For all the life experience she does have, she’s still so innocent in so many ways. I bet if we got to know each other a little better, the gaps in our knowledge, our lives would probably overlap pretty well with what the other has experience with, what they’ve been through. Seems to me like between us we’d be pretty well-rounded, nice and balanced.
“Is this how you are with all your friends?” she asks me, tilting her head, lifting her chin, eyeing me from closer than we’ve ever been, but nowhere near as close as I wish she was.
I bite my lower lip, shake my head at her slowly. “Just you,” I tell her.
“So I’m getting preferential treatment?” she asks. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“You’re not getting anything but the best from me,” I tell her, and she lets out a small giggle.
“Well then,” she says. “I should have put on something fancier for you.”
My eyes drag over her frame, all the skin that’s visible in this outfit, her chest, arms. Shake my head at her again, slow like before. “You look perfect.”
Her face heats from the simple words, and damn if that just doesn’t get old, no matter how often I see it.
“Thank you,” she whispers, then turns to the fridge, separating us. “I know you’re not twenty-one for another…however many days, but something tells me that hasn’t stopped you from drinking?”
I smirk at her, and she nods knowingly before continuing. “Well, I don’t really drink all that much, but I do have a bottle of wine, some sangria mix, and a couple of hard lemonades.” She jerks her thumb toward the stainless steel doors to her side. “And I picked up some beer in case you liked that? Not sure what you usually drink?”
I tilt my head side to side, one eye squinted shut as I weigh out my answer. “If it’s my choice? Gin on ice, with lemon. Or a snakebite.”
“A…snakebite?” She sounds weary.
“I should’ve just said whiskey,” I tell her.
“Why does that sound so much more intimidating than whiskey?” How is her face so cute?
“Well technically it’s a shot of whiskey—Canadian whiskey—with some lime.”
She scrunches her nose, shakes her head. “Yeah that sounds like a lot more than I can handle. And I definitely didn’t get whiskey, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all good. I like beer, water, Red Bull, whatever you’ve got. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d be down with just hanging out, you and me, no alcohol.”
Her head falls to one side, puzzled, watching me. “That’s fine,” she says, but she says it like she’s unsure, a bit confused.
“I don’t need you thinking anything that happens tonight is for any reason other than we both wanted it.” I shoot her a wink, slide my hand up her spine and to the back of her neck as she quickly busies herself with grabbing some cans of water out of the fridge, holding one to the side of her neck for just a second, trying to cool down. Can’t keep my mouth from tilting up, but I did try.
She leads me to the couch, my hand still on her upper back until we sit down at opposite ends. Damn this thing is comfy.
The TV is already on and queued up to the right episode, where we left off last night after she passed out in the middle of the one we were in. She must’ve rewound back to the last point she remembers.
When she didn’t answer my texts, they weren’t even marked asreadtwo minutes later, I figured it out. We’re normally firing them off back and forth nonstop. I paused the show—it didn’t feel right to keep watching without her now that this has become our thing—and fucked around on my phone until I fell asleep. I wanted to tease her about it today, but she’s told me she gets up crazy early in the morning, and now I just want to know why. Understand more about her, her life, why she does the things she does.
“So Mark let you out of the house, huh?” That twinkle is back in her eye, and I hope it never leaves.
Had to make an excuse to the guys to get out of whatever the fuck they were planning tonight. Sent a text to the group chat telling the boys I was meeting someone from work tonight (not the most original attempt at covering my tracks, I didn’t plan that one out very well), but Mark banged down my door anyway to dish out some abuse before he gave up on me for the night.
I laugh a little. “Yeah…” I drag out the word. “Oh that reminds me.”
I open my phone, turn on airplane mode, and Ellie watches on, puzzled.
“Going somewhere?” she asks.
“It’s just so they can’t find me later, if they get a couple drinks in them and get curious, wanna come crash whatever I’m doing.” Her brows are raised, like she can’t fathom the possibility, she’s trying to digest it. “It’s happened before,” I tell her. “A lot, actually.”
“How would they find you?” she asks. “And how does that stop them from finding you?”
“Oh shit,” I say, turning airplane mode back off and opening up the Find My app. I scroll through the list of friends in there, all their dots at various points around us on the map. “See all these people? Those are all my friends that can see my location. And if I put it in airplane mode, it stops my location from being tracked temporarily.”
