Chapter 3
Elliot
Who are you,Elliot Wittier, and what do I have to do to keep you?
It was a question I knew he hadn’t really meant, at least not that last part. It had been him getting caught up in the moment, nothing more.
Because shit like this didn’t happen in real life.
It was the physical chemistry talking. It was the rush of endorphins from finding someone who had some kind of pull on you that you’d never experienced before. Most, if not all, of what I was feeling was the anticipation – the rush of wondering if it was the real deal, even though deep down I knew it wasn’t. Because you didn’t meet your other half in a handful of minutes at a Halloween-themed benefit.
Cruz might have liked what he saw in that hotel alcove and again in the doorway of the darkened shop, but it wasn’t real. I wasn’t that guy. And once he found out who I really was, he’d come up with some excuse to end the evening early and this whole thing would finally be over and I could get back to being boring, uptight, afraid-to-fail Elliot Wittier.
God, why was I even doing this? I needed to be at my computer trying to track down the huge sum of cash that had gone missing from the account of one of the firm’s biggest clients.
I was about to turn and tell Cruz that I needed to go, when we reached the doorway of the small diner and he opened the door for me.
He opened the door for me.
Fuck, it really was a date.
A date in which he’d taken sex off the table so I wouldn’t have to obsess over it anymore.
Which was what I’d been doing.
Because in addition to all my other less than desirable qualities, I wasn’t even a good lay.
“Cruz,” I said as I stepped into the diner, but my words died in my throat when he put his hand at the small of my back and steered me in the direction of a booth near the back of the restaurant.
“Yeah?” he said.
I can’t do this. I should go.
“I’ve never been here before. Is it good?” I asked lamely.
Cruz waited until I’d sat down on one side of the booth before he took the other side. Our legs bumped beneath the table, but when I moved mine out of the way, his followed until his calf was pressed up against one of mine. Jesus, he was killing me.
“First thing you need to know about me,” Cruz said in lieu of answering the question directly, “is that I love breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, cereal, eggs, doesn’t matter. If you offer it to me at the dinner hour, I’m putty in your hands.”
I smiled and said, “Duly noted. What should I make you for breakfast?” Cruz’s mouth pulled into a little smirk and I felt my cheeks heat. “I mean, not actual breakfast, like, at my place or anything. Just in general… what are your breakfast eating habits in general?”
Breakfast eating habits? Jesus, El, shut the fuck up right fucking now!
Cruz’s leg bumped mine under the table and I realized he’d done it to get my attention, because when I looked up from whereI’d dropped my eyes to stare at the ugly green Formica tabletop, he sent me what I could only classify as a look of pride.
“I usually work out in the morning, so I typically just have a protein shake. What about you?”
“Oh, well, just coffee. I’m usually out the door pretty early and things are always hectic by the time I get to work.”
The waitress appeared. “What’ll you boys have?” she asked. She was an older woman with silvery hair that was in some kind of weird updo that lent itself to the whole sixties theme the diner had going on.
Cruz ordered a coffee and a breakfast platter that included pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage.
“What about you, honey?” the waitress asked me.
I had no clue what possessed me to do it, but I looked at Cruz.
And something happened in that moment.
