Page 18 of Margins

Alex swallows that and pretends nothing gets caught in his throat, then they both take another bite and Alex pushes his chips toward the middle of the table for them to share. “So, do you think reading the messages between P and E has made the wanting better or worse?”

“Worse,” Elijah answers immediately, though he looks like he wants to take it back, too honest, too quickly. “Or maybe that’s not the right word. I don’t know.”

“Is that why you weren’t sure whether you were okay the other night?” Alex asks.

“I don’t—it’s not—” Elijah sighs and lifts his hood over his curls, and he looks so damn small for someone who is very much not, the brief description of Peter’s strong body—Elijah’s great grandfather’s body—becoming a tangible thing in front of Alex today. “I still don’t know how to answer that—not right now. But I’ll say that their story makes me ache and I still want more, and I’m not totally sure how to balance those two things. Not when you’re sitting across from me, probably feeling the same way.”

A couple walks past them, food in hand, and gets settled on the other side of the patio, and it should give Alex enough time to take a deep breath and think about where to take the conversation from here—for him to back up or turn around or maybe even run away—but then he’s asking a question he only halfway understands, and he knows he’s less ready for Elijah’s next answer than any that have come before.

He knows the answer matters in ways he can barely admit.

“Do you think me sitting across from you makes the wanting better or worse?”

Elijah’s eyes fall closed for only a second, but by the time he opens them again, it seems like he has all the self-control Alex lacks, and maybe he lies, if only by avoiding Alex’s question altogether. “How long were you married?”

“Twelve years,” Alex says, taking the out that Elijah has offered, if it’s an out at all. “We were together almost 20, though. Since high school.”

“You guys have cute little prom pictures and all that shit?” Elijah teases.

“All that shit,” Alex huffs. “Yeah, definitely. And most of it’s probably in boxes in my garage now, leaving even more empty space inside.”

“You think there’s any chance you’ll get back together?”

“No.”

He waits for Elijah to push for more than that, but he gets nothing but a foot nudged against his, a touch that should probably be there and gone, but one that lingers instead. “You close to your family?”

“Mostly,” he admits. “My little sister is awesome. Gabriela. She’s just incredibly busy, which means I don’t get to see her as much as I’d like. And she’s married with two kids, so my daughter loves to hang out with her cousins when we can make it work. My parents are still married and very, very Catholic, so they’re not happy about the divorce. Ditto the aunts and uncles and my grandmother. My grandfather, God rest his soul, probably would’ve just yelled for a minute and then split a bottle of tequila with me. But yeah, they all love Cass and love to look at me like I screwed up, which I guess maybe I did, so that’s where things are at these days.”

Elijah’s eyes narrow. “Why do you think you screwed up?”

“She left me, Elijah. That wouldn’t have happened if I’d done everything right.”

“It seems so quiet, though—the end of your marriage.”

“You’re not wrong,” Alex admits, a small frown thrown onto the table between them. “But what makes you think that?”

“I mean, you’re not screaming about her, which makes me think you’re probably not screaming at her either. And if you’re not screaming at her, there’s a decent chance she’s not screaming at you,” Elijah says. “Not that I don’t think you ever fought, but you’re heartbroken and you’re taking the blame, and you’ve already told me you miss your best friend and what you were supposed to be. So, it’s none of my business at all, but I am curious about whether anything else was said out loud.”

“By her?”

“Probably, yeah. Because maybe your only mistake—” Elijah trails off and looks over at the couple engaged in a conversation of their own. “No, never mind. Like I said, it’s none of my business. You can ignore me.”

“Don’t want to ignore you. Maybe my only mistake was what?”

But Alex watches as Elijah shakes his head and bites his lip, not intentionally toying with him, though it’s a little maddening all the same. Elijah seems like he’s a half step ahead of Alex, and maybe has been since they first met in his grandpa’s driveway, but Alex doesn’t even know where they’re going. When he can’t keep staring into the blue of Elijah’s eyes, Alex drops his gaze to where Elijah’s fingers are tangled with his hoodie strings, and it’s not the first time Alex has noticed how much Elijah always needs to be touching things. His hoodie. His hair. His face. It’s strangely mesmerizing, and Alex tries not to wonder what Elijah’s like in any of those failed relationships, and how badly he might want to touch other people, too. And as though Elijah can read his mind, there’s a little more pressure against Alex’s foot—just a reminder that Elijah is right there.

“What would you say if I told you I didn’t want to look at the books today?” Elijah asks.

Alex takes a deep breath and sits back in his chair, a napkin crumpled in his hand. “I’d ask what you want to do instead.”

“More of this.”

“So, today the ache wins out?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it, sure,” Elijah says.

“Are you giving up on the story?”

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