Woo! We're here! It just took six months for chapter two, but never fear! This is my main project now, so expect a new chapter every couple of weeks. Thanks everyone for the awesome response to chapter 1! If you like this, and you want more Mileven between my chapters, come hang out and talk with me on Tumblr: dancingskygreen.
And now, onto chapter 2.
"Okay, spill it."
El jumped in surprise as she looked over at her friend and remembered where she was. The serenity of the hiking trail on a cloudy Monday afternoon had lulled her mind, yet again, back to where it had been for too many days.
Max had stopped dead in her tracks. Her dusty shoes were dug into the ground in a stance that El knew from experience could only spell trouble. She had that glint in her eye.
She was about to pry.
"What?" El asked defensively.
Max huffed in amusement and crossed her arms over her chest as she cocked her eyebrow in El's direction. "Don't play me like that, Hopper. You know you're acting weird."
El rolled her eyes. "No, I'm not," she said with a hint of derision as she made an attempt to continue to walk. Max's hand, however, was too fast. She caught El's elbow in a quick trap.
"Listen," Max said, softer this time. "You know you can tell me when something's wrong, right? I was nice and I didn't bring it up all weekend at work. But, you've been acting weird for a few days, whether you want to admit it or not."
El squirmed uncomfortably in her friend's grasp as she felt the truth begin to bubble up from the depths of her gut.
"It's stupid," she grumbled quietly, her eyes squarely trained on her feet as they scuffed into the wood chips of the trail.
"Okay," Max replied with a wry tone of surety. "So this is about that guy last weekend."
"Why would you think that?" El asked instantly, defense lacing her words in a way that she knew was too thick.
And in that moment, as she heard her own voice echo back through her ears, it hit her.
The jig was up.
El sighed as her shoulders slumped down even further than they had been in the last few days. It had been a silly thought, to think that fresh air and a casual hang out with a friend could lift her spirits enough to help her brain let it go. Yet, the hike hadn't stopped her from glancing at her phone every fifteen minutes, just like she had done all weekend, just as she had done the entire week before, in a desperate attempt to see if she had miraculously received the message she had been pining for… for nine days…
Nine. Days.
El couldn't bring herself to admit how many hundreds of times she had checked her phone in the past week and a half. It had started innocently enough. Quick glances at her screen whenever she had a chance, each flash of her eyes chased by a fleeting smile on her lips, all of it brimming with confident and bubbly anticipation. Completely sure than the next time she looked, he'd be there. His words or a voicemail staring back at her.
Yet, the days passed. And no message appeared.
Slowly, the anticipation had devolved into hesitation. And with it, the swooping sensation in her stomach had slowly turned into acid in her chest. A stinging concoction that shot through her body with sickening sparks every time she peeked at her screen.
Then, at one week? The dread appeared. Thick and embarrassing, and caked with self loathing.
And now? Nine days later? There was nothing much left other than pure edgy defeat.
It must have been the adrenalin.
While he was likely the most extreme case she had ever seen, it wasn't the first time that El had witnessed bizarre antics after a jump. People were beautifully raw after such an exhilarating experience. She'd seen people laugh for minutes on end. She'd seen people cry into the ground with awe. One girl even screamed into the air as she beat on her chest like King Kong.
Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.
Yet still, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't shake it.
It had felt like… more than that.
His wind burnt lips, rushed and careless, as they sparked with an intensity that made her simply melt into the ground. His soft hand in hers, tight and warm and present in both his terror and his exhilaration. That glow in the depths of his eyes that seemed to speak to her without words, from that very first moment when their had gazes locked, when their feet had still been firmly planted on the ground.
It must have just been the adrenalin, though.
That must have been why he hadn't called…
…in nine days.
It was all for the best, though, El repeated silently for the hundredth time, as she felt the rush of it all coalesce into her veins once again. She knew, as always, that it was better left forgotten.
Frankly, it had been a terrible idea for her to give him her number at all.
Because, though she loathed to admit it to herself: his presence? It had somehow made her lose control. It had somehow made her spin them directly up into the air when the only natural way of the universe was for them to plummet down. It was a careless, reckless, and jaw dropping mistake. One borne out of a peculiar sensation that knocked her just a little bit too senseless… the feeling of his hand firmly laced with hers.
Up until that day, El believed that there were two things that she was an expert at: Skydiving. And hiding the truth.
It was rule number one, after all. And it had been that way since her father had taken her in when she was thirteen. Absolutely no one was to know and El had always understood why. She had always known the risks and taken them very seriously. So, as a matter of habit, she had never once so much as even slipped the lock to a door to make it easier when she was with friends, or undone her shoelaces with a simple flick of her head.
And when it was a matter of life or death? She'd handled herself as best she could.
Sure, there had been some necessary trip ups here and there throughout the years. Hubristic heroics that were clearly ill advised. There was the malfunctioning plane she had helped land in her early diving days, when she'd been only seventeen or eighteen. There'd been the random car she'd stopped from careening into a huge tree on her dad's remote acreage in the woods of Central Indiana when she was twenty-one. Then there'd been just the past summer when she'd witnessed a baby carriage escape down the hill toward a busy road, rolling so fast that the baby's father could not keep up in time to save it on his own.
Those few breeches of her rule, though? They'd been undetectable, untraceable, and worth it. Each one a matter of life or death.
What they hadn't been was a flagrant unmasking of her true self with a stranger as she fell with him through the air.
So, clearly? This was all very much for the best.
…but it didn't make it hurt any less.
"Earth to Ellie!"
El jumped as she returned from the depths of her mind once again to find Max standing in front of her on the trail. The look in Max's eyes was strikingly clear. There was no getting around this without an explanation.
