The Read And Weep Bundle: Anonymous, Perfectly Hopeless, Run (7 page)

Elle twisted a bit of her hair between her fingers. It was something she had done since she was a little girl whenever she was nervous.

She poked at the sundae that sat between her and Hart in the middle of the table. She had refused to order her own and so they shared. But she hadn’t taken a single bite. She watched Hart scoop melting vanilla ice cream and caramel on his spoon and to his mouth.

“Don’t tell me your one of those girls that counts calories,” Hart said.

“No, I don’t count calories,” she said with an eye roll. She took a spoonful of ice cream for herself. “Now do you believe me?

“So you really never bowl?” Hart asked changing the subject.

Elle looked down at her phone; there were several missed calls from Pauly. And it was already past midnight.

“Not since I was a teenager,” she admitted. “It was fun.” She pocketed her phone, refusing to deal with Pauly.

“Do you have a curfew?” Hart asked her, referring to her phone.

They held each other’s gaze. She always wanted to win with him. Because he was playful and when he spoke to her it was as if he enjoyed it.

“Maybe not a curfew but a boyfriend,” she informed him. As if he didn’t already know.

Hart fought back the smirk but failed. It was a telling kind.

“You’re awful,” she told him. She shook her head and took another bite of ice cream. “I’m beginning to believe you’re a trouble maker.”

Hart feigned innocence. “I just don’t know what you see in him.”

“And rude, you’re really rude.” She pointed her spoon at him, scolding him playfully. “I’ll have you know I have known him since elementary school.” As if that made it any better.

“Is that a good thing?” Hart surveyed his hand for ice cream or caramel. He balled his napkin and toyed with the paper between his fingers.

“It’s comfortable. It’s something I’ve always known,” she pushed away the dessert.

Admitting such a thing seemed pitiful.

“What about you?” She said recovering. She hated when she started to doubt herself because it pushed her back into sadness. “Have you ever been in love?”

Hart’s fingers stopped toying with the napkin. He raised an eyebrow, the idea she was asking him about love was a bit out of the norm for her. “It’s just a feeling like everything else.”

Elle’s phone vibrated. She hit ignore and leaned in. “Of course it’s a feeling. One of the best ones they say.” Than how come she had never felt it she wondered.

Yes she loved Pauly, but it wasn’t that heart stopping love like in the movies. But like many girls she knew and grew up with it didn’t matter. They all were destined to go down the same road as their parent’s. They were going to marry the first boy from high school they felt feelings for. The boy that grew up in the same town, it was all anyone around her ever did. And it made sense, it was safe. It kept things easy and simple.

“I have to disagree.” Hart shook his head. “The best feelings are moments. That moment when you see her, you know you’re dying to kiss her, when you’re so fixated on her mouth you just want to grab her, to feel it against yours.”

Elle swallowed. Her heart thudded in her chest reminding her just how uncomfortable she had become sitting there with Hart. She didn’t know what to say.

“The first time you touch her it’s better than love.” He leaned back in the booth. “Sorry, you asked. I was just being honest.”

“Maybe it’s so great because that’s what love is. Intense feelings.” She looked away feeling a bit bashful. “Maybe there’s only one person that makes you feel that way when you touch them because you’re in love with them. Maybe that’s how you know you’re in love.”

She wasn’t sure if Hart believed her theory.

“If love was so real people wouldn’t treat each other the way that they do,” he told her. His attention left her as soon as the diner door opened and the bell sounded. “Isn’t that your boyfriend?”

Elle twisted around in the booth. There Pauly was along with Monty, his best friend. And she knew they weren’t there for the peach cobbler. They were there because she avoided his phone calls.

She hurried out of the booth.

“This is why you’re not answering your phone?” Pauly asked.

She was face to face with him now and unsure what to say. “How did you know where I was?” Was there a tracking device on her phone or something?

Pauly drew in a breath his jaw tightening as he stared her down. “That’s what you want to ask me?”

She flinched. Never had she seen him so angry. Sure he was angry before in all the years that she knew him, but this was different. Suddenly Hart was standing next to her.

“Let’s take it easy. I asked her to come hang out. Actually I pretty much forced her to hang out. I just thought she needed to relax and have a good time.”

She knew he was trying to help the situation, but it was obvious he was doing no such thing.

“Is this what you do?” Pauly asked Hart, he stared up at him. Hart had a few inches on him. “You run around town picking up other guys girlfriends?”

Monty cut into the conversation cutting Pauly off. “Who is this tool?”

Elle raised an eyebrow, angry with Monty for taking Pauly’s side and not trying to help her get out of the situation before it got worse.

“He’s a friend,” she told him, she stepped in between the two of them. “Pauly I’ll call you when I get home if you want to talk about this.”

Monty scoffed. “She’s on a date with another guy. What’s there to talk about?”

Pauly pulled her close looking into her eyes, pushing her hair from her shoulders. “Are you drinking?”

She pulled away. “No, I’m not drinking. Why would you even ask me that?”

“Why else would you be running around with this guy from rehab?” he asked.

“What does that mean?” She crossed her arms glaring at him.

“This is not you. You don’t talk to those people anymore,” He eyed Hart who was still standing behind them taking the whole situation in.

“Those people, I am those people. Are you forgetting I was in the same place that he was?” She could feel herself coming undone. She turned away from Pauly, twisting out of his attempts to grab a hold of her and she headed outside for some air.

Hart came outside before Pauly. “If you want to go home with him just say so and I’ll leave. But I’m not going to leave you here if you don’t want to be here with him.” He took a seat on the curb.

“I don’t know what I want. I know I want to get as far away from him as possible,” she admitted, starting to sob.

That’s all it took to bring Hart to his feet. He wrapped a comforting arm around her. “Don’t let him upset you. He’s not worth it at all, I promise you that,” he said walking through the parking lot with her.

