*NOTE: Check out the Audiobook version of this chapter voiced by kaelking12! Featuring music by Mountains of the Moon, luhx, and OK Go!
Elias
Back at Bellevue, I used to have this ticking inside my head. Some days I could barely hear it. Like background music between my ears.
And other days, days like this one, it'd keep me up.
Just tick, tick, ticking me to the edge of my sanity. Drowning out everything and everyone worth listening to. Drowning out logic. Drowning me in feelings that had me tearing at my sheets, beating my fists against the walls, making myself bleed.
I'd switch from sadness to rage on a dime.
From being someone who was barely holding it together to someone who lost control.
And it all started with her.
The ticking didn't exist until I hung up our first phone call when she asked me the question that set off the time bomb in my brain.
"Do you think you'll ever love me?"
I didn't answer her.
I hung up the phone and replayed her question a thousand times in my head until her words turned into ticking.
Until the weight of my mistakes became a sound. A timer. Counting down until Elias King turned into his shadow.
And now, it's finally happening.
I'm sitting in the middle of a restaurant sinking waist deep into my darkness because of her.
And the only sound in my ears is that that ticking.
Tick, tick, tick.
Boom.
"Elias? Elias, what's wrong?"
Jersey's hand grazes my shoulder, but I barely feel her there. I barely feel anything at all. Not the comfort of her fingers when she takes my face in her hands, not the gentle brush of her lips when she kisses me.
Nothing.
Nothing but the quiet before the storm.
"I'm fine, I was just--gonna check on Lisa. I'll be right back."
I get up from my chair too fast and the edge of my legs crash into the table. Jersey's empty wine glass swivels and then shatters against the fancy plate below it. Glass flies everywhere. I reach out to stop it and slice my hand open.
It's a small cut, but it draws blood.
The table cloth turns red and then Mindy reaches over to "help me." She snatches a napkin before Jersey can blink and tries tying it around my hand.
The second she touches me, the bomb goes off. I rip my fingers out of her grip and lace them in Jersey's. I hold onto her tight--tighter, until the warmth pooling in my napkin spreads into her palm.
"Elias, stop! Your hand! Look at your hand," she says.
Her voice is a mix of terror and worry and confusion. Confusion I'm causing. I look at her without saying anything because I can't say anything. I wouldn't know where to start, but I know where things would end.
With Mindy.
With the rest of the story of why I left.
I could tell her.
I could open my mouth right now and tell her everything, and it would ruin everything.
So I force my lips shut, lean in, and press them against hers until I lose myself to our "right now." I don't need anything else but this. I can exist with her in the present without having to deal with the past.
I want San Francisco to dissolve on her lips. I want to crush it in the space between us. But right when I pull away, I still feel that city staring at me.
Standing over my shoulder.
Always watching, like it always has.
I separate myself from Alex, slowly, and watch a million questions bloom on her face, but I mumble a quick "be right back", and walk away from the table before she can ask them.
The restaurant blurs out of focus as I bolt for the men's bathroom. I nearly clip a waiter carrying out what has to be a six hundred dollar tray of sushi. He shoots his mouth off at me, but I'm way too rattled to stop and apologize.
My mind keeps playing and replaying the look on Jersey's face when I walked away. All the color in her cheeks faded as she watched me leave.
I made her watch me leave.
Again.
Even though I promised I wouldn't.
Right now, the tattoo that's etched into my chest feels like a lie.
Because even after all the things I said I wouldn't do and all the ways I swore that I would change, I'm still a runner.
And right now I'm running away from her.
From the truth.
From Mindy.
From everything.
I slam open the bathroom door , stumble over to the sink, and stare at myself in the mirror. My whole face is red, my eyes are bloodshot, and there's tears staining my cheeks that I'm too numb to feel.
I shut my eyes to block out my broken excuse for a reflection, but that's when the flickers start.
Mindy's hospital room.
My mom crying on the floor on the hallway.
The face of that little girl who wasn't mine.
I reach for the sink blindly and turn on the faucet with clumsy, shaking hands. I lower myself down until my head's level with the tap and splash cold water on my face, hoping the feeling will pull me out of the past as fast as I need it too.
But when I open my eyes, last year's standing right behind me, staring at me in the mirror with the same sad, desperate eyes that she always has. The same eyes I told her I liked on the night I met her.
Mindy was an accident.
She wandered into my room during one of Caleigh and Tanner's kick backs a couple weeks before Alex got to LA. Their parties were always packed, and Mindy stumbled into my room saying she just wanted some "space" from the chaos.
