That Thing Between Eli & Gwen

by J. J. McAvoy

  “And if I was?” He looked back toward me like he was impressed, even leaning back.

  “Welcome back, Dr. Davenport. I wasn’t expecting you to return from the dark side for another few days. I guess all you needed was a GP boost.”

  “A GP boost?”

  “Don’t pretend like you don’t know whose initials those are. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go take a selfie in front of the mural.” He smiled, walking past me.

  “You're an idiot.”

  “You love me anyway!” He put up a peace sign as he walked.

  Shaking my head at him, I stayed in my spot. I would wait until the crowd was gone and the excitement went down, and then I would go to her. For the moment, I was more than happy to just watch her shine.

  Guinevere

  I felt like I had been smiling and getting blinded by flashes forever, but watching a few patients take photos in front of the mural made up for it all. I sat down, staring up at it, practically amazed with it myself. Not really the painting, but with the oath on it. I felt like whoever read it would really believe in the love affair between art and science. Both were in each other, really.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Looking toward him, I shrugged. “My boyfriend might beat you up.”

  He snickered. “Your boyfriend does deserve to have his ass handed to him for pushing you away, and for yelling at you in the rain. It’s only romantic if the kiss comes afterward, right?”

  He was trying to joke, but I could tell he didn’t find it funny.

  “I’m sorry, I was just upset about—”

  “I know,” I finished for him. “At first I was confused and upset, then I heard, and the first thing I wanted to know was if you were okay…well, that’s a lie. I wanted to know if Toby was okay, though I knew he wouldn’t be. But I was worried about you, too.”

  He laughed, taking my hand, holding it in his and kissing the back of it. “I’ll be fine. Toby, he’s in pain. Will be for the rest of his life. I just need to remember there will be more Mollys, and to try harder to help them in the future.”

  “In the future, will you tell me more?” I asked softly. “I know I can’t understand everything, but I would hate if you felt the need to give me a censored version of what your day is really like. You’ve never talked about your work in detail to me before.”

  “I’ll try, but the reason I don't say much is because when I’m with you, I like that I forget about everything else.”

  “Then do you have time to run away with me?” It sounded so cheesy saying it like that. From the look on his face, I could see he agreed.

  “Run away with you?”

  “That came out wrong. Actually, no. It came out right. My father had a heart attack a few weeks ago and didn’t tell me. So I want to go home, and was kind of hoping you would go with me…if you want.”

  “When did you find out? About your father, I mean.”

  “The same day Molly passed. A lot of things happened. If you don’t want to go, it’s fine. I just thought I would offer, but you have work—”

  “I’ll go,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Let’s run away to Cypress.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cypress, Alaska Welcomes You

  Eli

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was sure no one else could, either. She held on to the arm of the chair like a cat held on to a shower curtain, her eyes closed shut. The plane shook again and she bit her bottom lip, taking deep breaths.

  “You don’t fly home often?”

  “I drive.”

  “You drive from New York to Alaska?” She had to be kidding me.

  She nodded. “It’s not that bad. It takes about three, almost four days, and I stop to take pictures of scenery and whatnot.” The plane shook again, and she looked like she was going to cry.

  I need to calm her down, I thought, placing my hand over hers. Only then did she open her eyes for the first time since we had taken off. She hadn’t been that bad on the first plane—the ride was so smooth she went to sleep—but since this was a much smaller one, she could now feel every bump through the clouds. “Why is your acrophobia this bad?” Talking often helped.

  “When I was eight, my father and brother went hiking up the mountain trail. I was angry they'd left me behind, and even more upset that they thought I couldn’t do it. So I packed my bag with Skittles—the purple kind, two water bottles, my flashlight, tissues, and a compass. I figured I was only about an hour behind them, and left while my mother was finishing up some work. I felt so proud of myself as I walked through the woods alone. I wasn’t scared of anything in the day. I was halfway up the trail when the sun went down, and then I started to panic because I couldn’t find my dad, and wandered off the trail. Long story short, I was lost up there for seven hours, staring down at all of Cypress, petrified I would slip off and no one would ever find me. So, heights make me think I’m on top of the mountain again.”

