Eli is passed out hard in the passenger seat when I parallel park in front of Sucre Bakery in Yountville, a picturesque town halfway between Napa and Blue Yonder. He doesn’t even stir when I turn off the engine.
I sigh, unbuckling my seatbelt.
Good thing I didn’t let him drive; he offered when we stopped for gas near Adam’s house, and I stared at the purple moons under his eyes as he topped off the gas tank, hip propped against the car.
“I’d rather not crash,” I said, then blurted, “You’re really not going to give me the list?”
He straightened, appraising me like he knew I’d been stewing. “We really can’t share?”
“We agreed to split up the tasks.”
“Okay.” It was nearly a sigh, his gaze latched on to me. “I’ll send you half of it. Fifty-fifty’s fair.”
He pulled out his phone as soon as we got in the car and my heart spiked seeing his name on my screen moments later, separate from the group thread we’ve shared. I expected him to fall headlong into his digital world after that, but instead he dropped his phone in his lap and turned on the radio, glancing at me. I took it for what it was—a silent promise that he’d be on his best behavior.
And he was, because he was unconscious five minutes later.
I should be grateful for it, but this scenario might be worse than a fully awake Eli Mora in my car for two and a half hours, including the hour-long standstill traffic he slept through. If he doesn’t wake himself up organically, he’s going to emerge from sleep in another dimension. I’ve encountered the full breadth of that experience, from gibberish conversations to sleepwalking, from happy, sleepy smiles to blank stares, like I’m a stranger.
It’s silly to be scared, but that’s the feeling pooling in my stomach. I stare at him, because maybe if I do it hard enough, he’ll wake up on his
own. And also because, quite honestly, he’s beautiful.
His knees are spread, arms folded over his chest, hands tucked under his biceps. In his lap are his phone and the ring boxes Adam handed over with a declarative “I can’t be responsible for anything significant right now.” His lashes are fanned out over his skin, his brows cinched together in a familiar, Manhattan-shaped frown.
I glance at the clock. Dammit. Our appointment is in five minutes. “Eli,” I say, but it’s more like a whisper.
His lashes flutter, then still. “Eli,” I try again.
Nothing, just his fingers twitching, a tell that he’s still deep in his dream world, busy even in his sleep.
With a frustrated groan, I lean on the console, getting as close as I dare.
“Eli.”
His eyes fly open and lock immediately with mine, like he knew where I was down to the millimeter.
I can tell right away he’s here, but not. His mouth tilts up, his eyes sun- touched and calm. I’m frozen in that look. It’s a memory, hundreds of them: the first time we met; the first time we kissed, and the thousandth; our two years at Cal Poly and the thirtieth day we lived together. He’s looking at me the way he hasn’t for so long. I stretch toward it on instinct, that forever- needy girl inside me wanting its warmth.
He shifts in his seat, angling toward me. In a flash, his palm is shaping my cheek, then palming the back of my neck to bring me closer. And it’s not warmth now, it’s heat. Something that will burn me if I don’t pull away.
But I can’t.
“There you are.” A smile melts across his face, slow and sleepy. “Hey, Peach.”
 |
It’s been more than five years since Eli’s called me that. Since he’s sounded like he cares. Maybe that’s what wakes him up, that he sounds so
unlike himself.
Or maybe it’s the way my hand flies up to his wrist in an iron grip.
Awareness snaps into his eyes and we hold like that, an inch apart, straddling the line between past and present before we both jerk back like we’re on fire.
My elbow cracks into the horn, which honks in unison with Eli’s head cracking against the window behind him.
“Fuck,” he gasps, curling in on himself as he cradles the back of his skull.
“Are you okay?” I yelp, my heart flying. This car is unbearably small right now. Between me and Eli, there have to be fourteen arms and legs in here.
He groans again, still folded over. I can’t tell if it’s in pain. The shells of his ears are bright red.
“I was asleep,” comes his muffled voice. I swallow hard. “Yes, obviously.”
He sits up slowly, rubbing at his head. “I didn’t mean to—”
“I know. You’re Ambien’s side effects in human form when you’re woken up.” I lean back as far as I can, my shoulders pressed against the window. “I shouldn’t have gotten so close. You—you weren’t waking up and our appointment is in five minutes.”
Rubbing the back of his head, he rips his gaze from my face and blinks out the window. People meander lazily along the wide sidewalk, drifting in and out of the various upscale storefronts along the street. The sun hangs high above us, laying its late summer rays onto Sucre’s glossy black door fifty feet away.
