35.] We're Naked and We've Got Wine. This is a Date.
That late afternoon, Eli and I had had a seemingly casual dinner between friends on the back patio of a burger shack near the boardwalk. We had shared a basket of french fries and Eli attempted to steal my milkshake, complaining that he hadn't gotten enough when in fact he had drank it so fast that I barely even gotten my first sip through the straw.
I didn't miss the stares of the girls walking by on the sidewalk along the porch railing. I saw how they turned to look at Eli as he laughed at me, eyes only occasionally leaving the realm of our table to look out at the sea as it washed on the shore. I don't know if he saw those girls in their little shorts and tiny tops. I didn't know if he saw how they looked at him, mouths tightening around the edges when they saw him lean forward, attempting to shove fries into my mouth.
It was during this time, when we were just sitting around and not doing anything that could lead to sexual activities, that I wondered if Eli saw any future for us. I wasn't even sure why he was here, let alone what his plans for after summer was. For all I knew, he could be packing his bags at the end of August and leaving for good.
It made me sad to think that there was a chance that Eli and I couldn't make things work. Part of me was scared that we were too comfortable in this relationship we already had, one that felt like friends with benefits or possibly even skinny love. The problem with skinny love, however, was that neither Eli or I were too shy to admit our feelings. I just wasn't sure if he had them too.
While I worried about how Eli felt about me, I also wondered about what Eli had been saying earlier when he had come back from his run. He had been talking to Emmett, completely unaware of my presence in the room and saying that there was something he wanted to tell me.
I was definitely hoping that it was that he felt the same way that I did about him. I was definitely hesitant to call it love, but there was something strong about my feelings for him. On the other hand, there was always the chance that it wasn't what I wanted to hear. There was a possibility that it was something that I wouldn't want to know.
I pushed those thoughts away for the time being as Eli picked through the fries that were left at the bottom of the basket. Scrunching his nose as he continued to dig, he dropped the ones in his fingers before wiping his hand on his jeans and looking at me.
"So, how did that talk with Callie go?" I asked as I remembered what Eli had set out the night before to do. When he froze, hand hovering in front of his drink and blue eyes looking at me in surprise across the table, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "I mean, we don't have to talk about it if you don't want too. I just thought that since you were in such a good mood, maybe things went better than you thought they would."
Eli let his hand fall to the table, his expression crumbling as he looked down at the styrofoam cup before him. With the corners of his mouth twisting and his eyebrows narrowing in a way that reminded me of the way Emmett looked earlier, I wondered if maybe I was wrong.
Maybe he had talked to Callie and things had gone drastically. I felt bad for him. I didn't think that Eli did the right thing very often. It had taken a lot to convince him that he should try to call her and tell her the truth. I didn't know Callie personally, but I could just tell by the way he reacted when someone said her name that he truly loved her. I just hoped that for all of our sakes, she had taken a moment to hear him out. Even if she didn't like what he had to say, I hoped that she at least listened to him.
"I didn't get to talk to her." He finally shrugged.
"Eli," I sighed. "I know you're nervous about it, but if you want to get rid of the guilt, you have to tell her the truth. It's going to hurt, but eventually she'll get over it. Besides, I think by now that you both know that you weren't meant to be."
"I knew that a long time ago." He said, spinning the white straw between his fingers. "When I left with Avery, we honestly tried to call Callie. Her grandma answered the phone and when I told her who it was, she hung up on me. Avery called after we had dinner and we found out that Callie went to Philly to stay with her dad. She'll be back Wednesday. So, I'll try then."
"I'm sorry this is so hard." I told him.
"Hey, don't you worry about it." Eli grinned as he slid his hand across the table, fingers curling about mine. "Anyways, you want to go do something? As much as I enjoy talking to you, I really don't want to talk about the mess with Callie."
"What are we going to do?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him from across the table.
"Don't worry. It's nothing sexual." Eli joked. "Unless you want it to be."
"I don't know why you always have to make everything into a sex joke." I told him, sliding my hand out from underneath his in order to cross my arms over my chest. "Seriously, Eli. I don't always think about having sex with you."
"Adrienne, you can't deny the sexual tension between us." The grin on his face was probably the same grin that had broken thousands of hearts before mine. "I mean, every time we're together, one of us ends up completely naked because the other tore our clothes off. Besides, there was so much frustration between the two of us in my room earlier that my towel came off."
