Page 39 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
Before I descend fully into melancholy, I force a smile. “Still vague?”
“Oh,veryvague,” he determines. “But I think I get what you’re saying. Or…notsaying.”
“I wasn’t a doormat,” I say, insistent.
He gives me a droll look. “You’reliterallyseated in a throne right now. You couldn’t be a doormat if you tried.” His brows go low. “It takes more than one person’s effort to make a relationship work.”
“No amount of ironing in the world can make up the difference—” A memory strikes me. “I ironed the shirt he wore to dinner that night!” I blurt. I’d forgotten about that. “I was pressing the skirt of my dress, and he asked me if I’d do his shirt. He was planning to dump me within thehourand still asked me to iron his goddamn shirt.” I scowl, incensed anew.“Fucker.”
Ian chuckles. “And that’s not who you want to be now?”
“Hell no!” I say, though I do find ironing quite soothing. “Now, I’m someone who canclimb a rope.”
He makes a thoughtful sound. “More like someone whoknowsthat she can climb a rope. You already had the strength; you only needed the mechanics.”
“Then, someone… who can back squat her body weight?”
“What, Tuesday’s workout? That was a set offive,” he scoffs, but his tone is light. “Your one-rep will be heavier than that. Another fifteen percent, at least.”
“Oh.Nice.So, I guess,” I muse, “I’m just a gal who’s learning what she’s capable of.”
He grunts. I don’t even pretend that I’m not into it. “Still vague. And saccharine.”
“Oh, shut up,” I complain, but I’m grinning. He smiles back.
There’s still a question hovering between us, the why of it all. Why the cracks developed, why I’d been so devoted to patching them, why it had been Cole who finally acknowledged that we were done. Why that had made me sad.
And I have a why of my own. Why, if Ian remembers I’d said that I was “a lot of things” in the bathroom that night, he has yet to comment on the fact that I’d been scared, too.
When I walked into the apartment with Heather and Mark, the lingering reek of my desperation had hit me like a slap in the face. Not the dying gasps of my relationship with Cole or the time I’d wasted denying the end of our run, but the despair of those final days in that space as I waited to find out what the hell was happening to me. If I was going blind, if I was succumbing to a degenerative nerve condition, and the knowledge that I’d be going through it with one less person’s support.
And while I’m becoming a back-squatting, rope-climbing himbo wrangler, discreetly jonesing for her boss, if I end up with MS, there’s a chance I’ll lose all of that, too. And how much more desperate will I be then, knowing how much more I could have been?
I suppress a shudder as I pull up my amended mantra.Now. Focus onnow.
DING!
I turn to see what floor we’re on. Nine to go.
“You don’t have to be useful.”
“What?” I twist back toward Ian. He’s settled his head in his hand, elbow propped on the chair, bringing us level. He is so close.
His eyes fall to my lips, then meet my gaze again. “I get that it’s your thing, being useful. But you don’t have to be useful to other people to have value. You can just… be.You.”
The words wrap around my sad, scared, stupid heart.
“You say that like you know who that is,” I say.
“You saythatlike you don’t.” There’s worry in his reply.Care.
I smile and risk a look at his lips. “I’m finding out, remember?”
He is so close.
The elevator’s movement sets us rocking, and while I’ve long since adjusted to the subtle swaying, this time, I let it shift me a few critical inches. I forgive myself for believing that Ian does the same and take it as my green light. I’m not sad or scared as I close the space between us and kiss him.
Barely. A brush of lips, dry and soft. It’s over in an instant.