Eli inhales as his eyes find mine again, seeming to shake off the last vestiges of his sleep. I don’t know what I expect him to say, but it’s not, “You parallel parked on your own?”
It took me four tries, but he doesn’t need to know that. Let him believe I’ve improved over the years.
I pop my keys out of the ignition with shaky fingers, throwing open my door. “Yes. Are you good? ’Cause we need to go. Adam said we can’t be
late.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he says, his voice hoarse from disuse. “I—”
His phone dings. I stop, looking down on instinct, the sound vibrating down my spine. His screen is angled just enough that I see a calendar reminder before he picks it up and lets loose a low, foreboding, and all-too- familiar, “Shit.”
“What?”
My tone is carefully blank. It’s not the first time I’ve been handed a shit sponsored by Eli’s phone, so I hate myself for the spike of disappointment I feel. I know better.
“I forgot I have a thing right now.” Eli scrubs a hand through his hair, gripping the ends in frustration. “Shit.”
“A thing that doesn’t involve you eating cake?” “It’s a phone…thing. An appointment.”
I barely manage to suppress a sarcastic “of course it is.” It’s probably just some last-minute emergency for Luce. I knew he’d drop the ball; I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon, or to see the look of anguish on his face as he watched it roll away.
It takes me back to a few months after he started his job, when the mishaps began to pile up.
I still remember the first big thing he missed—Rory’s fancy birthday dinner. Rory was a colleague who technically fit the definition of “friend” since she seemed to enjoy my company, if not wholeheartedly. Luce had to stay late for Eli, and I understood—he couldn’t say no. But my stomach twisted as I told a table full of barely acquaintances that my boyfriend couldn’t make it after all. It was the first of many times, and soon the question of whether he even existed became a caustic joke that wrapped a resentful vine around my heart.
He rarely made it out, missing more nights than he showed up. I understood, truly I did. His exhausted relief made me feel like I was being good and easygoing. I’d been here before.
But my understanding became a rope, fraying under the weight of his career pressures and the panic they caused him. It left us both numb. He’d approach me with his latest scheduling conflict, his expression defeated. I felt vindicated because I had predicted this. I pretended it didn’t matter, that I was fine, even though I was essentially a broken heart in a trench coat. He noticed, at first pushing back—asking if I was okay, if I’d tell him if I wasn’t. But I couldn’t. I remembered telling my dad I wasn’t okay when I was eight, when I was eleven, and how he’d tried to find me a therapist, eventually outsourcing the search to a family friend because he just didn’t have the time. I remembered how much that had hurt him.
Eventually Eli stopped asking and I stopped inviting him places. I hid those ugly emotions to protect myself. And him, too.
I tried to pull him in one last time, though—that night in December is etched into my memory. I was back in San Francisco by New Year’s.
Wordlessly, I climb out of the car.
Eli meets me at the front bumper. “Georgia—”
“It’s fine,” I say, striding toward the bakery. “We don’t both need to be there anyway. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
I only get two steps in before his hand curls around my arm, towing me to a stop.
When I turn, I expect him to be apologetic or impassive, one of two emotions on this familiar spectrum. Instead, his eyes flash, an electric current that zips into me. There’s nothing numb or defeated about him right now.
“I do need to be there,” he insists. “I just—”
“You don’t owe me an explanation. Do what you need to do.”
His mouth firms. “Go in without me while I figure it out, but I will
figure it out.”
I swallow, thrown off. An Eli who’s willing to toss aside his work interruptions is so alien-like, but of course. He’s devoted to fixing this for Adam.
“I have to go inside right now or this woman is going to flambé me.” I’m very aware that his hands are still on me, and even more aware that I can’t pull myself away. Without an audience to reassure, there’s no reason to let him touch me.
I don’t move.
Eli’s gaze sweeps over my face, his brows pushing into a furrow. I used to rub my thumb right there until it went away. My hand twitches, wanting it now.
NO, Georgia.
Finally, he says, “It’s not what you think it is.” “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“It actually does,” he says, his voice low. “Very much.”
My heart does something painful, a quick, shock-like pulse. I remind myself again that this isn’t about me. It’s about him proving something to Adam while I bear witness to it.
I can’t let that hurt.
Eli’s phone starts buzzing. His eyes close briefly. Another perfect reminder, right on time.
I extricate myself from his grasp. “Let’s just chalk this one up to being on my half of the list. Take care of your thing, okay? I’ve got it.”