And, frankly? Maybe admitting it was what she needed to do.
El cleared her throat and darted her eyes away from her friend. "He didn't call," she finally admitted quietly.
"Asshole. What a stupid idiot," Max said without missing a beat. "You are clearly so far out of his league, anyway. He probably realized that and got scared. Do you want me to kick his ass?"
El snickered despite herself. "I don't know how you'd find him. He vanished into thin air."
"Oh, that's easy." Max said as she waved her hand dismissively. "I'd call his friend who booked the jump. You know, get his contact information, show up at his house, kick his stupid ass and move along with my day. I'd do that for you, Ellie," Max said with a seriousness that was to be believed. "I mean it. You just say the word."
"Please don't do that," El replied with a grimace. "But I appreciate the offer."
"If you insist," Max said with a dramatic sigh. "You do realize, though, that you were completely out of his league?"
El couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Why do you think that?"
"Really?" Max scoffed as she dropped her arms and resumed their walk. "He was shaking like a leaf the entire time. I have no idea how someone like him had the courage to even kiss you like that! Plus, nose was too big."
"Max!" El exclaimed. "That's rude. He was cute. He was… really cute."
"Why are you defending the prick who didn't call you?" Max interjected with a light bump of her shoulder.
El sighed, instantly dejected by Max's words. "I… I don't know."
Max rubbed her hand caringly on El's arm. "Listen, Ellie. You're amazing. Like, a complete catch. And you deserve someone who will actually call when they say they'll call. Okay?"
"I know…" El said quietly, surprised at how much her voice quivered on the words.
Max sighed and tightened her arm around her friend's shoulders. The two walked in silence for a few moments as El allowed herself to relax against Max's embrace.
"Listen," Max finally said. "I know that you don't date much, which is ridiculous because you're a fox, but just…"
"I date!" El retaliated defensively.
Max threw her a look. "When was the last time you went out on an actual date? And I'm not talking about the last time some guy tried to pick you up and you turned him down."
"It was… last… last fall?" El replied tentatively.
"No. It wasn't," Max corrected. "It was last LAST fall. It's been a year and a half."
El blinked in surprise. "Really?"
"You know I'm right."
El grimaced yet again, the math making a depressing amount of sense. "Fine."
"How about this?" Max said, with a sudden jolt of positivity in her voice. "Let's go out tonight and you can put this behind you. We'll go to a bar, at least two guys will flirt with you, like always, because you're a fox, and you'll turn both of them down, like always, no matter how much I tell you not to, because you're insanely picky, and we'll just have a good time. Okay?"
El rolled her eyes and shook her head, but she couldn't help the smile that Max elicited from her.
"Under one condition," El said.
Max looked over at El, stopped dead in her tracks, and instantly sneered.
"No," Max said firmly.
"Please?" El pouted jokingly. "I'm so sad. It'll cheer me up."
"Please, no!" Max begged back with a disgusted whimper.
El squared her shoulders in reply. "Do you want me to go out with you tonight? If you do, this is the only way. Plus, I haven't made you go for at least a year."
Max closed her eyes tight as if the compromise was physically painful for her. "You're not even good at it!" She exclaimed. "No offense El, but we come in last every single time unless you get endless questions about rom coms and comic books! Why do you even enjoy it?"
"Because I learn something new every time!" El retaliated emphatically. "What, you don't like learning?"
Max scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Listen, I respect the fact that you love learning. Its cute and you're and adorable dork. But leave that for your Planet Earth documentaries, please? Bars aren't for learning. They're for getting drunk."
"First off, don't you ever talk down on Sir David Attenborough!" El replied in a solid mocking threat. "That man has shown me the world. And you can get drunk all you want tonight, but I'm not going out unless we go to trivia."
"Uuuuuuggggghhhh…." Max growled dramatically. "Fiiiine, we'll go to trivia. But, I am getting you drunk."
"Deal," El replied as a tiny smile widened on her lips. "Drunk trivia where we lose every round it is."
It was unbelievable how many times Mike had found himself in this exact position in the last week and a half. Phone in one hand. Small piece of slowly deteriorating cardstock in the other. Shaking fingers and shortened breath and piles of self doubt in between.
Why was this so hard?
Probably because you ruined the best five minutes of your adult life by being a complete and total creep, Wheeler.
He was of two minds about what had happened.
One was exuberant. Intoxicated. Overwhelmed. It sloshed through his stomach with an exceedingly rare and electric intensity.
The other mind? The other mind was horrified.
Who the FUCK would kiss a stranger like that?
Mike groaned as the bubbling anticipation in his stomach flopped to shame, yet again, as it had a thousand times in the last nine days.
The truth was, he had felt something. And it was something he wasn't sure he had ever even felt before.
The girl, El, she had seemed almost… electric. From the moment his eyes had first landed on her, he couldn't shake the sensation that energy seemed to pulsate beneath her skin, radiating from her in a way that made her seem to glow.
She seemed more alive, and more real, than anyone he had ever seen in his life.
God, he sounded like such a sap.
Still, that didn't answer the question:
Who the FUCK would kiss a stranger like that?
Mike sighed in frustration and dropped El Hopper's business card onto his desk. His glasses clacked beside it as he roughly pushed them off of his face and dropped his head into his hands.
He didn't deserve her phone number! It was as simple as that! He couldn't believe he'd even gone back to ask for it in the first place. It had been Dustin who had insisted that they turn back around. For, once Mike had gotten in the car he'd made another huge mistake. And that mistake was telling the guys that he'd kissed her. Before he knew it, the car had turned around and barreled him straight back to where she still stood.