  “So let’s think of some other place else to be in your head.” Leaning over to her, I brushed her hair back and whispered into her ear, “You aren’t on top of a mountain. You're with me, in bed—”

  “Naked?” Her eyebrow rose.

  “Not yet,” I said softly. “I slowly unbutton your shirt, kissing from your neck down between your breasts. At my touch your nipples are hard, and when I take them between my teeth, you moan so loudly our neighbors are jealous. You clench your legs closed and I don’t know why, baby, because you want me to touch you there…kiss you there…lick every inch of you. Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I can hear you now. You’re screaming my name, ‘Eli…Eli,’ and God almighty, Guinevere, you taste so good I don’t ever want to stop. I could spend hours between your legs, just teasing you…tasting all of you. I love how wet you are for me, baby, how your body trembles at my fingertips. You think I control you? With every moan, I am at your mercy. You would not believe the things I want to do to you, your body. It makes me so hard it pains me. Please, let me have you. Let me fuck you 'til you can’t see straight any more, Guinevere.”

  She gasped. “Please.”

  “Your body is mine tonight?” Every night.

  “Yes.”

  “And so I spread your legs, slowly filling you… Fuck,” I moaned in her ear. “Jesus, baby, you are so tight.”

  “Eli.” She bit back a moan.

  “Gripping your waist, I’m not stopping until I can count on both hands how many times you come for me. I moan at the sight of you biting your finger and grabbing your own breast…goddamn, you are beautiful. It drives me insane when you look at me with those big, beautiful brown eyes of yours. You come, screaming my name, and it’s still not enough. Why do you torture me like this, Guinevere? How is it possible I want you even more? With every thrust deeper and harder inside you, I want you more. God, and that sound, you’re moaning, I’m moaning, the bed is shaking under us, slamming against my wall. Can you hear it? When I kiss your lips and you grab my hair, moving along with each fuck, I lose control. Your lips, your tongue: that is what real ecstasy tastes like. Ramming myself in again, and again, and again, until you cry out, your nails working their way down my back—”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.”

  “No,” she cried desperately, her eyes fully open, her hands still gripping the seat, but for a whole different reason.

  Grinning, I turned back up front as we prepared to land.

  “I will find a place for us to continue this, Dr. Davenport, and it will be more showing than telling.” She said before leaning back again, clearly frustrated.

  I placed my hand on her thigh, squeezing lightly. “If I fuck you in the forest and no one is around to hear it, how loud will you sound?”

  She bit her lip, but didn’t say a word.

  She was so fun to torture, and I couldn’t wait to see how she decided to pay me back…because after talking to her like that, I was in desperate need for
her again.

  “So again, your parents’ names are?” I asked as if nothing had happened when we got off the plane, grabbing both her carryon and mine.

  “My mother’s name is Ankia and my father’s name is Masoa, but you should just stick with Mr. and Mrs. Poe,” she said.

  We headed toward the front desk where Taigi rested in his carrier on the ground, waiting for us to pick him up.

  “Gwen. Guinevere!” The woman in charge of him waved.

  Guinevere stopped, tilting her head, trying to remember the woman with short auburn hair and hazel eyes. “Yes?” she said, still confused.

  “It’s me, Chloe. Chloe Drake,” the woman said.

  Guinevere’s eyes almost fell out of her head. “No way.” She stepped back, looking over the woman again. “You look amazing, Chloe.”

  “Thank you, I lost 97 pounds since we last saw each other.” She lifted her arms.

  Guinevere clapped for her, then turned to me. “Eli, this my old high school friend, Chloe Drake. Chloe, this is my…boyfriend, Eli Davenport.”

  She looked at me wide-eyed, then shook my hand when I extended it.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said to her.

  “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Davenport. Welcome to Cypress.” She handed Guinevere Taigi's leash.

  He just yawned, licking his nose.

