There was no doubt in his mind that he would see her again. It was certainly no stretch of the imagination, as Lockhart Gardner was a large, expansive firm who worked with other firms, all over the world. And, as Eli was a prominent client of the former, it would stand to reason that he would spend enough time around their offices to run into her when her firm was in town litigating a rather large, important class action lawsuit.
It was happy coincidence that Diane had called in him to discuss stacks and stacks of paperwork regarding confidentiality clauses for his staff. It had been an even happier coincidence that they had been casually spread across the entirety of the large conference room when Will had barged in with his co-counsel in tow.
The happiest, most confusing, most unlikely coincidence that the class action was against a Mexican toy manufacturer. A case that had required an Spanish interpreter, of course.
Will had been the first to speak, "Diane, Eli, I'm going to need you to take this down the hall, I've got about seventeen people coming up the rear that... well, you know." Lawyers filed in behind him, all with boxes of depositions in hand.
Diane had slipped her glasses off of the bridge of her nose and began gathering up her documents while Eli stared across the room at the young woman making quick notes in her overflowing padfolio.
Tearing his eyes away, he followed Diane's lead, shoving papers into files that were marked for something else, smoothing down his hair, buttoning his blazer... composing himself. When Diane stood, so did he, and they made their way towards the door, towards her and he had almost made it into the hallway, free, when she looked up and caught his eye.
"Eli!"
"Natalie!" he responded, just as enthusiastically-giddy, almost-taking care to ensure that there was no trace of anything else in his voice..
She rolled her eyes, grinning, "Good... to see you."
"You too," he answered, averted his eyes, sped into the hall, as though to catch up with Diane. Before he rounded the corner, his emotions got the best of him, and he glanced back in the direction of the conference room just in time for Natalie to avert her gaze from him.
No, he doesn't listen to Diane as she outlines their five year expansion plan; he doesn't care. He thinks about the woman in the other room and how he should absolutely, one-hundred percent not be thinking about her.
For how strong he is, there's that bit of weakness in him.
-
She text messages him.
He doesn't remember ever having given her his phone number, but of course she has it, of course she does. Someone else had to have given it to her; she had to have asked for it, he thinks. It was Diane, it was Will, it was Alicia, someone else, because he wouldn't be so reckless, giving her his private number. That sort of behavior isn't coded into him. There's frivolity, to be sure, but nothing resembling recklessness.
He can only wish that he was. That he is.
'Drinks tonight?' she asks, as though this an old friendship, as though this is just as easy as giving in. Truth is, he stares at her text for ten minutes, pressing the track button on his phone thirteen times to brighten the screen again, to reread her words, before he responds.
Self-deprecating, perhaps, but there's a tell-tale fallback in his words, 'Are you old enough to drink?' A swell of pride in his chest as he send the words, a volley to her set up.
Seconds later (and he wants to believe she's waiting on his response, he really does) 'You're so funny. It's a yes or no, Eli.'
He gives her the name of a quiet little place out above Whacker and shuts off his phone. He doesn't want the chance to cancel this meeting. He knows himself and he knows that he will, if given the chance.
-
To his credit, he has one scotch and soda before she arrives. Eli is sure to get there an hour ahead of time and nurse something, just to take the edge off. There's nothing to expect as there was nothing really between them, nothing concrete, but he's nervous, chicken shit and she hasn't even arrived yet. And that must count for something.
He, as a rational, sane man, retraces his footsteps, actually tries to determine how he's wound up where he is. It makes no sense, this is an awful idea, a skeleton waiting to be shoved in a closet. It's a gnawing at the base of his skull because it's a 'what if' and it's slightly dangerous and she is in fact incredibly brilliant and driven and god-bless-her beautiful.
If he doesn't put it all out there, there will forever be that 'what if.'
Eli Gold doesn't do 'what if's.' There is no point.
His eyes are focused on the remnants of amber liquid swirling abound sad, melted ice cubes when she arrives. A tap on his shoulder and he's jolted out of his drink, faces her. Her eyes are bright, apologetic. "I'm sorry, the meeting ran late and I... hi." The smile on her lips almost makes him forget what a borderline idea this is. Voice and eyes soft and oh, jesus, damn, this is already out of hand. What in the name of god was and is he thinking?
