“But I’m going to go down next Sunday to talk to him. Clear it all up.”
Brax raises his eyebrows.
“You have my number for when he puts you in the hospital. I can be your next of kin if you’d like.”
“Shut up. Mr. Keaton is a very understanding man.” I look down at Ella, and her lips barely curl into a smile.
“If I were you, I’d do it somewhere public and out of Beltline.” He leaves the kitchen.
Ella’s arms tighten around my stomach.
Brax knows more about that town and Mr. Keaton than I do, but Mr. Keaton still wants what is best for his daughter, and I need to remind him that the best is me.
Having two girls living with you sure changes the dynamic of a house. Ella’s the caregiver, and Jen’s the eye candy. Well, to the other guys. I’ll carve their eyes out if they look at Ella, she’s only my eye candy.
They all decide to watch the new Rocky movie, and Ella seems just as happy to go along with that pact. Me, not so much.
She’s standing by the couch, and she’s about to sit down, but I bend down, forcing her over my shoulder.
“I take it Creed isn’t your thing!” Jen hollers.
“Not tonight it isn’t,” I say.
Ella smacks my butt. “What are you doing?”
“I’m whisking you away.” I smack her butt back.
“Ouch!” she yells, her two hands feverishly trying to accomplish some sort of return sting to my flesh.
“They’re constantly touching,” Jen says.
Brax laughs. “This is nothing. Just wait,” he says.
I dispose Ella in my room and shut the door, flicking the lock. Whoever the genius was who put opposite locks on the shared bathroom door should win a Nobel Peace Prize because the last thing I want in this moment is for Brax to bust his ass in here, ruining a night I’ve waited two years for.
Once we’re effectively locked in the room, I look over at an uneasy Ella. She’s scooted up to my headboard with her legs bent up into her chest, her arms locking them into place. Her eyes are unreadable, but they definitely aren’t saying, Come take me however you want me, Crosby. More like a scared virgin who knows this process will be painful but wants to be rid of it. I saw that look from her once when she was sixteen, and I won’t ever enter her with that deer-in-the-headlights look again.
“El?” I ask, sitting at the edge of the bed. “You want to watch Creed?”
“No.” A weight lifts from my shoulders, realizing that I wasn’t that far off the mark by carrying her up here. “But?”
“My parents. I promised them, Cros.”
My heart breaks as I watch the despair in her eyes. I stand and pace the floor. I grab my baseball from my desk, tossing it in my hands.
“Do you regret this afternoon? Have I moved too fast?” I limit my questions to two, holding the others for another time.
“No.”
I stop my feet and stare over at her. Her legs are down, and her arms are at her sides.
“I want to be with you, Crosby. When I made that deal, it was because I wanted Ariel to have a simple life. After the accident, her life changed, too.”
“I know.” My hand threads through my dark hair because that one night impacted more lives than on paper. If only I could reverse time, we’d have left five minutes later and been late for Kedsey’s mom.
“My parents’ faces when they found out you were back…it was like I’d announced I was dropping out of college because I was pregnant. All that guilt from before rose in me, and suddenly, I was making a deal that I knew I had no chance of fulfilling.”
“You want me?” I ask, taking my seat next to her on the bed.
My hand cups her cheek, and she leans into me.
“Since I was fifteen.”
Our eyes lock, and a slow smile creeps up her lips.
“But we met at six.”
She huffs, and I chuckle, my eyes never leaving hers.
This is the point in a movie when the romance music is cued, and we kiss until the screen goes black.
But Ella and I have a story that isn’t easy to wrap up.
I’ll have to talk to her dad, figure out a way for him to accept me in her life. That’s only our first hurdle.