Still, as angry as I was over the way he’d so blithely dismissed what had grown between us this past month, I couldn’t deny he also had a point. His smile might be the first thing I pictured when I woke up in the morning, but we’d never actually discussed what any of this meant outside the confines of these four walls. In fact, if I thought back over all the weeks we’d been hanging out together, it was fairly obvious we’d actively avoided it.
“Sit down.” I pointed to the edge of his bed. His eyelids became narrow slits of distrust while his lips flattened into a hard line, but he nonetheless obeyed the directive. When he folded his fingers together and looked up at me with an imperious lift of his right eyebrow, I continued. “Now I’m going to say some things, and you’re going to sit there and listen. And when I’m done, I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
He gestured for me to go on.
“Good,” I said, wearing a path in the rug as I paced back and forth across the room. While the words were right there on the tip of my tongue, I was beyond nervous to give them voice. But if we were going to clear the air between us, I needed to. I stopped, shook my hands out, blew out a breath, and turned to face him. “Okay. Here’s the deal. When this first started—” I stopped and gestured between us, gathering my words. “I didn’t expect this to happen. I liked you. You were my friend, and I enjoyed spending time with you. And, much to my complete and utter shock, I was so fucking attracted to you that I couldn’t see straight.” I shook my head in utter amazement, ignoring the pun that made Elijah huff a quiet, amused breath.
How long had I spent wondering why I didn’t get the type of butterflies people like my brother spoke about? The night he’d met his fiancée Calliope, he’d described it like something out of a movie. From the first smile she’d cast his way across the crowded bar, he couldn’t breathe. And when she’d gone home with him later that night, he’d felt like the luckiest man on the planet.
Meanwhile, I’d been walking around in a fog of indifference, believing I either wasn’t capable of those types of emotions or that other people were simply lying to themselves about theirs, doing my best to put out the dull, stuttering fire that my weekend with Rob and Calista had lit. Hell, I’d even felt sorry for Ben. At the time, it had sounded like torture.
But I got it now. Or, at least, I was beginning to.
Because every time I caught Elijah admiring me from across the room, a twinkle in his mischievous blue eyes, my breath would catch and my heart would begin to race. When, during one of our cocktail parties, he’d notch his head toward the hallway that led to our bedrooms and then silently drift away from the crowd a few minutes later, my stomach would drop and my groin would tighten with anticipation. And never mind how I’d wake up just before dawn reaching for him, only to find the sheets empty and cold as he’d already returned to his own room.
What it came down to was somewhere along the way, Elijah had become my person.
And I’d never told him.
Slowly, I moved to where he sat and dropped down into a crouch in front of him. I took his hands in mine and turned my head to kiss his left palm. “Yes, I kissed Allie, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but it definitely cleared a few things up for me. For starters, I don’t want her, Elijah. I want you.”
I paused, stumbling over my next words. My hesitation had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was speaking them to another man. Rather, it was only that I was saying them for the very first time in my life—to anyone, regardless of their gender. I didn’t know what these feelings meant about my sexuality, and frankly, I honestly didn’t care about the label. The only thing I cared about in that moment was that for the first time in a very long time, I was embracing my truth. And the truth was I’d fallen for a man. No, I’d fallen for Elijah. “I want us to be together. I don’t know how it’ll work, exactly, but I want to try.”
Elijah’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears as my words landed. He sniffed, and when he smiled, his face was infused with so much happiness that I nearly had to look away.
For a brief moment, I felt guilty for having kept my feelings for him locked away, when it was suddenly so obvious how much he’d needed to know. But he’d kept his own locked away, too. I’d had no clue before today just how much he cared for me either. Sure, it was in his touch, and his patience, and the way he’d sometimes look at me before he kissed me, but until this conversation, I don’t think I’d fully appreciated just how strong his feelings had grown. So often I’d simply assumed he was humoring me until Allie sent one of us home.
Slowly, he slipped his hands from my grip and draped his forearms over my shoulders, lifting his hands to tangle his fingers in my hair. Goosebumps bloomed on my skin as he gently nudged my face toward his. With our lips lightly touching, he canted his head to the side and whispered, “Are you asking me to be your boyfriend, Oliver Cooper?”
“I suppose I am, Elijah Crane.”
“Good,” he said. “Now come here.”
We fell back against the mattress, our limbs tangled together, and no one said a word for at least another hour.
14
Elijah
“Can I ask you something?”
“Mmm.” Oliver rolled sleepily onto his side to face me. “Sure.”
I linked our fingers together, marveling for what felt like the millionth time that holding his hand was something I could actually do now, at least when the cameras weren’t rolling. I knew it was ridiculous, but it seemed somehow more intimate than when I wrapped my fingers around his cock. While I loved making him come, holding his hand made our relationship feel more real than all the orgasms in the world ever could. Even if that relationship was a secret from everyone we knew.
“Why’d you really sign up to be on Happily Ever After?” I asked, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
I’d never quite managed to shake the suspicion that Oliver had ulterior motives for being here. Aside from the kiss he and Allie had shared, he’d done the bare minimum to woo her. Then again, I hadn’t done much lately either. Not since I’d realized I was developing feelings for him instead.
Frankly, that fact that neither of us had been sent home yet said more about the quality of Allie’s suitors than it did about her interest in pursuing a relationship with either one of us. We weren’t that good, but they were that bad, and if I were being honest, I wouldn’t have been able to show my face in public after this if I’d been let go before someone like Colby.
Oliver brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead. “I suppose I can tell you now. After all, it’s not like you’re going to run to the producers and tell them.” He smiled impishly.
“Right. Just as soon as I fill them in on the fact that I fall asleep in your bed every night and then sneak back to my room before anyone else wakes up.”
His tone sobered. “We should figure out how to bring it up with them though.”
“I know,” I sighed regretfully. “On the one hand, I don’t want to ever leave this little bubble we’ve created for ourselves. But on the other, I know we have to before it’s too late. Maybe not just yet?”