Everything about that hour had been a delirious blur. His brain had stopped working in its normal pattern. He'd been all feeling and no thought.
And the party? His friends who had known him almost his entire life? They'd been ecstatic.
Because they hadn't seen that Mike in years.
And frankly? Neither had he.
For one glorious hour, the Mike Wheeler who lived by numbers and formulas and facts, the Mike Wheeler who strayed away from noises that were too loud, steps that were too unsafe, and sensations that were too strong... that Mike Wheeler had seemed to take a nap.
And the Mike Wheeler that he had once been? Before every had happened to take it away? That Mike Wheeler had reemerged. Risky and impulsive and... kind of an idiot.
A Mike Wheeler not overwhelmed by the potential terrors of living.
Maybe that was why he had kissed her…
Because the second his hand was in hers and she pushed them from the plane… he felt himself again. Without delay, it had crashed through him. Safety in danger. Control in an uncontrolled state. Full lungs and deep breaths and exhilaration. The pulse of his heart louder than the caution of his brain.
For the first time in years, in her presence, his brain had fallen miraculously, deliciously, silent.
But now it had been nine days. Nine days of staring at her number when he should have been staring at his thesis. Nine nights of falling asleep with her on his mind. Nine evenings of feeling the touch of her lips slowly ghost away.
…Lips he never should have tasted at all.
Nine days of letting the fear, once again, take control.
Mike toyed hopelessly with her card, the edges now raw and fraying from days of being encased in his sweating nervous hands. And beside it, lying on his desk, was the other piece of paper.
Not one she had given him, no. But a riddle she had placed for him nonetheless.
Sure, she was a professional. And clearly, she was incredibly skilled at that profession. Because somehow, through a trick he could not piece out, she had flown them directly upward.
Mike once again stared at the chicken scratches on the paper, covered in eraser marks from multiple failed attempts to piece it out. His eyes traced the numbers and formulas and lines and angles.
They still led to nothing.
Not even his budding Masters in Physics could help him understand how the hell she had pulled off that stunt.
Yet, as he had never gotten the courage to actually call El Hopper, Head Skydiving Instructor, he was never going to know.
"You ready?"
Mike grimaced as Will's voice entered his bedroom.
"Yeah, give me a minute."
Mike slipped his glasses back on, half heartedly ran his fingers through his messy hair, tossed on his favorite blue hoodie, and gave no thought to the night.
It's not like it mattered what he looked like anyway.
It was just trivia.
"We're gonna be a man short tonight. Dustin can't come. You brush up on your pop culture lately?" Will asked with a smirk as he grabbed his keys from the hook at the door of their shared apartment.
Mike laughed. "Hey, I'm still hip with the kids," he said jokingly. "I had to tell two girls last month to stop blasting Cardi B in the undergrad lab."
Will couldn't help but groan. "Even hearing you say 'Cardi B' makes you sound old. How is that possible?! You're only 25."
"I've been telling you, man! They're still alive!" Lucas emphasized as he downed the rest of his beer. "They all have sequels coming up within the next few years. It's just obvious."
"I get that," Will said simply, 'But honestly? That really takes the fun out of it."
Mike absentmindedly watched Will doodle on the trivia pad as they waited for the night to start for their three-man team. Though it was going to hurt them as they played, it was nice to only be three people for once. The small cocktail tables at the bar were tight and constricting, which meant that most weeks the four men were pressed up tight against each other, vying for knee space for an entire two-hour stretch.
It felt good to be able to move.
Mike tried to be a part of their conversation, but the environment was just a bit too loud… as was his brain. In the past 30 minutes since they'd arrived early to snag a table, the large bar had filled up to a point where it was now just a bit too uncomfortable. The voices around them sprung up louder and louder, layering upon one another in an attempt to compete with the music, like some weird competition where everyone lost. The result was a cacophony of yells that began to box him in with an edgy sense of claustrophobic.
"I'm going to get another beer before the bar gets too crowded," Mike said as he downed the rest of his glass in an attempt to drown out his sensations. "You want anything?"
"I'll have another glass of wine," Will said distractedly.
"Yeah, thanks," Lucas simply raised his glass and nodded.
Mike eased himself up from the table, wound his way through the thickening crowd of intoxicated nerds, and squeezed into a tiny open spot at the edge of the bar. In a rare moment of luck, Mike happened to catch the bartender's eye in an instant. He put in their order and then took a deep breath as the crowd crushed in around him while he waited. His eyes bounced around the back of the bar for something to focus on while the bartender filled his order and set them down.
Instantly, as Mike looked down at the three fresh drinks in front of him, he realized his mistake.
Grimacing as he mentally laid out the winding path back to his table, Mike carefully wrapped his grip around the beer glasses and stuck out a couple of fingers in an attempt to stabilize the wine glass as the tip of a triangle.
He lifted it, satisfied with the stability, took a deep breath, turned around, and…
…instantly had an elbow thrown into his hands.
Mike cried out in surprise as Will's red wine slipped from his fingers, now completely beyond his control. He winced and braced for the impact of the staining cold wetness to hit his feet.
…But it never did.
Mike opened his eyes in surprise to see the glass held firmly in a hand, just a foot from where it had fallen.
"You caught that?!" he exclaimed in surprise, his eyes etched wide on the wine glass that was still perfectly full.
"Yeah!" a female voice yelled above the din. "And watch where you're going next – "
Her voice cut off instantly. And with it, Mike looked up.
"…time."
Mike's heart lurched into his throat with an intensity that almost made him drop the other two glasses in his hands.
Her hazel eyes, wide and surprised, stared back at him. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun. Small tufts of brown had escaped to frame her face in an act of effortless beauty. Her soft lips were parted in a mirror of his own, half open and attempting to move.