"Hi," he forgets his drink, forgets where he is. "No worries, I... I'm glad you came."
Natalie looks at her shoes-Converse sneakers she's changed into-and then back at him. "It's yet to be seen if I'm glad to have come."
"This was your idea..." Eli enjoys the banter, enjoys her snark. "Drink?"
"Glenlivet, neat," she tosses at him, a half-smile on her face. At his reaction, "What? I like the good stuff and I assume you're paying."
"Oh, you assume?" even as he asks, he lifts his hand to signal a waiter.
Without warning, her hand reaches out and settles itself on his shoulder, softly. "Hey, I have student loans." Natalie winks at him, it's fetching, becoming and alleviating, "And I know how much you make."
"Oh, do you?" he asks as he hands over his Visa Black, starting a tab.
She rolls her eyes, takes seat across from him in the abnormally small booth, purse dropping heavily to the floor. "No, but DC is teaching me how to talk a good game, and besides, you're a gentleman, aren't you?" she concedes, flitting her eyes to his, almost embarrassed.
Eli looks at her, she makes to look at him, but her eyes flit away now and again. For perhaps the first time in his life he doesn't know what to say, he has no response. She's lovely, and he wants her in a way that isn't base or shameful, but he wants her to talk for hours so that he doesn't have to; he's content to sit here with her, but she's not so.
"Eli..." she begins and it dies on her lips as her drinks comes. She glances from the drink to him, picks it up and takes a large swallow. The liquid courage won't reach her for a bit, and he's so content to wait. No jumping any guns.
His lips hidden behind his own glass comes a hum, "Hmmm?"
Natalie laughs in spite of herself, another sip halfway down her throat when she coughs, almost chokes, but picks up the laugh again. "Andre tried this... I don't know." When her face falls into her free hand, the one that isn't wrapped around the glass, he's surprised, but takes the moment to take a long, long drink of his own, makes a motion to the waiter for another.
This isn't like him. He keeps reminding himself of that. He thinks that perhaps if he reminds himself of that enough it will slowly become him.
"Said he didn't like you," Natalie laughs through another sip of her drink. "Wouldn't elaborate," she claims, and meets his gaze. When she leans back against her chair, he has a moment to assess her. Hair up in a tight bun, hands under the table, not crossed over her chest in a standoff.
Natalie smiles at him, and it's a mixture of fear and pride, he thinks, maybe., "I didn't... appreciate it. Then again... I... he..." Hard eye contact, all semblance of good-naturedness gone, Natalie tosses back the last of her scotch. "Luckily there was nothing for him in DC."
A thrill of something in his stomach, something he can't quite place. "Why are you... telling me this?"
Natalie shakes her head and takes a moment to find the words, when she speaks, it's to her glass. "There are times in your life, Eli, when there are split second decisions..." she says, signals to the waiter for another drink. "I don't like missing opportunities, is all."
"Oh?"
"Oh."
"Natalie, please, I can't..."
His fingers dig respectively into his thigh and around the slick sides of his glass.
"Eli. I'm... I know that you felt something... for me," she laughs, because it's strange for her to say. Because she is. Brilliant, really, if admissions are indeed admissible. "And the way you managed to... catch me off guard, I didn't... it wasn't the most ideal situation."
He wants to say something, but is caught off guard again.
"I managed to catch you off guard?"
"When I went to dinner with you, I knew it wasn't... about the nannying position. And I shouldn't have gone to dinner with you. For so many reasons. As a potential future employer, as someone with a boyfriend... as younger woman," she adds, cheeks coloring.
He blinks, has no idea where this is going.
"But... I still did. Because I felt... something. Because you caught me off guard." The shy smile she's wearing nearly undoes him. It's difficult for her, obviously, to put her emotions into words, and now that she has, Eli hasn't a clue what to say in response. He has things to say but no literate way of speaking them.
He's a mess.