  “Your parents are already waiting for you out front.”

  “Thank you,” Guinevere said to her.

  “So, I’m guessing you didn’t tell anyone we were dating?” I whispered to her as we headed to the front exit.

  She shook her head. “I told my mother…so I’m sure my father knows. I’m not really sure how they feel about it, though. I was supposed to be married to someone else.”

  The thought of that bothered me. “Did they like Sebastian?” I wished the man would just disappear, along with any memories of him.

  “They weren’t thrilled about him. I guess they clearly saw what I didn’t. So they'd better like you.”

  “No pressure.” My mother and brother were already in love with her; I wondered if her parents would be that pleased with us.

  The second we stepped outside, all I could see were tall, deep green trees, around the bottom of which grew more green grass and wildflowers. In the distance, a mountain range stood high against the cloudy white and blue sky. None of the buildings anywhere stood any higher than the trees. The whole place looked like it was taken out of Nature Magazine, or at the very least belonged as someone’s screensaver. It was beautiful.

  “Gwen!”

  We both turned to our right.

  Taigi broke free of his leash, running with everything he had into the older man's arms and licking all over his face.

  Her father stood around the same height as me, maybe an inch taller. His skin was tan, his black and gray hair cut short, his face clean-shaven, and around his neck hung a beaded necklace with an arrowhead.

  Beside him, a woman shorter than all of us with short black hair that stopped at her shoulders and smooth brown skin pulled Guinevere into a hug, kissing her cheeks. “Welcome home, sweetheart,” her mother said, unable to let go of her arm. She looked young to be a mother and Guinevere had at least five inches on her, obviously getting her height from her father.

  “And this one might be?” He nodded to me, brushing back Taigi’s fur. His dark eyes stared—no, glared into me, starting from my feet up to my face, and then back down again.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Dr. Eli Davenport, my boyfriend. Eli, these are my parents,” she introduced us.

  Before I could speak, her father spoke up again.

  “You moved on pretty quickly, don’t you think?” He looked to Guinevere.

  “Would you prefer I cried and ate ice cream every day for the rest of the year?” she challenged him.

  “Don’t mind them.” Her mother took my hand. “Welcome to Cypress, Eli. I hope the trip wasn’t bad. Gwen here has an awful fear of heights.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, and no, it was all right. We just talked. I was actually nervous about coming here, especially for the reason your husband brought up.” I addressed him directly, saying, “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

  “I don’t like him, he’s all city boy. I can smell it. Come on, Taigi.” He frowned and turned, taking Taigi along.

  “Dad, that’s not funny.” Guinevere went after him.

  Her mother just laughed at them and, holding on to my arm, walked with me to their truck.

  “I hope you really like my daughter, Eli, because he’s going to put you through the wringer. It's safe to say that after what happened, he trusts no man around our Gwen.”

  Well, this is just going to be a good ol' time.

  “I do—I really like her,” I said to her, stopping just short of the car as Guinevere and her father talked about something.

  He pulled her into a one-armed hug, and of course she couldn’t stay angry, even though she was trying her best to do so.

  “I do. Really, ma’am. I’m not sure if she told you, but I would rather just get it out in the open now. It was my fiancée that hers ran off with. Are you going to put me through the wringer, too?”

  She smiled. “I guess time will tell. You are here for the whole weekend, after all.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was in for.

  Guinevere came back to where I stood. “I’m sorry about him, he’s just being…well, being my dad. We are ready to go. Have you ever sat in the back of a pickup truck?”

  “It’s fine, and no, I haven’t.”

  Whatever he was going to throw at me, I didn’t really mind.

  Guinevere

  “Wow,” he whispered as we drove farther and farther from the Cypress airport. My home, like most houses there, was in the forest. The way was lined on both sides with thick, moss-covered Sitka spruce trees. He stared up at them like we had traveled into a whole new world, and in a way, we had. The sun peeked through the tree line above us, and everything glowed. It was a…

  “A moment of peace in a life of chaos,” he said, his eyes still on the sky above us.