The sea of sounds around them seemed to wash away to silence.
Mike blinked and willed his own lips to speak.
Please for the love of God, speak.
"El! H-hi!" he finally managed.
"H- hi…" she stuttered back hesitantly.
"Ellie, come on! I want to find a seat. There's hardly any… oh!"
Mike's eyes darted, along with El's, to a red headed girl who appeared through the crowd beside them. One Mike instantly recognized as Lucas's skydiving partner.
"I was just… I… um –" El began, but her words cut off in her friend's direction.
"We'vegotextraspace! Youcansitwithus!"
The girls both looked back at Mike in surprise as Mike's mouth revved up into a flurry completely beyond his control. "Er… I mean, it'll be a tight fit so we couldn't fit any more than just the two of you. Do you have more friends here? We – we can figure it out. It's no pressure. No pressure at all. It just doesn't look like there's any tables left in here. This place is so crowded, I – "
"Sure. Thanks."
Mike's tongue caught in his throat as El answered. Her voice tinkled softly on top of the cacophony of voices, somehow cutting straight through to his ear.
He couldn't help but feel the corners of his mouth turn up gratefully in reply.
El stood on the sticky floor accepting Mike's invitation as she performed a desperate yet successful attempt to steady her breathing.
She couldn't believe either her luck, or the cruelty of the universe.
At this point? She had no idea which one of them had brought her to this moment.
Yet, either way, there he stood. Directly in front of her. The guy she hadn't been able to stop thinking about for days. All nervous smiles and messy hair and deep twinkling eyes behind dark rimmed glasses (which made him look, though she loathed to admit it, even cuter than the first time she had set eyes on him).
Though a healthy chunk of her rational mind had wanted to write him off completely, in that moment it had no control. She could not hear it as it screamed the facts that she had convinced herself of earlier in the day. …That he hadn't called. …That something about his presence had a dangerous effect.
Because in the depths of his eyes she was, once again, instantly ensnared.
"Really? Great!" Mike stuttered, his voice eager in a way that made her heart palpitate. "We're um.. we're just - " he spun around quickly and arched his tall thin frame to peer over the crowd. He pointed behind her. "That way."
El watched with bemusement as Mike fumbled with the beers in his hands. "Here," he muttered. "I can take back the wine. Sorry about that."
"I'll carry it," she interjected as she pulled it closer to her body. "You clearly didn't do a good job of it the first time."
Mike laughed and ducked his head sheepishly. "Right. True. Okay then, um, well, follow me."
Mike cut to her left and began to lead the way through the crowd to a table in the back. El's feet followed in an instant, almost beyond her control, but before she could even take two steps she felt a sharp elbow in her rib.
"You sure about this, Hopper?" Max's voice played close in a whisper near her ear.
El simply nodded and continued walking, legs feeling both like lead and Jello.
"Alright..." Max said in a playful sing song tone. "But you just say the word and I will kick his ass. Right in this bar, for all to see."
"I get it, Max," El groaned.
"Just saying, I've got your back," Max said as the girls rounded on a table with two more familiar faces. "Oh, hello Lucas."
And then, everything stopped.
"Umm…"
El might have been in full-on freak out mode, but nothing inside of her felt as terrified as the guy named Lucas looked as he laid eyes on Max.
"You recovered, I see," Max said with a grand sense of enjoyment. He watched her, eyes wide and mouth agape, as she rounded the table and took the single open bar stool directly next to him.
"I…" he stuttered like a fish out of water. "M-Mike…?"
"Um… I said they could sit with us," Mike said quickly as he placed a beer in front of Lucas. "They were trying to find a table and there weren't any left and we had space and…"
"Hi! I uh… I think you have my wine," a voice interrupted kindly from El's right. His voice was calm, unlike anyone else around her.
"Oh!" she said as she turned to her right. "Is this yours? He – "
"Almost dropped it?" the man asked.
"No," El corrected. "He did drop it. I caught it. Here."
"Well, thanks for saving my wine. You're a hero," he joked as he took the long stem, placed it in front of himself and offered his hand. "I'm Will, by the way. I don't know if we really met last week."
El shook his hand. "I'm El."
"Oh, believe me," he said cryptically. "I know."
"Um…"
"So, anyway," Will continued, changing the subject before El could even blink. "Do you two want to join our team? We're short a man tonight."
"We can join your team but we probably won't be much help," Max interjected as she pulled her long red hair out of her ponytail and let it cascade down the back of the chair. Lucas still had not taken his fearful eyes off the girl. "Not me, at least. This isn't my thing. I'm just here because El loves this kind of nerdy stuff."
"I uh… I got you a seat," a voice interjected hurriedly from her left. She looked over to find Mike seated beside a new empty stool tucked in tightly at the too small table.
With a rollicking swoop of her stomach she realized that she'd be pushed tightly in beside him for the entire night.
"Thanks," she said as she worked to smoothly pull herself up into the bar stool, knocking into his knee without any other place for her leg to go. "I'm sorry if we're cramping your space."
"No problem at all," Mike replied with an earnest smile.
"Okay, they're about to start," Lucas said suddenly, his expression serious yet still holding a heavy nervousness that he seemed to be trying to fight. El had to work to focus her mind onto the man and away from the warm press against her knee. "If you're going to be a part of our team you gotta know the rules."
"Geez Lucas, way to make them feel welcome," Mike replied as he rolled his eyes.
"It's important!" Lucas retorted.
"Alright, tell us your 'rules'," Max said as she rolled her eyes and turned her fingers into air quotes for effect.
"It's just… no blurting out answers," Lucas said seriously. "Keep your voices as quiet as possible because we don't want anyone cheating off of us."