"I think you did that on purpose." I teased. "You wanted me to oogle your ass."
"Of course I want you to enjoy my assets!" He winked. "I don't work out for nothing."
I didn't miss the way that Eli moved his elbows up onto the edge of the table, his biceps flexing beautifully beneath his t-shirt as he crossed his arms. Eli didn't miss the way that I swallowed, moving my hand to my neck before looking into his eyes.
"You know, we should probably leave before I pin you to this table." The words were hardly out of my mouth before Eli was flying out of his seat, an excited smile replacing the grin from before as he grabbed onto my arm and yanked me out of my seat.
⚓ ⚓ ⚓
"Yo, I thought we agreed that we weren't doing anything sexual." I narrowed my eyes at him as he came out of the apartment door, an empty bucket in one hand and two sponges in the other. He grinned when he saw me standing there, blue eyes going dark.
"I'm holding a bucket and sponges and you immediately think we're going to have sex?" He rolled his eyes. "God, Adrienne, what do you think I'm going to do with these?"
"How am I supposed to know?" I responded as he handed me the sponges before tucking his keys into his back pocket. "You seem like the creative type. I feel like you're one of those guys who could do something sexual with rubber gloves and chocolate sauce."
"You have a dirtier mind than I thought, Mathers." Eli chuckled. "And all of this time, I was convinced that you were practically a virgin."
"Hey! I've had sex before." I told him. "Just because it was with the same person and the same position every time doesn't mean that it wasn't sex. I can't help it if my sex life wasn't very experimental."
"Do you want to try experimental?" Eli cocked an eyebrow at me. "Because I have a thing or two that we could try."
"If I said yes, would you think that it's insanely creepy?" I could feel the heat in my cheeks as I followed him down the hallway.
"Uh, no," His head swiveled so he could look me in the eye. "It's insanely hot. In fact, it's so hot that I'm contemplating dropping this stuff and dragging you back to the bedroom."
I didn't say anything to that, feeling a certain shyness creeping in as my mind began to conjure up all of the places that not only Eli's hands would be, but his tongue and other things. I fought the shiver that threatened to ripple across my spine, instead forcing a smile onto my face as I looked down at the sponges in my hands. Raising them, I looked at Eli, finding that not only were his eyes still on me, but they were still that dark blue, looking like melted metal.
"So, what are we doing?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Eli asked. "We're going to wash my car."
"Wash your car, really?" I groaned. "Can't we have sex instead?"
Eli stopped walking and looked at me, a humored smile on his face. "You know, I don't think that there's any other two people who talk about sex more than we do and never actually do it. I mean, everything we talk about somehow goes back to sex. Are we really going to be that couple?"
"Did you just say the word couple?" I ignored everything else he had said and came to a stop as well. "Did Eli Dunn just say the word couple and meant it?"
Eli flushed, the tips of his ears turning red as he shrugged and turned away, continuining down the hallway. He didn't speak for the rest of the time, just gaited around with an awkward smile on his face as he led me to his Jeep. Driving in silence to one of the few drive-on beaches that lined the southern coast of Cali, I couldn't help but to think that he meant it, just hadn't wanted to say it in that context.
As soon as we were at the edge of the water, Eli was out, tossing me the bucket as he leaned the front seat back, pulling out a bottle of soap. It didn't take very long before the bucket was filled and he was handing me a soapy sponge. I frowned at it, not thinking that out of all of the things in the world we could have possibly been doing at this very moment, he decided that washing his car was the best idea.
"You know, Adrienne," Eli said as I leaned across the hood to wipe a spot that he had missed. "I honestly didn't think I was going to like you so much. You were a pain in the beginning."
"Gee, thanks." I grunted, poking my tongue out at him when he looked up from where he was tossing the bucket of water at the side of his car.
"Don't get me wrong, I've always been attracted to you." He shrugged, a playful grin falling into place. "But when we first met, I thought you were kinda uptight. I had no idea that you would be as bad as you really are."
"Well, am I bad enough for you now?" I asked him, honestly wanting to know the answer. I didn't consider myself bad in the great lengths of Angeline and Oliver. I was sure that their nights were plagued with a certain lack of ability to remember the events of many nights.
"Any more so and I would never be able to keep up." He nodded. "How about me? Am I bad enough for you?"