A stasis, they fall into. The din of the chatter of the bar settling around them. Eli wants to tell her that he hadn't thought of her until she showed up in that conference room, wants to say something to make her understand just how deeply she cuts with simple words.
Four months and simple emails to him, asking this or that, simple, personal things peppered throughout, as though bait to take. He wants to tell her that this is bullshit and he's too old for all of it. But there's this chase and the actual real, tacit want. "And you come out for drinks, now, knowing that my intentions towards you aren't completely and solely... professional," he reminds.
Eli isn't sure how this should have gone, but not like this.
"Well," she says, slowly, "Andre is contorting himself around Europe. "
His eyes spark. "But I thought you were in love," he couldn't be more sarcastic if he tried.
"It's nothing... new. He didn't want to be tied down somewhere, and not... DC. Now, had it been Canada, that would have been a different story and... why do I tell you these things?" Natalie becomes bashful and confused, wondering at her words, wondering why she's speaking them at all.
"I'm easy to open up to," they both know that's a bold-faced lie.
"Or maybe I like you," she reasons, sounding like she's questioning herself.
Ten-thirty on a Friday night and people are pressing on and in all around them. Not alone, but never more alone, surrounded by anonymous people. Natalie leans back and surveys the crowd, shuffles her chair around the table a bit, closer to him.
"I can't-I don't- ...maybe?"
Natalie laughs at his incredulity. "Yes, maybe. Maybe because, you tried to have me deported," she almost shouts, but tucks in her chin before she gets loud, drinks emphatically from her scotch. "Deported."
"Politics," Eli reasons and it falls hard, like lead between them. "And I... I think I've repented for that... if you recall I stopped your father from being deported."
She considers that, rolling her eyes. "Just imagine where we'd be if you hadn't gone and done that," she quips.
They sit in silence for a few moments, Natalie content to wait on him to speak, Eli content to watch as his drink waters down.
"You're wonderful, you know," and his eyes are on his scotch and soda, the skittish coward that he is, he can't see how the truth lands. "Sharp and pretty and you have everything going for you, right now, you should capitalize on it."
"...Excuse me?"
"This is the worst thing, for you. In the long run, even getting a drink with me." Eli pauses for one, brief moment, considers. "I know these things. I think you know these things, you shouldn't be getting a drink with me." Upset with himself, upset with her for sending him a text in the first place (but not really, not at all), livid with... everything. Everything spiralling out of control? "Why are you getting a drink with me?"
"...maybe I like you." He's gearing up for a debate, but he's quieted, because no woman has ever really said that to him. They've been coy and clever, they've skirted the issue. Never sat down with him over a tumbler of scotch.
"What's this maybe, I don't know what that means," he responds, asks.
"I don't either."
"I'm still a bit confus-"
"I... I don't know why this is so hard to... I like talking to you, and just... being around you and..." She's quiet, so quiet that he can barely hear her when she says, "So, yes, Eli, I like you." The omission of the maybe more than apparent.
The admission stuns him more than it should, for so many reasons. "This won't work," he says, laughing into his glass, feeling more than a little tipsy.
Natalie too, drinks, "Maybe not. But, what if it does. " She pauses, rolling her classes between either of her hands. "I'm coming back to Chicago, the firm has an office here, and they need translators and..."
"Go on."
"I have my citizenship, they're paying for me to take classes at Loyola... I'm not hanging my anything on anything I just thought..."
"You thought..."
"I'm coming home, that's all. That's... all."
He considers that for a moment, wonders briefly if this attraction he has for her is simply because she's so out of reach, because the notion of her is dangerous, wonders if all of that is just excuses not to pursue something. "Does this constitute," Eli licks his lips. His mouth has gone completely dry because he's terrified of the answer to the question he's about to ask, recalling a conversation they had in the hallway of Lockhart Gardner. "'Another time?'"
"I think," she sighs, pressing her lips together hard, "That's up to you."
"If I were you... I wouldn't want to be wanted by me," he says roughly, having to swallow against something that's risen in his throat. "Because I have no idea what my intentions are, Natalie."
"Well, you're not me."
It's her grin that gets him, he resolves to throw what little caution he has to spare to the wind.