"Why would anyone cheat off of us?" Max asked.
"Because we're the reigning champions and we have been for fifteen consecutive weeks," Lucas replied with annoyance.
"Holy shit, you guys are nerds!" Max exclaimed.
"Max!" El called out in surprise.
But it wasn't El that Max had her eye on, it was the stare of death she was receiving from Lucas.
"If you're not going to take this seriously you can find another table," Lucas said shortly.
"Lucas!" Mike cried in frustration as he slapped his hand against the man's shoulder.
"Sorry! I just… We need to take this seriously! Dustin isn't here. We have a huge gap in our knowledge base!"
"Or, you know," Will interjected casually. "You could just try sitting back and enjoying yourself for once."
"Nice try," Lucas replied snidely before he took a deep breath and seemed to steady his nerves. "Anyway. Rule number one. Keep your voice low. All the time. We don't want anyone listening to a single word we say. Rule number two. If we can't decide on an answer then it's a majority rule. Unless it's a math question, then Mike makes the decision. A history question, then Will makes the decision. A current events question, I make the decision."
"Happy Monday Night guys!" a female announcer's voice came over a speaker, cutting off Lucas. "Get your drinks ready and put your phones away because Round One is just about to start."
El peeked nervously over to Max and couldn't help but giggle as she saw the girl's eyes glazed over with a heavy level of irritation. Max caught her friends eye and silently mouthed, 'You owe me.'
'I know!' El mouthed in her friend's direction.
Max giggled lightly and lifted her glass in reply.
El bit her lip to contain her secret smile as she lifted hers too. Max, rolling her eyes in a secret communication, clinked the glass with hers, and together, for their own very different reasons, they drank away their discomforts with a big heavy gulp.
"Sorry about Lucas."
The whisper fell tight and close to her ear. It was kind and apologetic, and served to send a shiver straight down her back, past her knee that was pressed against him, and all the way to her toes. She tilted to her left to find Mike swiping his raven hair from his forehead as he leaned in just a bit closer to speak words only meant for her.
"He's just really, um… competitive. Will and I don't really give a shit anymore, but he and Dustin take this very seriously. That and the fact that I forgot that he's terrified of your friend. I think that has him a little riled up."
El giggled. "She has that affect on some of the people she jumps with. I should probably do something about that as the boss, but…"
"Oh, I don't mind," Mike said with a light laugh as he averted his eyes and picked at the coaster under his drink. "Watching him squirm is the most enjoyable part about tonight." His eyes rose up tentatively and caught hers again, and she almost lost herself as he bit his lip. "You know, other than the fact that you're - "
"Mike!"
"What?!" Mike suddenly barked at Lucas, his voice ratcheting from zero to sixty without a blink. The features of his face contorted to a sudden level of malice that almost made El jump.
"You missed the first question," Lucas chided as he wrote down an answer on the paper pad.
Mike shot a mockingly guilty look in El's direction before he leaned in deeper on the table and began to pay attention, his knee pressing harder into hers as he shifted.
She let his knee rest against hers as she dreamed, against her will, about what might have existed the end of his cut off sentence…
Trivia night went along in a way that El had never experienced before. Two hours. Four rounds of questions. And four rounds of drinks to match.
All throughout, El and Max tossed glances at each other, each growing funnier as they got more and more buzzed. All the while, the boys that surrounded them dug deep into the trivia topics as they were announced. As usual, many of the questions were new to El. Simple facts about the world that they lived in were always so scattered in her mind that she was of only intermittent help. It was only when they were hit with a round that was heavy in math that El could have chimed in. Numbers and formulas were intensely natural for her, but it was clear that Mike was so well versed in that area that no help was needed at all. Though, she had caught one of his errors in the second to last question. (A fact that had seemed to impress him to no end, thank you very much).
It wasn't until the last round that things got interesting.
El was at the end of her fourth beer. She was fully afloat, riding on a cloud from both one too many drinks and the seemingly consistent smile on Mike's face. Any hesitation he'd had toward her had seemed to vanish as the beer had kept flowing, and with it her heart had calmed down to hold out a simple hope that maybe, just maybe, the last nine days had been nothing more than a big misunderstanding.
Maybe?
The host announced the totals going into the final round.
"…And vying for first, we now have a tie, folks!" the host said with nerdy dramatism. "With 77 points each, we have The Road Boys and The Mind Flayers. Now, the final round counts for double points, and each question requires three pieces of information. Okay teams, get ready for 'classic film and television ships'.
El watched the eyebrows on all of the boys draw tight against their foreheads.
"What does that mean?" Will asked. "Like, the name of the boat from Gilligan's Island or something?"
"I don't know anything about fictional ships," Mike groaned.
"Now, I'm not talking about large boats floating on the ocean," the girl over the speaker continued. "I'm talking about classic tv and film couples. In order to get the answer, I need the name of both of the characters in the relationship, and the film or show they are from."
"Shit! We're screwed!" Lucas cursed hard into his beer as he tossed down his pencil.
Without hesitation, Max snorted in amusement and laid her hand on Lucas's arm. "Give El the pad of paper."
"What?" Lucas asked, guarding the pen.
"Trust me," Max said, serious as a heart attack. "If you want to win tonight, give El the pad of paper. Now."
El's buzzy heartbeat ramped up. She drained the rest of her beer to try to stave it off.
"Yeah," she said with a hint of drunken nervousness as she rolled her eyes at herself. "I'll ace this. Hand me the paper."
Lucas, realizing he had no choice but to entrust a fifteen week winning streak to a random girl he had only met once, hesitantly handed the paper across the table without a word. El took the pencil and twirled it within her fingers as the announcer began the final round.
