Love and Other Words(57)

I probably would have. Nothing sounds more awkward than a holiday meal with Elliot’s ex-girlfriend.

“Does she think we’re… back together?”

“I don’t know what she thinks,” he says. “But it’s sort of moot, isn’t it?” He watches me carefully. “You’re engaged.”

Guilt slices sharply through me, sending a jolt of pain to my ribs. I’m not ready to tell Elliot that I’m single, but I’m not okay letting him think I’m being chronically emotionally unfaithful, either. “Things there are… complicated.”

He seems to marinate in these words for a few beats before reaching for my hand, tugging it. “Come on. Let me give you the tour.”

The living room is longer than it is wide, and at the narrow end is a tall leaded-glass window looking out onto a surprisingly beautiful backyard. There are fig trees, plum trees, and a tiny, lush lawn – a rarity in the Bay Area.

“The lawn is fake,” he explains. “The owner is insistent that we keep this outdoor space.”

I look around the living room, at the bookcases that span from the floor to the ceiling, with a sliding ladder connected to the upper lip. His couch is a vibrant blue, and clean, with bright multicolored throw pillows. On the other end of the room, closer to the front door, he has placed a folding card table and set it with a linen tablecloth, placemats, and a tiny centerpiece of gourds and cranberries. I must have walked right past it when I came in, so excited and nervous I didn’t even notice.

“Your place is so nice,” I whisper, tucking my hair behind my ear. Elliot watches it slide forward again anyway, and swallows. He probably knows I wore it down for him. “Tell me about your novel.”

“High fantasy,” he says, looking around at his bookshelves. Then he looks back at me and his eyes shine with restrained amusement. “There are dragons.”

“So you’re writing porn?” I joke, and he bursts out laughing.

“Not exactly.”

“That’s really all you’ll give me?”

Smiling, he takes my hand again. “Let’s finish the tour.”

Through a door on the other side of the living room from the kitchen is a tiny hallway. To the left is his bedroom. To the right is his bathroom.

The bathroom has a small tub and no shower, just a smooth hose attached to the faucet and hanging limply downward, a neck bent in defeat.

“You don’t have a shower,” I say, walking back out and feeling the sudden intimacy of being in his space. It’s all so quintessentially him: sparse furniture other than floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with books.

Elliot watches me as I lean against the hallway wall. The space is tiny, and he seems to fill it with his height and the solid width of his chest.

“I don’t know if I could handle only having a bathtub,” I babble.

“I call it a shath,” he says.

“That sounds dirty.”

I’m staring at his chest but hear the smile in his voice: “I think that’s why I call it that.”

He takes another step closer. “It still feels surreal to have my own place. Like it’s some small miracle that I live here alone. It’s so different from how I grew up.”

“Do you like living alone?” I ask.

He hesitates for the duration of three pounding heartbeats in my ear. “How honest do you want me to be here?”

I look up at him. Oh. I think what’s coming will probably wreck me, but I ask for it anyway: “I always want you to be honest.”

“Okay,” he says. “In that case, I like living alone, but would rather live with you. I like sleeping alone, but would rather have you in my bed.” He reaches up, running a finger over his lip, thinking about his next words, and his voice comes out lower, and quieter. “I like having friends over for Thanksgiving, but would rather it just be the two of us, doing our first Thanksgiving as a couple, eating turkey off the bone, cuddling on the floor together.”

“In our underwear,” I say without thinking.

His first reaction to this is quiet shock, but it slowly melts into a smile that heats my blood, sets something simmering beneath my skin. “You said things are ‘complicated,’ huh?”

I’m saved from my crumbling resolve to keep quiet about Sean when there’s a knock on the door behind him. Elliot stares at me, some urgent light in his eyes, as if he knows I’m about to tell him something important.

I lift my chin to the door after we’ve stood there staring at each other for nearly ten silent seconds. “You should probably get that.”

With a small growl of defeat, he turns and opens the door to let the other two guests in.

Desmond enters first. He’s shorter than Elliot but thick with muscle, with smooth dark skin and a smile that seems permanently fixed in his eyes. He hands Elliot a bowl with a colorful salad inside and claps him on the back, thanking him for inviting him.

Rachel steps in next, but I’m distracted from her entrance by Desmond coming over to me, introducing himself in a thick Aussie accent. “I’m Des. Nice to meet you.”

“Macy,” I say, shaking his hand and adding awkwardly, “Yes, so glad we’re finally meeting.”

In truth, I have no idea how long Elliot’s known him. My mouth feels dry, hands clammy.