“Oh. My. God.”
Elijah gives her a two-finger salute with the spatula. “Morning.”
“You stayed over?” Her eyes nearly pop out of her head as she turns to me.
“Nothing happened!” I blurt, mortified.
Elijah hums. “Unless you count emotionally rescuing her from a creep, watching over her like a guardian angel, and making pancakes from scratch... then yeah, nothing happened.”
Mia blinks. “This is so much better than the dating app guy. Can you be her boyfriend instead?”
I groan. Elijah, of course, smirks as if this is the best moment of his week.
“She’s working on it,” he says with a wink.
“I hate both of you,” I mutter, but my cheeks hurt from smiling.
Mia hands me a coffee and waves a hand dramatically. “I’ll go before I make this more awkward. But later? Full debrief. And I swear, if this ends up being a slow burn that lasts five more chapters, I will lose it.”
She turns and leaves with one last, exaggerated look over her shoulder.
I close the door and turn to Elijah, who’s now smug as hell.
“She’s not wrong,” he says, sliding a pancake onto a plate. “You should really consider making this a fast burn.”
“Oh my god,” I mutter, trying to hide my blush as I take a sip of the coffee. “Please shut up.”
He leans over and kisses my cheek. “Can’t. I like watching you smile too much.”
“By the way, how does she know that your date was a disaster?” – Elijah asks me while tapping his chin
“Because she has experience with this kind of stuff?” – I reply, but honestly, I think my friend is a witch or something.
“That’s true” – he says smiling while prepares our plates
The pancakes are done. Plates are stacked. The air smells like butter and cinnamon. But we haven’t touched our food yet.
Elijah leans against the counter, coffee in hand, watching me in that quiet way he does when he’s thinking too much.
I sit across from him at the table, fingers wrapped around my mug like it might keep the rest of me from shaking.
“Hey,” he says gently. “You okay?”
Elijah sets down his coffee, and the look in his eyes almost undoes me. “Ava...”
“I’m scared,” I whisper. “Because you matter. Because you see me. And when someone really sees you, they can hurt you. Break you.”
He crosses the space between us in two steps, kneels down beside my chair, and takes my hand.
“I get it. More than you know,” he says softly. “I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to convince myself to stay away, thinking maybe space was what you needed. But I was dying inside, Ava. Every minute you weren’t around felt... wrong.”
I look down at our hands. His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist gently, like he’s memorizing it.
“I don’t need space,” I admit, my voice cracking. “I need you. Even if I’m terrified.”
He leans his forehead against my knee, breathing in slowly. “Then be scared. Be unsure. I’ll take all of it. Just don’t shut me out.”
Silence wraps around us for a moment—soft, full of everything we’re too tired to hide anymore.