"Number one. This classic TV couple from the 90s could never decide what it meant that they were 'on a break'."
El snorted cockily as, without a beat, she scribbled Ross and Rachel – Friends on the pad and showed it around. Mike and Lucas vaguely shrugged, and Will gave a knowing nod as he took a look.
"Ugh, what a dick," Max replied as she read the answer. "He was so overrated."
"Agreed," El said easily as she placed the pad down and got ready for the next question.
"Number two: This classic 90s film couple's life together was drastically cut short because they didn't realize there would be enough room for both of them to float on a door."
"Ha!" El giggled loudly, catching herself with her hand.
"What does that question even mean?" Lucas asked as El wrote Jack and Rose – Titanic on the paper.
Max leaned over to him to explain quietly in his ear as El looked around at the table and held up her answer. She couldn't help but feel a silly sense of confidence. Neither Mike nor Will had seemed to know the answer, and Lucas was deep into listening to Max as she whispered the context of the answer in his ear.
It was odd, but after so many drinks, Lucas didn't seem to be so uncomfortable around Max anymore…
"Question three," the announcer said after a moment, bringing her mind back to the point. El's heartbeat ramped up as she prepared herself for something more challenging.
"This can be summed up in three words: As you wish."
"Too easy," El said to herself as she instinctively scratched Buttercup and Westley – The Princess Bride, onto the paper.
She lifted the paper and showed it to the group once again, and was met with shrugs from most, yet an emphatic thumbs up from Mike.
"You know The Princess Bride?" El whispered in surprise.
"It's my little sister's favorite movie," Mike replied with a shrug, his eyes swimming in an intoxicated smile before he bashfully admitted, "…and probably one of mine."
El had to bite her lip to stop herself from swooning right off of her chair, but she was brought back to reality as the announcer cut back over the speaker.
"Question four: In this 1940s classic, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into his."
El screwed up her face for a moment and took a deep breath as she let the thought materialize. She wrote a little more slowly this time, but she was 99% certain that the names were Rick and Ilsa – Casablanca.
She looked up to show the pad to her team.
"I have absolutely no idea. That looks good to me," Will said, and Lucas and Mike shrugged silently in reply.
"Okay, and the final question!" the girl called.
El felt sweat bead down her back as she faced the potential of her possibly her first ever perfect trivia round…
"Here we go. 30 million viewers tuned in in 1981 to watch this TV supercouple's fictional wedding."
"Why would anybody do that?!" Lucas cried in surprise as he listened to the question. "God, the 80s were weird."
"Ellie…" Max called over with mock nervousness, "that one has to be too obscure, even for you."
"Nah," El said as she waved off the worry. She was suddenly very happy that she had spent way too many hours watching classic soap opera clips on YouTube, as she wrote Luke and Laura – General Hospital on the pad with great ease.
"I don't even need to show you guys that one," El said confidently. "Just know that I'm right."
"All set?" Will asked eagerly. El nodded and handed him the paper. Just as he had with every other round, Will jumped out of his seat and made his way up to hand the answers in to the host.
"You feel good about that?" Mike asked her quietly, leaning in close as he conspiratorially eyed the other teams in the room.
El cocked her head drunkenly toward him and nodded. "They're all correct. Trust me, I know this stuff."
"Oh, believe me," he replied as he looked back, his eyes jarringly close as they connected with hers, his voice low. "I trust you."
The look in his eye didn't seem to have anything to do with the game.
El felt her face heat up in the darkness as she looked at him full on, their knees still touching beneath the small table, just as they had been for hours.
It was there again.
It resided in the depths of his eyes.
They possessed their own gravity. Deep and dark with an unknown end. Pulling her, at her complete surrender, into some orbit that she hadn't been a part of before.
El found herself closer…
"Alright everyone! Time for the final scores!"
El jumped, suddenly snapping out of her intoxicated trance as she looked back at their table mates and caught Max's very amused eye. Lucas was visibly nervous, toying with his empty glass. Will had returned to drawing on a napkin, clearly unaffected by the results of the evening. And when she looked back, Mike was still staring at her. A soft dazed smile playing on his lips.
"…In second place, with 85 points, The Road Boys. And in first place, with 87 points, after a perfect round, is The Mind Flayers!"
"YES!"
The table erupted with an excitement that El had been completely unprepared for. High fives bounced all around. Almost empty drinks were clacked together in a cheers. And before she knew it, she was fully wrapped up in a pair of arms.
"Sorry," Mike said suddenly, his voice thick and nervous. He backed away and let her go with soft eyes with a timid smile. "I got excited."
The bar was close to empty, and suddenly, so was the table, but for the girl that he had not been able to stop thinking about since the moment he had met her.
Despite the fact that the other three had left to go to the bathroom one last time, he couldn't help but notice that El hadn't scooted away from him. Her knee was still pressed firmly into the base of his thigh. A lazy smile played upon her lips as she toyed with the winner's drink token between her fingers. The bright golden flecks in her eyes stood out beneath the incandescent lights that hung above them. It shined against her hair, too, highlighting the golden hues that wrapped through her messy bun like soft stripes. Maybe it was the alcohol, and maybe it was just the light, but it seemed like she shimmered as she sat next to him.
Once again, just like the first time he saw her, she seemed a little bit brighter than anyone else in the room.
Mike felt sweat bead at the back of his neck. He was deeply grateful for the amount of alcohol that was in his body to stave off the nervousness he knew he'd naturally be feeling in this moment.
"That was fun," she said quietly, her voice a little bit slurred, bringing him out of his reverie as she continued to look down at her drink token. "I've never won trivia before."
