That Thing Between Eli and Gwen(94)

Again, silence.

It was killing me. She wasn’t the silent type; she was a rambler and I liked that about her, so I guessed it was up to me.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked as I drank.

“You can’t be serious,” she replied, still not drinking, just staring at the glass.

“But I am. I want to hear it. Everything going through your mind. Even the things you think I’ll judge you for thinking. The one thing I love about us, Guinevere, is that we talk, we laugh, we tease each other, we laugh more, and we drink. Before being my girlfriend, you were my friend; I love that.”

She drank, not a little bit, but her whole damn glass, the wine even slipping out the corner of her mouth. When she was done, she inhaled deeply and wiped her mouth.

“We’re going to hate each other,” she confessed as I refilled her glass. “Not in the beginning. We’ll try to be understanding, but eventually I’m going to get jealous. I’m going to see you and your daughter and feel like the odd man out. Which is horrible, Eli. She’s your kid. I’ll know that, but I’ll still be hurt. You’ll feel guilty and then annoyed because I’m not going to be happy or I’ll start avoiding you because of it. Slowly we will wear each other down until…until we’re fighting all the time, fighting because we love each other and don’t want to let go, but realistically know we should. I can see it so clearly, me not seeing you because of work and then when I do you have to be with your daughter. Besides, I still have things I want to do with my career too… I’m selfish, Eli. I don’t like that I am, but I don’t want to share you with Hannah or your daughter or anyone. I feel like they are standing between us, like they are the thing between us… I want to spend some time getting to know you and being with you. Those are the things I’m thinking about.”

I finished my first glass and started to refill, my mind racing to the point that I was starting to get a headache.

“In your books, how would the hero and heroine work this out?” I questioned.

Her mood lightened up and she even giggled. “The heroine would have gotten on the plane and we’d have to wait for book two to see them struggle to fix everything later.”

I had missed hearing her sound cheerful. “Who do you think would play me in the book to movie version if there was one?”

“Tom Hiddleston,” she said without even a moment of hesitation.

“We look nothing alike Guinevere.”

“I know!” She grinned, reaching for the bottle. “But he’s hot and I’d happily play myself, thank you very much.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah good luck with that.”

“A girl can dream.”

“If you are going to dream about a man fucking you in the shower and on the bed, in your parents’ basement, it needs to me.”

Her eyebrow rose and she looked ready to challenge me. “And if I don’t?”

“The moment I feel you hot and bothered beside me, I’ll happily remind you one thrust at a time.”

Her eyes glazed over and she swallowed slowly before looking away.

Grinning to myself, I kicked her foot on the coffee table. “We aren’t a movie, or one of your romantic book couples. We’re real people who have to deal with real shit day in and day out. Just because you find the love of your life doesn’t mean nothing else comes up. My daughter, Sophia, she’s important me, and I can’t even explain it, but I’m happy she’s alive no matter who her mother is. I love her…but I also love you and I don’t want to choose. I’m selfish like that. I want you both.”

“Eli—”

Reaching over to her, I took her glass and set it on the coffee table next to mine. Opening my arms for her, she hugged me, burying her face into my neck.

“Later you should rebook your flight to India. I don’t want to ever hold you back either. But when you go, remember you’re got a boyfriend waiting at home. We’ll email each other back and forth; who knows? I might even have enough time to visit, when Hannah is with Sophia. We are going to share custody and Hannah knows that is the extent of our relationship. We’re going to work Guinevere, and we aren’t going to hate each other; we’re going to miss each other to the point that nothing else matters.”

“Eli,” she whispered, sitting up between my thighs, her eyes searching mine as I brushed my thumb over her lips.

“I told your father that in ten years I’d still be with you. I meant it.”

When her lips were on mine, I felt my body finally relax. We weren’t running away from each other, but toward one another. Yes, there had been and would be bumps in the road, yes, we’d fight, and yes, I was sure starting a long distance relationship wasn’t going to be nearly as romantic or fulfilling as I’d hoped, but it was something…something that closed the space between us.