Page 68 of Without You

He nods in understanding. “Yeah, I get that. Knoxville’s a great city. I’ve been a few times.”

Our coffee is delivered and I doctor mine up while Elijah takes his first sip.

“Good coffee,” he says, smacking his lips lightly and looking into his cup.

I nod my agreement after taking a drink and keeping hold of my cup.

He asks me question after question about Benton and what I did for work while living in Knoxville, but every time I try to flip any questions in his direction, he smoothly — though, maybe not so smoothly since I noticed — turns the line of questions back to me.

The same awkwardness settles in once again when I get tired of getting non-answers and I look around the café, trying to come up with something to talk about. He is very obviously pretty closed off, which isn’t a big deal, but still, it doesn’t leave much room to make small talk.

Not only that, he appears to be incredibly uncomfortable in here. He’s fidgeting and looking around nervously and it makes me wonder why he even asked me to join him for coffee if he doesn’t want to be here himself.

After five minutes of just looking around, I slump my shoulders. “You asked me to eat with you, you gotta give me something.”

“What?”

“You’re so quiet and a terrible conversationalist,” I blurt out.

He throws his head back laughing. “Just say it like it is.”

I scrunch my nose. “Sorry. I sometimes forget to have a filter. But seriously, what’s the deal?”

Still laughing, he shakes his head and readjusts his ball cap. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the city boy in me, but I’m kind of private.”

“I’ll say.”

Luckily, our food is delivered which gives us something to do with our mouths since talking is out of the question. And like the true lady I am, I practically inhale my omelet in an effort to speed this bad morning along.

When the waitress comes back to see how we’re doing, I slip her my credit card to pay when he isn’t paying attention. She nods and looks closely at him, shrugs, and moves along.

“So when you’re not yelling at your car on the side of the road, what do you do?”

I hesitate to give him anymore information about me, but in a desperate attempt to relieve ourselves of this awkwardness, I tell him, “I’m a massage therapist.”

He pauses, his fork up to his mouth but suspended mid-air. “You’re kidding.”

“No. I actually just started because I only graduated from the classes a few weeks ago.”

He finishes the bite he was about to take and sits back in his seat. “What kind of massage do you do?”

“Right now, I do deep tissue, Swedish, Aromatherapy, trigger point, and Shiatsu. I’d love to get into hot stone and am considering sports massage therapy as well. Like I said, I just started.”

“Do you like it?”

“I do.” I nod. “It’s more rewarding than I anticipated, actually. Helping people who are in pain is really satisfying work.”

“As someone who gets regular massages, I can attest to knowing that you’re helping people.”

Finally something to talk about! I could cry I’m so happy. I am not someone who likes to sit with someone in silence. By myself? Fine. With others? No thank you. “What kind do you get?”

“Usually deep tissue but sometimes hot stone.”

I nod and finish the bite of cheesy omelet I just shoveled in my mouth. “Do you have a lot of muscle pain?”

“Not if I get regular massages. A lot of it is from stress but I’ve learned it’s a way for me to cope, too.”

“How often do you get them?”

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