  “I was just going to say that. How did you know?”

  “You said it once, in an interview.” He looked back at me. “It was for the Forbes article on upcoming artists a while back. They asked you how you liked it in New York, and you said it was nice, but you missed Cypress. For you, it was a place of peace in a life of chaos. I didn’t understand then, but I think I do now.”

  “Eli, that interview was almost four years ago.”

  “It was.” He smirked, mostly to himself, taking my hand and not going into it further.

  I squeezed his hand, smiling to myself. “I have this image of you up late, researching me.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a stalker at all. It was after our debate at NYU. I saw how all the students were in love with you, and I wanted to know more. Then you showed me your gallery, and I wanted to know what other people thought, too.”

  “Oh no,” I groaned. “I got a few really bad reviews.”

  “Screw Jeffery Carlyle from the New York Times. Only a man with a defective heart could be such a critic of your work,” he said.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s what Mr. D’Amour said about you.”

  “I wasn’t a critic, I was just…” He tried to think of the word.

  “A critic?”

  “Uneducated. You can hardly blame me for that. Once I knew a paintbrush from a canvas, I was able to realize you really are talented…stop smiling at me like that.” He leaned toward me, laughing, and rested his head in my lap. “Honestly, though. When I first saw it, I was moved, and you keep moving me.”

  “Why can’t I see his head?” my dad yelled.

  Eli quickly sat back up.

  I wanted to jump out of the car. “Dad!”

  “Sorry, sir.” Eli held me back as I turned to the man whistling in the front seat like he hadn’t just killed our moment.

  “This was a bad
idea,” I muttered to myself.

  “Why? You don’t think I can take it?” he asked when we pulled to a stop. “Don’t worry about your dad, Guinevere. Whatever he throws, I’ll do my best. Plus, look at this face. How could anyone hate it?”

  Rolling my eyes at him, I stood up.

  He jumped out first, reaching up to help me.

  “She’s been jumping out of things since the day she was born; she doesn’t need your help, city boy,” my father called out, letting Taigi off his leash.

  “It’s called being a gentleman, Dad,” I said to him, jumping down on my own.

  “It’s called being a—”

  My mother gave him a look, and he didn’t finish his sentence…thankfully.

  Eli brought our bags out from the car.

  I turned back to him. “You can still run. The airport is only twelve miles from here, that would be a breeze for you,” I said quickly.

  “I’m not running from your father, Guinevere, especially after only a few verbal jabs. By the way, your house is beautiful,” he said, stopping to take it in.

  Our house was a large log home that sat on the right end of the lake. It was only when you stood at the lake's edge that you could see all the other homes around it. The mountains hung in the background. I took a deep breath, enjoying the warmth.

  “Gwen!”

  I jumped back when three grown men in plaid shirts and mountain boots ran toward me, lifting me up.

  “Guys! Down, now!” I yelled at them as they threw me up.

  They laughed, catching me and putting me back on my feet.

  Eli’s eyebrow lifted up as his gaze shifted to each of them.

  I wished I could read his mind. “Eli, this is—”

  “Boys, don’t mind the city slicker. Come in, we've got supper ready,” my father yelled from the door.

  I just looked up to the sky. Kill me now!

  “City Slicker, good luck.” They patted him on the shoulder on their way into the house.

  “And they are?” Eli pointed to them.

  “Okay, crash course, my dad most likely invited them to make you uncomfortable. The boy with the longish brown-blond hair is Jeremy Lawrence, he’s 23, and was Stevie’s first boyfriend. Never bring her up, because he still has a thing for her. He’s now the town mechanic. Malik Washington is the one with the short, curly afro; he’s the same age as me and works for the Cypress Police. Last, and most important, is Roy. My dad’s been trying to set me up with Roy Griffin since we were kids. He’s like the golden boy after my dad's heart, and he teaches photography at the high school,” I finished, taking in another breath, and yet he didn’t seem one bit concerned. “Did you get all of that?”