She didn't want space. She wanted sex.
And so did I.
So we fucked.
And that's all that it was.
Empty, raw, selfish fucking, because I didn't care about anyone or anything back then, and I thought she understood that.
I thought she could tell the difference.
I was wrong.
And here we are, staring at each other in the mirror with a history hanging over our heads like an axe.
I regret her. I regret sleeping with her before Alex, I regret leaving Alex alone on a beach because of her, I regret wasting my time with her. I regret everything.
But she doesn't.
She still looks at me with silent expectation, and I can't take it anymore.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask, but it's less of a question and more of an accusation.
My voice comes out low and aggressive to the point where Mindy looks rattled by it. I almost apologize but I can't force my mouth to form the words. It feels wrong. The idea of apologizing to her for anything still makes me sick. She never even said she was sorry.
She let that entire situation at the hospital play out and then kept me and my family from speaking with her or Darius after the kid was born. I got dragged out of that hospital by security while Mindy locked herself in a maternity ward along with her lies.
It took her weeks to call me. But I refused to answer the phone.
I cut her out, blocked her emails, and texts and Facebook messages because if I hadn't, I would've lost my mind the way I'm starting to lose it right now.
She knots her hands together and shuffles on her feet before finding it in herself to say anything to me.
"I just wanted to talk."
"There's nothing to talk about, Mindy. The only person I want to talk to is my girlfriend, and I don't want to keep her waiting because of you."
I snatch a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser, dry my face, and start heading towards the door.
"Does she know?"
Three words.
I thought I was stronger than three little words, but the second they leave her mouth, I fly off the handle.
"How the fuck is that any of your business?"
She stares down at her shoes like a child.
"It's not, I'm sorry, I just--"
"You just what?! Figured you'd chase me into the bathroom and find out if you could screw your way back into my life like you did before?"
"No."
"Then what do you fucking want? You know what? Don't even answer that. I'll answer that question for you. If you think that following me in here is going to get you a second chance, let me set the record straight. I want nothing to do with you. I never did. We had sex, it was a fucking mistake, but you somehow managed to pull me into your bullshit for nine months out of my life. Everyday that I was stuck with you, I thought about her. I wanted her. Anytime I was with you, I fantasized about Alex being the girl I was starting a family with instead of you. And , I thank God everyday that Darius turned out to be that little girl's father, because if I had been, it would've killed me. It would've ruined my life because the life I want starts and ends with the girl sitting outside waiting for me. Not you. Not never. It was never you."
Mindy's quiet for a long time. She frantically wipes the mess of tears sliding down her face and eventually forces herself to look at me.
"I know, Elias. I've always known how you felt about her. When she showed up at the airport, you looked at her so much differently than you've ever looked at me. She had your attention, and now she has your heart. And I'm sorry, I--I'm sorry I got in the middle of that. That's what I came here to say. I saw the two of you walk in, and you both looked so happy that I felt like I had to apologize for doing what I did to you. If I'd known--"
"You did. I told you how I felt about her when you called me in New Jersey."
She breaks eye contact for the fifth time. She doesn't like staring the truth in the face. Never has.
"I know, but I was scared, and alone, and I made a mistake. I know apologizing isn't going to fix what I did, but I still want you to hear it. I've grown up a lot in the last year, Elias. Having, having a daughter changed the way I see things, and all I can say is, if the love you have for Alex is even a fraction of what I feel for my little girl, then I want the best for the both of you."
She manages to mold her mouth into a smile, but I don't return it. My insides feel like acid and insecurity and the feelings eating away at me. Maybe some part of me wants to accept her apology, but I can't. I just want her to disappear, but maybe that has more to do with me than it does with her.
When I don't respond to her, Mindy walks over to the mirror, dabs the remaining tears off of her face, and then disappears back out the door.
She doesn't say anything else.
She doesn't look back.
She leaves exactly the way I want her to.
But the second she does, I fall to pieces. I scramble over into the closest bathroom stall and dry heave out my history. The echo of the conversation's still turning my insides out.
Dan spent so much time trying to teach me how to stomach the truth and how to figure out the right time and place to tell it.
He used to ask me how I'd handle telling Alex about everything that happened with Mindy, and I always avoided the question. I shot him bullshit answers like "I'll do it when the right time comes", but back then I thought seeing her again was a long shot much less having the chance to tell her the truth. I never thought I'd actually have to have that conversation.