"Goodness, no." I shook my head. "I mean, you have yet to misbehave. Have I ever mentioned how much misbehaving turns me on?"
"You want me to misbehave, huh?" Eli cocked an eyebrow at me, stopping in his scrubbing of the front of the hood.
"Show me what you've got." I told him and regretted it the moment I did so, a bucketful of water flinging through the air and drenching me in soapy droplets. I let out a scream, flinging water from my fingertips as I raised them to my eyes and rubbed them. Blinking away the little white bubbles, I glared at across the hood who was biting back his laughter with a cherubic smile.
"Hey, you told me to be bad." He shrugged.
"I didn't mean for you to drench me in water!" I cried, not being able to hold back my own laughter. Taking the sponge in my hand, I began flinging it at him, the soap flying through the air and hitting him. He gave a holler and continued to toss what little water was left in the bucket. I gave up on the soapy sponge, dropping it back on the hood and running backwards across the speech. Sticking my tongue out at him and egging him on, I pulled my dress up over my head and tossed it on the ground. Standing in my underwear with my hands planted on my hips, I grinned at him.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked.
I barely had enough time to start running before he was already making his way to me. I let out a squeal, turning on my heel and running down the beach, bits of sand flying out from beneath my feet, heading for the water. He quickly caught up with me where the water crashed into the beach, sloshing against our ankles and spraying up around our heads. He grabbed me around the waist, and I tripped over his feet, the two of us going down into the water. As the water pulled back and another wave came riding in, pulling us beneath the icy waters. I came back up sputtering, finding Eli laughing at me sprawled out on the land like a beached whale.
I grabbed onto his ankle and pulled. He hadn't been paying any attention to me because he was too busy laughing, giving me the advantage to sneak up on him. He came crashing down beside me, hands clinging to me as we were both swallowed by another wave. When we both came up, this time sitting instead of lying flat on our tummies, we were completely soaked and choking on our laughter.
We crawled away from the water and pushed ourselves up on shaky feet. Eli gave me a devilish smile before he splashed me. Not knowing what else to do, I tackled him, the two of us rolling down the beach to the water's lip. It crashed into us again, this time, Eli's arms wrapped around my waist as I fell directly on him. The water came down over top of us, nearly dragging us out to sea when it retracted.
When the water was being pulled backwards across the sad, Eli rolled over top of me away from the water. I choked a little on the water that was still in my mouth and, unsurprisingly, found myself pinned beneath Eli. He was straddling me, hands planted on either side of my head.
Looking into Eli's eyes, I found them to be burning. They were growing harder and harder by the moment, bluer by the second. They moved from my eyes and then down to my lips, which he stared at for a few solid seconds before meeting my eyes again.
My eyes followed his own lead, dropping to his lips. They were parted slightly as he inhaled and exhaled kind of unevenly. I could see the few faint freckles that dotted his cheeks and a slight scar that ran alongside his noise. As I let my eyes slip past his lips and to his eyes, I realized that there were flecks of green embedded in those dark blue orbs. I could feel his breath on my face, see the damp pieces of his dark hair clinging to his forehead.
Just as we were about to mesh our lips together with our bodies dripping wet and hearts beating rapidly in our chests, something warm hit me right on the forehead. My eyes flew open, a look of horror creeping across my face as I tried to imagine what hit me. I screamed pitifully, hands flailing on either side of me as Eli jerked back, rolling around as he died on the beach of laughter.
Running my fingertips across my forehead, I felt slightly nauseas at the sight of a white goop on my fingertips. I sat up and glared at Eli, pouting my lips with bird shit on my fingers.
"I'm sorry, babe, but this would only happen to you." He continued to choke on his laughter before I decided that I had had enough and wiped my fingers on his face.
He froze for a moment, staring at me in horror before he shot up, glaring at me before he picked up a handful of sand. Tossing it at me, I ducked my head, squealing as the little grains assaulted me. I picked up my own handful and returned it, watching in delight as he tried to fight it off.
This continued for some time before we both realized how disgusting we were. I looked at him and he looked at me, both of our noses shooting up as we remembered that we were drenched and sporting bird poop on our faces.
"Come on," Eli grunted and stood up, holding out a hand. "Let's go clean up before we contract some sort of disease."