"Well, you earned it," he said honestly. "We wouldn't have won if it weren't for your category."
El smiled fully and rolled her eyes, still looking down at her hands. "It's kind of embarrassing to get a perfect score all by myself on 'classic relationships of television and film,' but I'm glad if it helped the cause."
"Nah, don't be embarrassed," Mike said reassuringly. "Everyone has their topic. And that was uh… that was really cute."
El smiled wider, and finally her eyes traced up to meet his.
"Okay guys, I'm out of here," Will interrupted as he came back to the table and took his coat from the back of his chair. "And let me give you some advice. There's no point in either of you waiting, either."
"What does that mean?" Mike asked quizzically.
"Umm..." Will hummed dramatically as he looked over his shoulder and then leaned closer into the table. "Lucas and Max are hardcore making out in the hallway to the bathrooms."
"What!?" Mike and El's matching voices filled the emptying bar with matched shock.
"I mean, you can go see for yourself if you want," Will offered with a shrug. "But neither of them look like they're coming up for air any time soon."
"Yeah, I think I'm good without seeing that," Mike said with a laugh. "That's crazy."
"Yeah, anyway. I'm exhausted and I have to teach second graders how to make clay pots in the morning. El, do you need a ride or anything?"
"Thanks, but I live just a few blocks away." El replied kindly.
"Okay, cool. Mike? You walking or - ?"
There were reasons why Will was Mike's best friend. One of them was the effortlessly discreet way he had in helping Mike keep his dignity.
Mike silently thanked him with a wide eyed nod, and his stomach tied in a quick knot as he weighed out the potential two mile walk that he faced back to their shared apartment.
Yet…
"Yeah, I'll walk," Mike said. "Have a good night."
"You, too." Will replied with a knowing smile as he zipped up his light jacket. "It was nice to hang out with you, El. Thanks for winning trivia for us!"
"I'd say it was a team effort," El replied kindly as she waved her token in the air. "But you're welcome."
With a final wave, Will made his way through the bar and out the door.
"Do you need to wait for Max?" Mike asked.
El snickered and shook her head. "No, not at all. Once she's moved onto this portion of the evening, it's fair game if I leave."
"Does this… happen a lot?" Mike asked in confusion as he eyed the hallway at the back of the bar.
"Oh! No," she waved her hand dismissively and giggled as tried to correct herself. "That's not what I meant. It's just that we're not 'tied at the hip' type of friends. She's clearly decided what she wants to do with her night, and that's enough for me to leave when I want."
"Oh, cool," Mike said, suddenly self conscious.
"Yeah," El replied, her eyes on his once again.
Keep it cool, Wheeler.
"Um… can I walk you home, then?"
It was hard to tell in the darkened lights, but he could swear that he saw her cheeks blush. She nodded almost shyly, her hair falling slightly into her face as she did so.
"That'd be nice, thanks."
Mike followed El as she stood up and began to walk through the bar toward the door. The second Mike got to his feet he realized how surprisingly drunk he was. He stumbled the slightest bit against rhe last table by the door, but played it off before she seemed to notice.
The spring chill was apparent in the air as they stepped outside, and Mike instantly slipped his hands into his pockets. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was to stave off his urge to lead her by the small of the back.
He'd be damned if touching her without asking was going to be a mistake he made again.
"I'm this way," El said as she put up the hood of her sweater and nodded to the left. Mike followed willingly.
"Crazy we live so close to each other and I've never seen you in this neighborhood before," he said as they made their way down a line of shops and bars.
"Where do you live, exactly?" she asked, her eyes tracing up to his.
"Well, close enough, I guess," he said, suddenly self conscious for reasons he couldn't quiet place. "I live about a mile or so down the road, more or less. But I don't have a car so I walk through this neighborhood all the time to get to the University."
"You don't have a car?" El asked loudly. "How do you pull that off in Indianapolis?"
The question hit at the heart of Mike's nervousness.
"Um… long story…" He started. But instantly, he stopped. "It's not too bad, though," he interjected, interrupting himself as quickly as possible. "This is a pretty good city to walk. And I bike a lot, too."
Luckily for his anxiety, El seemed to let it slide with nothing more than a shrug as they passed a darkened diner.
"Ugh… I wish Benny's was open 24 hours," El whined suddenly, her voice an intoxicated slur that was unbearably cute. "I could really go for a waffle right now."
"Waffles, huh?" Mike asked with amusement.
Her eyes suddenly bored into Mike's with a seriousness that almost caught him off guard. "The longest and most satisfying relationship of my life has been with waffles. Lots of people are never there for you when you need them. But a waffle? Always there. Every time. Except for right now, but that's not the waffle's fault. That's Benny's fault."
"Damn you, Benny," Mike joked with a shaking fist.
"Aww, don't talk about Benny like that," El protested in a light slur. "He's the best."
"Oh! Is Benny a real person?" Mike asked in surprise. "Sorry."
"Yeah," El nodded. "he owns the place. He's been keeping me in my addiction since I moved to this spot a few years back. He's uh… he's got the best food for when I'm sad."
Mike took a double take at her unexpected words.
El grimaced, seemingly only realizing her words after she spoke them.
"Sorry…" she said with a slowly and quiet tone, so very different than anything she had said the entire night. And then quickly, she turned them around a corner and off the main road.
The emptiness and quiet of the new path seemed to fill the silence with something heavy that he could not place. And, step by step, as El remained silent, Mike began to get more nervous.
It quickly became clear quickly, however, that those nerves were for good reason.
"Mike?" she finally said, her voice shaky.
"Yeah?"
El didn't look up, yet her feet had seemed to slow. She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was incredibly soft.
"Why you didn't call me?"
