I shake my head, trying to make him wrong, but when his tongue slides against his lips, I know he hears the intake of breath. I know because it’s loud, and in the silence, it might as well have been a sonic boom.
“Eli . . .” I try to move back, but his arm holds me in place.
“I’m not going to do anything, I just want to talk.”
“This is crazy,” I say, wishing I didn’t want crazy with every cell in my body.
Eli’s other hand slides up my back and holds me tighter. “What would be crazy is walking out the door without seeing if this is in our heads.”
“If what’s in our heads?”
“Whatever has us both so twisted that I’m here in your house, and you’re running out in the middle of the night without a goodbye. There’s something going on, and I want to see what the hell it is. Don’t you?”
My gaze doesn’t leave his, and the sincerity and conviction in his words stun me. If I tell him to walk out this door, I’ll regret it. I’ll think about this one moment for the rest of my life. Plus, Nicole knows he’s here, so if I ask him to leave, she’ll never let me live it down.
Before I can stop the words from falling from my lips, I agree. “Okay, pizza and talking only, though.”
Eli’s smile widens, and he squeezes me a little. “Pizza, talking, and who knows what else,” he counters.
There will be nothing else, but I keep that to myself. Arguing with him seems to only lead to him staying, eating pizza, and thinking we’re going to be besties.
We make our way back over to the couch and sit. He grabs a slice and hands it to me before going back for the piece he had. I curl my legs under me and try not to gawk. But Eli Walsh is sitting in the living room of my crumbling house. It isn’t that I live in a shithole, but I’m sure it’s nothing like his home.
My dad was a man of many projects. He started them and then quit before ever finishing. Matt helped a little, but he was in no way Bob Villa, if anything, he was Tim Allen from Home Improvement and broke more than he fixed.
After he left, I did my best to patch the holes of my home and my heart.
“So, a cop?” Eli asks after a few minutes of silent eating.
I wipe the sauce from my lips and then smile. “It was what I always wanted to be. My parents were killed by a drunk driver when I was twenty-one. After that, I knew I wanted to help even just one person be saved from that tragedy.”
“I’m really sorry,” Eli says and touches my arm.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Still, that must’ve been tough.”
I sigh and shrug a little. “It sucked, but I think it made me who I am today.”
“I get it. My dad died when I was young, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
Losing your parents is never easy, but when you’re young, it’s impossible to navigate the emotions of it. So many times I wished I had my parents there to guide me. It would’ve been so much easier.
“Don’t be, he wasn’t a role model anyway.” He waves away my condolences and says, “So, tell me, Heather . . . who are you?”
“I’m just me.”
There’s no way I’m going to divulge my deepest secrets. Eli will walk out this door tonight and never be back, which is exactly what I should want. Right? So, why don’t I spill all the dirt? For all I know, I’m just some conquest to him. The girl who walked away from a man that girls flock to. It’s what Nicole refers to as the rejection reaction. If I had stayed and pined for him, he would’ve brushed me off into the pile of other nameless, faceless girls he’s slept with.
Eli removes his keys and wallet from his back pocket, tossing them on the table.
Sure, make yourself comfortable. I guess he plans on staying.
“I’m serious. I want to know more about you,” he pushes for more.
“Why?” I ask with frustration. “You and I both know how this goes.”
He grips the back of his neck and lets out a heavy sigh. “How is that?”
“You’re going to go back to your lavish life, and I’ll be here . . .” I gesture around the room.
“Maybe that’s exactly what will happen, but only because you’re so hell bent on pushing me out that door.”
He isn’t wrong, but that still stings a little. “I’m protecting myself.”
Eli seems to recover and grabs another slice of pizza. “It’s fine, you’re going to have to try a lot harder. I’m basically a cop, too.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “We’ve already established that you’re just a cop on television. Real police work isn’t anything like that.”
“So, you watch my show?” He says it so casually, so coolly, that if I weren’t an actual cop, I would have missed his real reaction. He’s practically preening inside over that little tidbit.
“I’ve seen it once because nothing else was on.” I’m so full of shit. I watch his stupid show every week. At first, it was because I wanted to see how much they butchered the real way police are, but then I was hooked. Watching him is my guilty pleasure. After five seasons, I can admit that I’m officially addicted.
He’ll never know that, though.
No way will I give him one more thing to try to use against me.
“Well, my partner, Tina, is a lot like you.”
“Is she?”
She is so not like me. Tina is a hard ass who wants nothing to do with men, and her husband left her for another woman.
I want a man, I don’t want another guy who will cut tail and run because life isn’t perfect. And Matt left because he’s a dick.
“Yeah, she lives alone and pushes any guy away.”
Screw him. He doesn’t know me. So what if I’m alone and I don’t want to get involved with a guy whose life is the polar opposite of mine? I’m thirty-eight years old; I don’t have to play by his rules or beliefs.
“I’m not pushing you away; I’m just living in reality.”
Eli leans forward, and I force myself not to retreat. “The only reality is the one we make.”
My reality isn’t movie stars and playing a cop on television. I’m an actual cop. I deal with all kinds of shit, and there’s no one to yell cut when it gets too intense. There are real bullets flying, people dying in car wrecks, immense amounts of paperwork, and shit pay. Keeping myself guarded isn’t a choice, it’s a necessity.
“Maybe in your world, but in the real world, we have crap to deal with.”
Eli drops the slice and huffs. “I live in the real world too you know.”
“Well, since we’re friends and all, tell me about it.” I toss the ball back in his proverbial corner.
I’m fully aware I’m coming off like a bitch. However, there’s a reason I ran away after we had sex. I’m terrified of anything new. Things in my life disappear or fall apart, trying to start anything with someone else, isn’t in my plans. I can’t lose anything else.
Looking at Eli, though, makes me wish for another life.
One where we could be friends. One where we could maybe be more than friends, but that isn’t the life I’m living.
Still, a girl can hope.