“No,” he responded.
“Then pay the man,” she commanded playfully, and Elias chuckled.
He paid for the dessert, and she retrieved it from the vendor. They walked around and checked out some booths selling goods. Eri found a few stickers she wanted to add to her laptop between feeding him bites of ice cream, and Elias didn’t miss the way her eyes would drop momentarily to his lips when she did.
With her stickers secured in a little bag hanging off her wrist, they looked at a few more booths as they finished the ice cream, but neither found anything else that caught their attention.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a new tattoo,” Eri said as they walked around the pond.
“Any ideas what you want?” Elias asked, draping his arm over her shoulders.
“Sort of. I’ve been playing with some graphics to create it, but it isn’t finished yet. I’ll show it to you when I finish, and you can help me tweak it before you do it. If you have time.”
“Let me know when, and we’ll make it happen.” He was booked out, but he’d do it whenever she wanted him to.
They made an entire lap around the pond before heading to his bike. Elias unlocked both of their helmets, helping her put hers on. He got on the motorcycle, helped her on, and whenher arms were wrapped securely around his waist, he exited the parking lot.
He took the longest route back to her apartment, enjoying her arms wrapped around him and the subconscious stroke of her thumb over his abdomen every so often. Elias didn’t make it a habit of riding with someone. Being on his bike was where he lost himself, where he felt peaceful, and he seldom wanted to share that with anyone.
But there had always been this desire to ride with Eri. Now that he was, he would take her for a ride as often as she wanted, as often as he could talk her into it. Feeling her pressed against his back, arms anchored around him, the trust she was putting in him to keep her safe as they rode, compounded with her slowly letting her walls down, were all steps towards where Elias saw them going.
15
Eri leaned against the door frame, drink in hand, as she watched the current game of dominoes turn damn near vicious, but she wasn’t surprised. The four men at the table were competitive, and when money was added to the mix, it was enough to make anyone turn ruthless if they didn’t want to lose.
Elias hadn’t been kidding when he said he was having a small get-together. Other than the seven who typically hung out, there were only three other people she’d been introduced to. There was Christa, who worked for Elias. Jordan was nineteen and had taken Elias on as a mentor while learning to work on motorcycles. And then there was Cade, a friend from high school he still hung out with when he could. Mickey had been invited but already had other plans she’d committed to.
“They had to make it worse by betting,” Avian said, stopping beside Eri with a plate of fruit and desserts.
Elias’ dining room table and countertops were covered in food and drinks for the occasion. They’d moved his coffee table out of the living room, and it sat against the wall in the kitchen, replaced by a folding table. His dining room chairs had been moved into the living room for extra seating but were now occupied around the table.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Eri responded, stealing a grape from Avian’s plate. “The only time they don’t bet on whatever they’re playing is if we’re playing with them.”
“Well, whatever we play next needs to be a lot less competitive,” Avian answered before walking into the livingroom and taking a seat on the couch closest to where Marco was sitting.
Eri wasn’t sure what they were playing next. There were so many games stacked beside the armchair behind Elias. But she knew their game would end eventually, and having another one ready would keep them from trying to start another round of dominoes.
She pushed off the door frame and headed across the living room. As she bypassed him, Elias reached out and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his free arm around her waist.
“I was starting to think you forgot where your seat was,” he whispered in her ear.
“I doubt you’d let me forget,” she responded, taking a drink from her cup.
Elias chuckled as he picked his dominoes up from the table. Eri studied them before looking at the ones laid out on the table. She took the blank out of his hand and placed it back down, setting her hand on top of it so he wouldn’t play it.
The play went around a few times, and when Ricardo, who was playing last before it came back around to Elias, put down his second-to-last domino, Eri flipped over the double blank she had under her hand.
“The board is locked. The three of you have twenty points combined in your hands; he wins,” she announced. “No rematches,” she added when Javier opened his mouth. “Pick something else to play.” The room laughed as Ricardo put the dominoes away, and Elias grabbed his winnings.
“Let’s play Bad Decisions,” Jordan suggested.
“You make plenty of those,” Elias told the teenager.
“Yeah, yeah,” he responded, getting up to look through the games to grab the box.
Javier moved his chair to the other side of the table with Ricardo, and Nesiah moved to sit on his lap; Avian moved to sit on Marco’s lap to allow the other three to occupy the couch.
Eri had never played the game, but the rules were straightforward: answer the question on the card you pull. Cade suggested that if they didn’t want to answer the question, they could opt out of it by taking a shot, which Elias vetoed, reminding the other man that Jordan wasn’t of drinking age. Instead, Christa suggested they had to pay a certain amount for every question they opted out of, and the person who opted out the least got to take the entire pot after the game. Eri refrained from sighing because a game that should not have been overly competitive was likely about to turn that way.