I took his hand graciously and together, we made our way back to the building. Before allowing me in his car, however, he laid out towels from the back, pointing a finger at me and demanding that I sit on it. I rolled my eyes, but listened anyways.
When we finally made it to the building, I was long past ready to get rid of the poop that had now dried on my forehead. Together, we made our way upstairs and stopped outside his apartment. Unlocking it, he stuck his head around the door, peering into the darkened apartment.
Looking back at me, he grinned. "Looks like we've got the place to ourselves."
"You're still thinking of sex?" I asked him and then pointed to my forehead. "If you forgot, I'm covered in bird excrement."
"Of course I'm still thinking of sex! Even the period poops wouldn't stop me." He winked, stealing my line.
"Hey, you know nothing about the period poops." I told him as he shut the door behind me. "The period poops is something that you'll never have to experience. It's the most painful, beautiful thing in existance."
"I don't even want to know why you think it's beautiful. Can we please stop saying period poops now? We've just hit four times in the past two minutes and it's making me uncomfortable." Eli teased, taking me by the hand and leading me through the living room. Dropping my hand, he went over to the bar and ducked behind it. "Do you want wine or champagne? Seems like my brother's stocked up since we left earlier. Wait, it looks like the wine's for us."
"What?" I asked, watching as Eli kicked the fridge door closed and took down two wine glasses. He was holding a bottle of wine in one hand, a post-it note attached to the front.
"It's from my brother." He laughed. "Emmett says, here's to getting laid. Why would he do that? I didn't say that we were sleeping together. Or even planning on it. Our date's not until Wednesday."
"Well, he might've doubted your sexual abilities." I scratched alongside my lip. "I might have told him that you were getting laid tonight."
Eli looked at me flabbergasted for minute before he walked over to me. "I knew there was a reason I like you so much. I'd kiss you, but you're covered in shit."
I just rolled his eyes at him and followed him to the bathroom. I stood in the doorway, watching as he started running the water in the giant bathtub. He looked back at me, one eyebrow raising slightly. "Want to take a bath?"
"With you?" I couldn't deny the heat that was bristling in my chest at this moment. I crossed my arms over my chest as he grinned at me.
"I was going to say alone, but I like that idea better." He raised his eyebrows at me.
"Sure," I told him. "But can we wipe this bird shit off first?"
By the time we were done scrubbing the poop off of our faces, the bath had filled, water steaming beneath the bubbles that Eli had uncovered from beneath the cabinet. He poured us glasses of wine, the rich red contents filling the rounded glasses before we stripped,leaving our clothes in a pile on the tile.
I didn't miss the way that Eli looked at me from where he was already sitting in the tub, eyes taking their time traveling down my body before he looked up and grinned at me. Stepping over the edge, I took my time sliding into the hot water until I was in a sitting position. He handed me my glass and stared at me over the rim of his.
"I feel like we should just count this as our first date." I told him. "I mean, we're naked and we've got wine. This is a date."
"Do you always get naked on the first date?"
"Do you ever have first dates?" I shot back.
"I've had first dates before." Eli told me. "You seem to forget that I had a girlfriend. But, do you always give blow jobs before you're even dating?"
"Hey!" I cried, resting my glass on the edge of the tub and extending my legs so that they rested on Eli's thighs. Leaning back against the side of the tub, I glared at him over the uneven bursts of bubbles. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that ever again."
"I like talking about it. It makes you uncomfortable." Eli shrugged. "And then you do that cute thing with your nose."
"What cute thing?" I asked curiously.
"I don't know." Eli batted away some of the bubbles surrounding him. He scrunched his nose rather unattractively. "You do that. I don't know, it's cute."
"God, I hope I don't do that." I laughed. "That's terrifying!"
"Whatever. I think it's cute." Eli shrugged and then looked at me pointedly. "What do I do that you think is cute?"
"Nothing," I shook my head, but on the inside, my mind was going into overdrive of the things that he did that I thought was really cute. Like the time that he had rescued me from myself when I was drunkenly dancing on that table. Or that time that he danced with me in his underwear. And the way that he tried to make me jealous, how he rubbed the back of his neck whenever he was in distress, and how worried he was when he thought I was mad at him. I couldn't exactly list all of these things, so I instead just smiled at him. "You're never going to know."
"Why? Is it something sexual that you don't want to admit to?" He wiggled his eyebrows and then pouted at me. "Can't you come over here? You're so far away."
