picked you up.”

  Pressing a palm to his chest, I whisper, “You live six blocks from the station. I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m nervous.” He shakes his shoulders a little, as if loosening up. “I’m going to try to be cool about this – about tonight. I will probably fail.”

  I laugh, handing him the pecan pie I bought this morning. “It’s not your mom’s recipe, sadly. Are they coming down?”

  He shakes his head and then tilts it, beckoning me deeper inside. I follow him through a tiny living room into an even tinier kitchen. “They’re going over to Andreas’s future in-laws’ place up in Mendocino. We didn’t want the entire Petropoulos clan to descend on them; his fiancée, Else, is an only child and I don’t think they’d know what to do with all of us. It’s just Mom, Dad, Andreas, and Alex headed up there.”

  “Who’s coming today?” I ask, watching him slide the pie onto the counter. He’s managed to set up everything he needs in the small space, and it’s meticulous despite the s
ize.

  Elliot turns, leaning back against the counter, gripping it gently. The shirt stretches across his chest, spreading open at the collar, revealing the edge of his collarbone, the hint of chest hair. My heart punches me from the inside.

  “My friend Desmond,” he says, and reaches one hand to scratch his chin. “And Rachel.”

  I freeze, staring wide-eyed at him. Instinctively I look down to what I’m wearing and then back up at him.

  “Rachel is coming?”

  He nods, watching me carefully. “Will that make you uncomfortable?”

  I’m trying not to react too much outwardly, but I feel my brows pulling down, setting a frown on my forehead. “I don’t think so?”

  “That sounds an awful lot like a question,” he says quietly. Pushing off the counter, he takes two steps over to me. “I should have mentioned that. She doesn’t have local family. Or… very many local friends.”

  I look around the room we’re standing in. “Did she live here with you?”

  “No,” he says. “But she stayed here a fair amount.”

  Oh. I look at the stove and see images of this unknown Rachel standing there, scrambling eggs in her underwear while Elliot showered. I picture him pouring coffee for her after, kissing her bare, pale shoulder. I wonder if this burning jealousy is how he felt seeing me with Sean and knowing I slept in the same bed as he did, let him touch me in ways Elliot had only started to.

  Looking up at him, I say, “I’m trying not to have a fit about your ex-girlfriend coming over today.”

  Elliot lifts one shoulder. “I understand. I might not have planned this so well.”

  “It wasn’t intentional to have us both here to make me feel… jealous? Not even a little?”

  “I swear it wasn’t.”

  One look at his face, and I believe him. Elliot has occasionally been oblivious about how other girls in his life affected me, but he’s not cruel. Nodding, I look down at the floor. “Does she know who I am?”

  “Yes.”

  Another thought occurs to me. “Does she know I’ll be here?”

  He hesitates, and guilt spreads in a flush up his neck. “Yes.”

  “So she knew, but I didn’t? Elliot, seriously?”

  He lifts a hand, scratching the top of his head. “I wanted you to come.” His eyes go warm and soft, the way they do when he feels urgent about something. “I really, really wanted you to come. And I didn’t want her to be alone today. But I worried if I told you that you’d back out.”

  I probably would have. Nothing sounds more awkward than a holiday meal with Elliot’s ex-girlfriend.

  “Does she think we’re… back together?”

  “I don’t know what she thinks,” he says. “But it’s sort of moot, isn’t it?” He watches me carefully. “You’re engaged.”

  Guilt slices sharply through me, sending a jolt of pain to my ribs. I’m not ready to tell Elliot that I’m single, but I’m not okay letting him think I’m being chronically emotionally unfaithful, either. “Things there are… complicated.”

  He seems to marinate in these words for a few beats before reaching for my hand, tugging it. “Come on. Let me give you the tour.”

  The living room is longer than it is wide, and at the narrow end is a tall leaded-glass window looking out onto a surprisingly beautiful backyard. There are fig trees, plum trees, and a tiny, lush lawn – a rarity in the Bay Area.

  “The lawn is fake,” he explains. “The owner is insistent that we keep this outdoor space.”