Dan saw right through me. He saw that I wasn't ready, that if I couldn't even talk about Mindy in a session without losing my mind, that I'd fuck things up when it came to telling Jersey.
And now.
Here we are.
I'm still not ready.
Even though I owe Jersey the truth.
I can't talk to her about it like this. Tonight's tearing me apart, but I'm not willing to let my past take pieces out of her too. She's happy.
She's the happiest I've seen her in a while, and I'm not going to take that away from her.
I'll talk to her when I'm ready.
When she's ready.
When we're both strong enough to handle the holes we've made in ourselves and strong enough to survive our secrets.
But tonight's not that night.
I have to get my shit together and try to be the man she needs me to be in the present, not the monster I was in the past.
Halfway through my struggle to stand back up, someone takes me by the arm from behind and helps me to my feet.
I turn around and find Lisa standing behind me. I can't read the look on her face, but her expression's the least of my problems right now.
"You okay?" She asks, and for the first time, she actually seems genuine.
I straighten up and try to appear less pathetic than I feel.
"Fine. Why are you in the men's bathroom?"
She casually points over to the "menstrual hygiene" waste basket on the side of the stall. Nausea drop kicks me in the stomach.
"You've got yourself in quite the pickle, kiddo," she says.
"It's not that big of a deal. I'll just leave. It's not like anyone else was in here when I--"
"I was in here the entire time. For that entire conversation. It's amazing what people will say when they think nobody's listening."
My lungs lock up in my chest, while her words sink in. She heard me. She heard everything.
More than Jersey has, more than I ever wanted her to know.
"Lisa, you can't say anything. I need you to promise me that you won't--"
"I don't think you're in a position to tell me what I can and can't do, Elias. You're up shit's creek as far as I see, so here's what I want in exchange for keeping your little secret, a secret."
"That's blackmail, Lisa. I can fire you for publishing information that I didn't agree to."
"Sure you can, but if you fire me, I can leak your whole story to the press, and you'll be SOL, your little girlfriend will probably bail, and you'll be sans publicist. That means you won't have one. Think about it."
Anger boils up in my chest, but I can't argue with her. She has me by the balls, and the most I can do is sit back and take it.
"What do you want from me?"
"For you to stay away from that Alex chick until I say so. There are eyes on you at this restaurant and plenty of vipers who'll recognize your pretty face and expose that girl faster than you can blink. Not to mention that Mindy girl. She's a massive liability, Elias. If she talks to anyone, we're all fucked."
I stumble back against the stall door and bury my face in my hands.
"I know. But she won't. I think she feels shitty enough about what she did to me to not leak it to the news."
Lisa folds her arms across her chest and scoffs.
"Honey, that's never stopped anybody. She's got dirt on you and over the next couple days, there are going to be a crap ton of people who'll pay good money for that kind of info."
The ticking goes off in my brain again, even louder than before. I hit my head backwards against the tile wall one, two, three times until it stops.
"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?!"
"Let me send her home, solo."
"Fuck, no!"
"Stop arguing, shut up, and listen. You two can pick up where you left off in three to four days tops, but the space will be a good thing. She agreed to get back together with you, didn't she?"
I want to punch something, but I can't. I crack the hell out of my knuckles instead.
"Yes."
"So then she'll understand, and if she loves you, she'll wait a couple days until we work this out in the press. Okay?"
I don't say anything for a long while. I don't know what to say because the idea of having to separate myself from Jersey again has me tongue-tied.
"Can you send her in here, so I can talk to her first?"
Lisa rolls her eyes, but eventually her pint-sized heart kicks into gear, and she sputters out an irritated "yes" before shutting me into the stall and zooming out of the bathroom.
I wait for a couple minutes in total silence trying to get my head around how fucked everything is. Maybe, I deserve this. Guys who screw around without thinking about the consequences always pay the Piper, and I have. Twice.
If Mindy talks I'll be setting myself up for time number three.
If Jersey finds out about last year, I'll rack up my count to four.
Four times when I've completely screwed over the people I love because of my stupid mistakes.
My frustration finally reaches a fever pitch, and I start taking it out on the stall. I kick the shit out of the wall until the door pops open, and I find Jersey standing wide-eyed and worried on the other side.
"Elias?"
I try catching my breath to answer her, but the sight of her in that dress knocks the wind out of me all over again.
"Yeah."
"Lisa said you needed to talk to me."
She steps towards me cautiously, and I gently take her by the hand and pull her into the stall. I throw my arms around her, bury my face in her hair, and hold her until I feel the warmth of her skin seeping through my clothes.
