He turns away from me and goes back to the table to get the plate of black and whites again, then he turns on his tea kettle. I don’t move, just watch him as he flits around and tries to burn off his own nervous energy.
“You like to say that I can’t take a compliment,” I point out. “But look at yourself—this reaction is weird even for you.”
He turns back and looks at me, staring so sharply into my eyes it almost makes me take a step back. I can’t read him. He’s watching me but doesn’t say anything. He’s holding something in, and I don’t know what it is, the air filling with that heaviness that sometimes threatens to permeate the easygoing nature of our friendship. It’s hard not to wonder why he’s had such a sudden turn. Why would he do something so out of the way and nice for me and then in a flash want to minimize it?
And I can’t pretend, when I see these rare pieces of him—the vulnerable, joyous, kind pieces—that I don’t feel like there’s something more between us. I can’t pretend like I don’t see all the ways he’s beautiful when he lets his doors open a crack.
And for some reason, right now, with this button held tight in my fist, I’m suddenly desperate to see more of it.
“Hearn said you minimized your plans for the roof,” I venture, knowing I’m playing with fire. I can’t help but wonder how much our friendship has needled at him the way it’s started to needle at me. I’m confused, and I have so many more confusing things looming, but in this moment I’m incapable of not pulling at the thread. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me. Maybe it’s that button. But I need to know.
He doesn’t answer immediately. He’s watching me, gauging. He purses his lips, and it’s distracting.
“I talked to Dane,” he finally says.
“You talked toDane?” I ask, mind whirring. She wasn’t with us when Hearn mentioned Eli’s changes, but surely if Dane had talked to him, she would’ve mentioned it.
“I asked her not to tell you,” he says, immediately able to see where my mind is wandering. “I didn’t want you to think I was looking for credit. I genuinely just wanted to do the right thing, and since I knew she’d already been looking at my plans—because of you—” At that he smirks, and I’m almost relieved to get that openness back instead of the weight of whatever’s sitting between us. I’m relieved to see that familiar one side of his grin curl up more than the other. “So I just asked herwhat she thought I should do to keep everything as unobtrusive as possible.”
“You did that for me.”
It’s not a question anymore. All these things, these seemingly small but actually huge things, they’re for me. I squeeze the button tighter in my hand—the button he went searching for on a fool’s mission. For me.
“Yeah, I did it for you,” he admits quietly.
“Why?” I ask.
He rubs a hand over his face, like he’s still searching for the answer. Like maybe he knows the answer but doesn’t want to quite admit it yet, even to himself. And maybe so he doesn’t have to look at me anymore while he responds.
There’s too much distance between us, and I can feel myself unconsciously walking over to him. My heart’s beating faster, and everything else that’s usually taking up space in my mind has dissipated. There’s only Eli and me, only this question hanging in the air. There’s only his breath and mine.
“You do things for everyone else,” he finally says, as though that’s a reason and not just the basic facts of my life.
“Trust me, I know that,” I chuckle. “But why didyoudo all of this for me?”
I’m standing in front of him now, in between the table and the counter, bracketed by his kettle on one side—now boiling and whistling at us—and the black-and-white cookies on the other. I move the kettle off the hot burner, and silence once again fills the room.
He sighs, and I can see it’s an effort for him. He did all these things on impulse, because that’s how he moves through the world. He wanted to find the button, so he just went for it. He probably threw on some long pants so he wouldn’t get scratched and set off for the West Side Highway without considering why. He probably ran into Dane in the elevator and asked her,Hey, what would you do if you were me?He didn’t mean to be so thoughtful.
But he was thoughtful.
And now I’m asking him to consider why.
I think I know why.
And instead of finding that scary anymore, I now find that it feels inevitable. For once I’m not thinking about J. I’m not thinking about what comes next. It’s only me and Eli and the way he’s not looking at me, like if he does, he’ll have to admit it too.
“Why, Eli?” I say, my voice quiet even amid the silence.
He fidgets. He picks at the side of a cookie and eats it. He drums his fingers on the table. He’s deciding.
And I wait him out. I need to hear him say whatever he’s thinking, and I’m going to let him cycle through all his discomfort to get there, to get back to the open part of himself that I like so much but that is so often hard for him to let others see.
But finally he sighs and looks back up at me again.
“When someone does something nice for you, you always seem surprised,” he says, his eyes on me a challenge now.
“Iamsurprised,” I admit.