  I look around the living room, at the bookcases that span from the floor to the ceiling, with a sliding ladder connected to the upper lip. His couch is a vibrant blue, and clean, with bright multicolored throw pillows. On the other end of the room, closer to the front door, he has placed a folding card table and set it with a linen tablecloth, placemats, and a tiny centerpiece of gourds and cranberries. I must have walked right past it when I came in, so excited and nervous I didn’t even notice.

  “Your place is so nice,” I whisper, tucking my hair behind my ear. Elliot watches it slide forward again anyway, and swallows. He probably knows I wore it down for him. “Tell me about your novel.”

  “High fantasy,” he says, looking around at his bookshelves. Then he looks back at me and his eyes shine with restrained amusement. “There are dragons.”

  “So you’re writing porn?” I joke, and he bursts out laughing.

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s really all you’ll give me?”

  Smiling, he takes my hand again. “Let’s finish the tour.”

  Through a door on the other side of the living room from the kitchen is a tiny hallway. To the left is his bedroom. To the right is his bathroom.

  The bathroom has a small tub and no shower, just a smooth hose attached to the faucet and hanging limply downward, a neck bent in defeat.

  “You don’t have a shower,” I say, walking back out and feeling the sudden intimacy of being in his space. It’s all so quintessentially him: sparse furniture other than floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with books.

  Elliot watches me as I lean against the hallway wall. The space is tiny, and he seems to fill it with his height and the solid width of his chest.

  “I don’t know if I could handle only having a bathtub,” I babble.

  “I call it a shath,” he says.

  “That sounds dirty.”

  I’m staring at his chest but hear the smile in his voice: “I think that’s why I call it that.”

  He takes another step closer. “It still feels surreal to have my own place. Like it’s some small miracle that I live here alone. It’s so different from how I grew up.”

  “Do you like living alone?” I ask.

  He hesitates for the duration of three pounding heartbeats in my ear. “How honest do you want me to be here?”

  I look up at him. Oh. I think what’s coming will probably wreck me, but I ask for it anyway: “I always want you to be honest.”

  “Okay,” he says. “In that case, I like living alone, but would rather live with you. I like sleeping alone, but would rather have you in my bed.” He reaches up, running a finger over his lip, thinking about his next words, and his voice comes out lower, and quieter. “I like having friends over for Thanksgiving, but would rather it just be the two of us, doing our first Thanksgiving as a couple, eating turkey off the bone, cuddling on the floor together.”

  “In our underwear,” I say without thinking.

  His first reaction to this is quiet shock, but it slowly melts into a smile that heats my blood, sets something simmering beneath my skin. “You said things are ‘complicated,’ huh?”

  I’m saved from my crumbling resolve to keep quiet about Sean when there’s a knock on the door behind him. Elliot stares at me, some urgent light in his eyes, as if he knows I’m about to tell him something important.

  I lift my chin to the door after we’ve stood there staring at each other for nearly ten silent seconds. “You should probably get that.”

  With a small growl of defeat, he turns and opens the door to let the other two guests in.

  Desmond enters first. He’s shorter than Elliot but thick with muscle, with smooth dark skin and a smile that seems permanently fixed in his eyes. He hands Elliot a bowl with a colorful salad inside and claps him on the back, thanking him for inviting him.

  Rachel steps in next, but I’m distracted from her entrance by Desmond coming over to me, introducing himself in a thick Aussie accent. “I’m Des. Nice to meet you.”

  “Macy,” I say, shaking his hand and adding awkwardly, “Yes, so glad we’re finally meeting.”

  In truth, I have no idea how long Elliot’s known him. My mouth feels dry, hands clammy.

  I look up and find Rachel staring at me. She blinks away, smiling tightly at Elliot as she waits for an introduction.

  “Rachel,” Elliot says, guiding her forward. “This is Macy.”

  She has short dark hair, bright blue eyes, and a dustin
g of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. When she smiles this time, it looks at least partly genuine, and reveals a set of bright, even teeth. She’s completely lovely.

  “Hi, Rachel.” I reach out and she returns the handshake, limply.

  “It’s really nice to meet you,” she says, and smiles again.