“Where you going, Elle?” Pauly said coming out of the diner as soon as he saw that she was leaving and not staying to deal with him. “You’re not leaving with this guy are you?”

Hart opened her door for her. “She wants to be left alone right now. I’ll make sure she gets home.”

“Oh, this is funny. The addict wants to tell me what my girlfriend is going to do,” Pauly said moving toward Hart.

Hart slammed the car door and moved around to his side ignoring Pauly and his attempts at getting under his skin.

“You’re not worth the argument my friend. You take it easy now,” Hart told him, shaking his head in amusement.

“What, are you going to hit me? Are you better with your fist than your words?” Pauly egged him on, doing his best to get Hart to throw the first punch.

“Maybe a year ago I wouldn’t have hesitated to beat the shit out of you, but not now. You might want to catch me when I’m on a drinking binge, or a drug binge.” Hart watched him closely.

“She doesn’t need drama in her life,” Pauly said. “She’s been through enough.”

“That’s why I’m taking her home,” he said, sliding in the front seat.

Elle lifted her head from her hands as soon as Hart was safely in the car. “Thank you for dealing with him.”

Dinner was over and she was glad. Elle followed Pauly inside and shut the door behind her. She pulled off her jacket and put it on the hook by the door. The same spot she always hung it when she was at his parent’s house.

Pauly unlocked the door to the basement. It was his own private apartment and he was just fine with that. Elle lived with her parents she wasn’t one to judge, but she also realized there was a difference. She took up one room of the house, while Pauly inhabited an entire apartment built just for him in their basement.

She sat down on the sofa taking off her shoes. Wednesday nights were dinner and movie nights for them. And afterwards they came back to his place. She always stayed the night on Wednesday and went from Pauly’s straight to school. It was ritual—a very old ritual that had lasted for years.

Pauly came back into the living room with a beer in hand, he took the spot next to Elle. “Dinner was good.”

Elle agreed. He came in for a kiss, the smell of beer on his breath as he kissed her.

She pulled away going for the remote. Anything to steal a moment of air not filled with the smell of alcohol.

“I know it’s probably not the best thing to bring up right now,” Pauly said. He settled into the cushions, throwing an arm around Elle. “But what were you thinking?”

Elle gave him a disturbed look. “Your right this isn’t what I wanted to talk about. I thought we were past what happened a couple days ago.” Her night out with Hart had cost her several hours of arguing back and forth with Pauly, another thing for him to hold over her head.

“You never answered my question.” Pauly took the remote turning on football. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned this guy before?”

Elle sighed. There were a lot of things she didn’t mention when it came to rehab. There was a lot she didn’t say about so much going on inside her head and in her day to day life to Pauly. He just didn’t understand.

“Because there was nothing to tell, and because what happens in rehab isn’t worth talking about,” she told him.

He sat his beer down on one of his fancy coasters and directed all of his attention to her. He knew this wasn’t the case. If it meant nothing she wouldn’t have suddenly shut down her feelings toward him.

But he wanted to look past that and get to what they did best. He undid the buttons on her shirt slipping his hand past the sheer material to her tank top. And he kissed her collarbone. “If you don’t want to talk about it we can do something else.”

Elle closed her eyes as Pauly’s mauling continued. She didn’t have to help him out of his clothes he always did it himself. And he always left his socks on which really grated on her nerves. It made her feel like she wasn’t worth the full commitment.

They had sex like clockwork. And it hardly ever was different. Her head hit the pillow and she turned away from his lips. She just wasn’t in the mood to kiss him tonight. She had said talking about rehab wasn’t worth it. But talking about other things was and she knew it.

She grabbed Pauly by the hand as he started pulling her jeans off. “I think we need to talk.”

He ignored her and slid them down. He always ignored her. He always acted like what she wanted to say was futile. “We can talk later. Right now I want to be inside you.”

This grossed her out. “Pauly, I’m serious. I want to talk now.” She pressed her palm into his chest, his racing heart and erection was ready for the next step but she wasn’t. And she didn’t think she would be ever again.

“I can’t do this anymore.” She looked away. He brought his hands to the top of his head, cursing all that was holy. “And I don’t want to make up excuses as to why. I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

Pauly grabbed his designer jeans from the sofa and hopped back into them ignoring his boxers. “It’s that douche bag. The one you don’t want to talk about. Did you fuck him?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “It has nothing to do with Hart. It has to do with us. I don’t feel anything anymore. I don’t think I’m what you need.”

“What I need?” Pauly shook his head, she was being unbelievable. “What I need is for you to stop acting like such a screw up.” He immediately regretted his words even though they felt good coming out.

She carved a hand through her hair and looked away from him. It hurt, and she wasn’t sure why. She felt Pauly thought she was a screw up for some time now. Why this seemed harsh she didn’t know, maybe because he finally said it.

She didn’t waste any time collecting her things. She slipped on her shoes, collected her purse and stopped in the doorway before climbing the stairs.

“Elle, I shouldn’t have said that.” She walks right over to him and presses the necklace into his chest. He covered her hand with his trying to keep her there. “I’m an idiot.”

She pulled away. The only idiot in the room was her. “Don’t worry about it. We both knew sooner or later this was going to happen.”

“I want you to keep this. It was a gift.” He offered back the necklace.

She waved a hand refusing to take it back. She didn’t want it. “It was your grandmother’s give it to a nice girl who deserves it. I don’t deserve it.”

And she left. Pauly dropped down onto his couch totally dumbfounded that he had been dumped. A little part of him felt relieved not to have to deal with Elle and all her baggage as much as he loved her he hated having to defend her after what she did. So he didn’t bother chasing after her.

He lifted his beer from the table taking a long swig. For once he didn’t have to feel guilty for drinking.