Mike winced as his chest cracked in half.
They walked in silence for a moment, and each of his foot falls felt more like trash than the last.
"I wanted to call you," he finally said, finding his voice. "Like, I really wanted to call you."
"Okay…" she said slowly, still looking pointedly at her feet.
"I tried calling you. Like… every day." Mike heard himself admit. "I was just…" he sighed and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. "I was embarrassed I guess? And uh… scared. I… I didn't think you'd actually want to see me again."
At that, El looked up in surprise. "Why would you think that?" she asked with confusion, her eyes glassy in the moonlight. "I gave you my number, didn't I?"
"That's true," Mike said carefully as her words struck him, his heart beating too fast for his ribs to handle. "It's just… God, I acted like such an idiot that day. I guess I figured you gave me your number out of pity."
At that, El laughed lightly, and Mike grimaced as he waited to find out if her reaction was good or bad.
There was a hint of derision in her eyes as she looked back up at him. "I don't give my phone number to people out of pity, Mike," She said simply.
"Oh…" Mike replied lamely.
El looked back down at her feet and fell silent for a another moment before she hesitantly said, "Honestly… I don't really give my phone number to anybody."
"Really?" Mike asked suddenly.
"Yeah," she replied, stopping in her tracks and finally looking up long enough to hold his gaze.
A vulnerability played in her eyes. It spoke things deeper than she seemed willing to admit with words. And instantly, Mike regretted his mistake more than he had at any other time in the last week and a half.
Somehow, through his fear, he had hurt the most beautiful girl he had ever met.
"This is me," El pointed behind her.
Mike followed El to the door of a duplex, but stopped at the base of a landing as she took a step up. Two well lit sconces framed the tiny entryway in orange light. The light from them dropped softly against her skin as she turned around to face him. The six-inch loft of the landing almost brought her up to his height.
"So," she said, looking him directly in the eye. "If I give someone my number I actually want them to call me."
She said it strongly, with a clarity that made Mike's chest burn with deep and nameless understanding.
"I'm sorry," Mike said, meaning it completely. "I promise I'll call you this time."
"You promise?" she repeated in surprise, her face softening in a lovely way as her eyebrow cocked with intrigue. "Promises are very serious things."
"Yeah, I know," he replied sincerely. "I take my promises very seriously."
"Well," she said softly, so softly he had to take a step closer to hear her. A smile slowly etched onto her lips and her eyes lit up magnificently as she said, "Then I promise I'll reply."
And at that, so many things happened at once.
El took a light breath.
And then, her eyes slipped shut.
Mike froze as she slowly began to lean in toward him.
His eyelashes closed around his sight in an instinctual reply.
He shivered as he felt her breath exhale so very close to his lips.
And in an instant, as though his brain had exploded from the sensations, lights blared behind his eyelids.
The instant buzz of intensity was audible. It grew brighter and brighter, louder and louder, until it was almost unbearable.
It was delirious. Confusing. It was –
…not behind his eyes…
Mike's eyes shot back open.
Past the gorgeous vision of El's close-eyed serenity less than an inch from matching his lips, the sconces that framed them beamed at a shockingly bright glow. Insanely brighter than they had been just seconds prior.
…Insanely brighter than he knew was safe.
On protective instinct, Mike pulled El into his arms and tugged her hard, backward, off of the step. He braced her body from falling against his chest as she gasped in surprise.
A loud POP echoed through his ears, and with it the lights snuffed out into instant darkness.
Mike buried his face in El's hair and covered her head as the glass shattered down onto the exact location where El had been standing just seconds prior.
"What the fuck!" Mike cried breathlessly.
"Sorry…" El moaned drunkenly as she buried her face into his chest.
Mike chuckled, completely disarmed by her response. "What?"
But he didn't get an answer, because suddenly, El's body stiffened in his arms. She shot back from his embrace in an instant.
"Nothing." She said with a strange and immediate curtness.
Mike watched in confusion as El clawed her hair from her eyes and whipped back to look at the decimation in the darkened entryway. When she looked back at Mike again, her expression looked terrified. Her eyes swam with instant and alarming panic.
"Are you hurt?" Mike asked in confusion.
"I…I…" El stuttered. Her breath was now coming in heaves. Her eyes shifted nervously. A trickle of something dark began to shimmer from her nose.
Mike gasped in surprise.
"El… your… your nose is bleeding..."
And then, El yelped.
"I have to go," she said suddenly.
Mike reached out to her, "Are you sure you're okay. You –"
But El pulled out of his reach. "I'm fine. I'm sorry. It's um… it's late."
"Okay…?" Mike replied tentatively as he took an instinctual step back from her.
"This just happens sometimes. The uh… the nosebleeds! The nosebleeds, I mean." She said quickly. "I'll be fine."
"Okay, well, I uh…" It felt so stupid saying it after the whiplashed events of the last 30 seconds, but, "I'll call you?"
"Yeah, sounds good," El said distractedly as she cupped her palm over her nose and retreated quickly up the steps. Glass crunched beneath her boots, but it did not seem to slow her down at all. "Thanks for walking me home," she said quickly, her voice high and tight, as she fished out her keys and unlocked the door.
She slipped through the door. Almost as an afterthought, she stuck her head out and offered a rushed, "Goodnight, Mike."
"Goodnight - "
Yet before he could finish, El Hopper had disappeared behind the door and Mike was left alone, feet stock still on the walkway, staring with complete confusion at a darkened pile of shattered glass as it glittered coldly in the moonlight.
Fun fact: My mother named me after one of those classic ships in tv and movie history. I was destined to be a sappy fic writer, I swear.
Thanks so much for reading! Until next time...
- L -