"Now, that was cute." I laughed. Without needing to be asked twice, Picking up my glass and pulling my self up on my feet, I stepped through the water, careful not to step on him. When Eli first raised his hand, I thought he was going to grab my ass as I turned in front of him, but instead he caught my arm, helping me to slide down so that I was sitting in between his legs. Leaning back against his chiseled chest, I caught his fingers in mine beneath the water.
We were quiet for some time, allowing our bodies to relax against one another's in the warm bath water. It was during this time, when Eli was playing with my hair that I thought about earlier in the day when he came in during mine and Emmett's conversation.
Tilting my head back so that I could look at him, I asked, "Remember when you came back from your run this afternoon? You were talking to your brother about me and you said that you had something you wanted to tell me. Do you mind if I ask what it was?"
"Oh, I forgot about that." Eli looked down at me. "I mean, it really isn't all that of a big deal. In fact, I've been wondering if you were ever going to ask me why I'm even here."
The flutter in my heart died a little, but then it fluttered once more. Eli wanted to tell me why he was here. If that wasn't a step in a relationship, I wasn't sure what was.
"I mean, I know we haven't been doing whatever this thing is that we're doing for very long, but I kind of thought by now you would have asked me why I'm here. Or at least asked me if I was going to be leaving."
"To be honest, I haven't thought much about you leaving." I admitted. "You make me nervous to think about the future, so I try to just live in the moment with you."
With my fingers wrapped around the stem of my glass, I raised it to my lips, allowing the blood-red liquid to wash over my lips. I stared at the opposite wall, feeling Eli's hand moving beneath the water across my stomach to my hip. His other arm was resting on the lip of the tub, fingertips brushing against the stem of his own glass.
"You know, now that you mention it, I do wonder. Why did you come all the way to California?" I asked.
"My dad," He muttered. "He wants me to take over his company."
I felt my spine stiffen as the words fell out of his mouth. I sat up and turned my torso that I could look Eli in the eye. His eyebrows narrowed at me.
"Your dad wants you to take over his company?" I repeated slowly. "Like, he asked you or he's expecting you to?"
"A little of both." He shrugged, the water rippling against his chest. "I mean, he asked me months ago from rehab after my brother screwed the VP of the company. I wasn't entirely sure about it to be honest, but I've been spending some time seeing how everything works and what I'll be in charge of."
He reached up to the side of the tub, pulling down his bottle of shampoo. Spinning me back around so that my back was to him, he opened the bottle and squirted the blue shampoo into his palm. I felt the tension in my shoulders fall away as he ran his fingers into my hair, rubbing it until it was foamy. As he massaged the back of my head, he said, "When I was in high school, I always felt out of place. Like everyone knew exactly what they wanted to do with their lives. Nadine's always known that she's wanted to go into medicine. Avery's always wanted to be a teacher. And Callie has always had this extraordinary plan to be an editor. She's known it since we were just little kids. I had no idea what I was doing senior year and so I just applied to a bunch of colleges. I got in, but I didn't know what I was going to do. And then my dad called up and gave me the offer of a lifetime."
"So, you don't feel like he's pushing this on you?" I asked.
"Not at all." Eli said, his fingers falling from my hair to the back of my neck. "My dad showed me something that I didn't see before. I felt all of this pressure back home to do something great. And I didn't think that I could do it. When my dad called me with that offer, though, and basically told me that he believed in me more than anyone else, I realized that I could do something. He gave me my future."
That night, Eli gave me something to think about. I didn't really have time to get the words out then because Eli was distracting me with the water he was pouring over the back of my head to get out the soap. Things only intensified when he took the body wash and began to run it over my skin with his bare hands, fingers sliding over my shoulders and along my collar bone. When they dropped, disappearing beneath the water and over my skin, I knew that this was probably the moment.
As he leaned forward, his lips trailing across my neck, I found my hands gripping his thighs. "Eli?" I whispered, nails scratching over his skin.
"For real this time?" I asked as he pulled me up out of the water.
Looking me in the eye, he grinned. "For real this time, I promise."
And then, we went to place that had been on our minds for far too long. The world exploded in ways I wasn't aware it could and when it was over, I didn't bother to worry about the future or even the following day. All that mattered was that it had finally happened. And it was well worth the wait.