"I don't want to talk," I say, my voice weighty with all the things I can't mention.
"Then what do you want?"
She looks up at me doe-eyed and parts her lips just enough at the end of her question to tip me into trouble.
"You. Just you."
I kiss her hard and fast till the intensity of it has her moaning against my mouth. I shouldn't need her like this, but I do. God, I do. I want to fix my mistakes with my hands, let my secrets die on her lips, and forget myself in her. But I need her permission. I need her to need this as badly as I do.
I pull away from her to tell her I'm sorry, but she swallows my apology as soon as it leaves my mouth.
She kisses her way along my jawline and makes her way over to that spot under my ear that'll ruin me if she keeps going the way she's going.
"Elias?"
"Yeah?"
"Remember how I said I wanted you to wait until I said the word?"
"I do."
She pulls the bottom of my ear in between her teeth and sucks it for a couple seconds before letting go. My eyes roll into the back of my head.
"There is no word. Just an expectation."
I slip my hands under her dress and trace the outline of her panties until I feel just how expectant she is.
"And what's that?" I ask.
"Don't ever leave me alone at a table after kissing me the way you did. You pulled me into one of the most intense kisses of my life and then walked off. I thought you bailed."
"I will never--"
I slip two fingers inside her and watch her come dangerously close to losing control.
"--ever--"
I pick up my pace, and the way she starts pushing herself against my hand has me hard in a matter of seconds.
"--leave you alone, again. Comprende?"
She's barely breathing, but she manages to whisper out a couple words despite me.
"I com--"
"Not yet."
I get my hands out of trouble and lift her up off the ground. She wraps her legs around my waist and Hollywood Blvd. kisses me until we're both backed up against the wall. I push myself against her, so she feels exactly how bad I want her while she fumbles with the button of my jeans.
"Condom. Stat," she whispers.
"Rodger that. Give me a second."
I step away and fumble around to find my wallet. I yank a Trojan out a little too excitedly, and It tumbles out of my hand and slides out under the stall door.
"Fuck, sorry. I'll be right back, don't go anywhere."
Jersey stifles a laugh as I step out of the stall. I scan the floor for my merchandise only to find that it's made its way into someone else's hand.
And that someone just so happens to be Lisa.
"I said, you could talk to her not screw her against a bathroom stall! Now, before you give me anymore reasons to chop your balls off, say your goodbyes and send her on her way. The driver's waiting out front!"
Lisa eyes me, I eye Lisa, and then I look back at Jersey with a sly smile.
"What do you say, Jersey? You ready to jet?"
I wink at her. She winks right back. She gets me without even having to say a word. This is why I love this girl.
"Ready when you are!" She says.
"Come here, babe!"
I extend my hand out to Jersey, she takes it, and without saying another word, we both bolt for the exit. We're barely even two seconds out the door before we both hear Lisa's muffled shouts coming from behind us. We sidle along the darker corners of the restaurant and sneak our way out the front door. We sprint down the long line of town cars outside until we find the one Lisa paid for.
I open the door for Jersey, wait until she's seated, and then push her back against the seat. Her dress flies up and she reaches down to cover herself like the modest girl that she is. Unfortunately, none of my plans for her tonight involve modesty.
I ask the driver to take us to UCLA and crawl into the back and on top of her. She's holding the bottom of her dress down with both hands, while I'm doing my best to peel her out of the top.
"Elias King! We are not having sex in the back of your publicist's rental car!" She whisper-shouts.
"Who said anything about having sex?"
Her face flushes.
"Well, back in the bathroom we were--um--getting pretty close, weren't we?" She stammers. Cute.
"You're right. But I haven't been with you in over a year, and as tempted as I am to rush--"
I kiss my way down her neck, and she lifts her hands away from the bottom of her dress and buries them into my hair. Her fingers take me by surprise, but I stay focused on the prize and I make my way further down towards my destination. She squirms against the seat as I disappear underneath her dress and kiss her through her panties.
"--good things come--"
She presses me harder against her body, while I continue to tease the modesty out of her.
"--to those who wait."
***
(Thank you guys for being so patient with us this week! We got back from Berlin on Sunday super late, so posting an update that same day wasn't possible so thank you guys for waiting until today for this update! Also, we wanted to say a special thanks to those of you who listened to the audiobook! kaelking12 works extremely hard and puts a lot into bringing these character voices to life! Hope you enjoyed the performance! What do you think is going to happen next?! Next update should be on Sunday!)