Love You Always

An Elani Short

By Lou

-CHAPTER THREE-

He watched she walked around his bed. She was on her phone talking to Paul, Sarah, her mother, somebody. Eli didn't know. Honestly, he didn't care.

Contentment.

Nervousness.

Happiness.

And a real healthy fear played with him.

Stop being stupid, Eli thought to himself. Looking at her. He knew what could be; a stupid, goofy smile started on his face.

"Okay, what's going on with you?"

"Mm?"

Her phone was still in her hand as she watched him, a similar smile starting on her face. "You've got this smile on your face, and that look in your eyes when you're watching me and don't think that I know it." Lani tossed her phone toward her side of the bed then crawled across the blankets toward him.

Stay on task; Eli scolded himself mentally his eyes never leaving her, but in his defense...

In his defense.

Lani was only in a t-shirt and some panties crawling toward him with intent.

Her hand ran over his chest then he entwined her fingers with his.

"I love you."

"And I love you," she replied. "Start taking before I start pinching."

"What do you think you're about to be pinching on?" Eli looked down at her, his eyes going wide when Lani's finger circled a nipple. "Oh! Whoa...no...what a minute, woman. Hold on. I need those."

"I just asked a qu-Eli!" She was laughing when Eli rolled her beneath him.

"How are you going to assault the man that you love though?" He wanted to know. "Where are my handcuffs? This woman..."

"The man that I love is standing on my last nerve right now." She told him. "And if you would leave them on the headboard you wouldn't lose them."

"Lani-"

"Is it work?" She touched his face concerned. She wouldn't put it past him to act as if things were okay when they weren't.

"No," Eli shook his head. "Not work." Trask tried to have his ass about a complaint Victor's head henchmen Xander had threatened to file against him and when he challenged her she had nothing to come back with, but he knew. He knew she was waiting for something, anything.

Melinda Trask wanted him gone.

"Is your mom coming home?"

"She's planning a trip here soon."

"...Sheila?"

Eli laughed at the look on Lani's face when she mentioned his very good friend. He buried his face in her neck. "No," He chuckled looking at her. "Sheila's not coming through." Lani pushed him off of her, rolling her eyes while his shoulders still shook. She did nothing to stop his laughter when she blasted him in his chops with a pillow.

"Can't believe you..."

"You and Sheila are not about to drive me crazy." He chuckled still. "Nope."

"I want you to tell me what is going on with you, Eli," Lani said to him moving closer when he drew her thigh over his hip. They lay face to face, their heads resting on the same pillow, her fingertips tracing over his chest and shoulder.

"I was just thinking..."

"Thinking about...?"

"About how we got here." He told her. "What we've gained, what we've lost. I almost feel like we aren't supposed to be here."

"But we are."

"We are." He agreed.

"Sometimes, I wish that we could stay in this moment forever."

"And others?" Eli pushed Lani's hair behind her ear, waiting.

"Others-"

A cellphone ringing stopped Lani's next words. Eli closed his eyes in resignation, shaking his head, his jaw clenched tight in agitation. Picking up his cell, he badly wanted to snap in half.

"Grant," He spoke tightly, a headache already forming. His eyes came open when he felt Lani move away from him. She got off the bed, moving to the dresser, leaning her hips back into it as she watched him. Her back and shoulders, the length of her hair, reflected in the mirror behind her as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Eli sighed inwardly. He knew that look.

"Yeah," He continued. "No, the Mayor isn't running point on this; on anything. She's a politician, not a police officer. You know this...I'm on my way. Cooldown Shawn the best you can...Leave Trask to me. Thanks, Paul."

"You have to go." A statement; not a question.

"Yeah. There's a break in the drug case at Univerity Hos-"

"Why does it have to be you?"

"Lani-"

"You're the Commissioner." She continued. "You have more than capable men, good detectives, that work under you."

"The Mayor is making demands-"

"When isn't she?"

"And this is my case, Lani." Eli finished. "I'm the Commissioner, and those are my guys. You know what it means to be an officer. That didn't change because you walked away from it."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. Its passive-aggressive as hell is what it is, and this is not you. How are we supposed to build something more, build a life, when this keeps happening, Eli?"

"'This'?" He rose from the bed. "'This' meaning my job as Commissioner, or your job being at the beck and call of Victor Kiriakis and his band of spoiled, tantrum-throwing ass offspring."

"Your job is no more important than mine."

"Beg to differ."

"Excuse me."

"You are better than that job and everything it represents," Eli told her. "You both are."

"Do you even respect my decisions?"

"Respect and like are two very different things, and you know it." He stopped buttoning his shirt and looked at her. "Is this why you haven't moved in with me? Your damned job?"

"How do we raise a child in this?" Lani spoke absently. Before had been...before.

He crossed toward her. She was almost surprised at his closeness. She stared into his eyes when Eli turned her face to his. "You have something that you need to tell me?"

Lani pulled away from him. "I'm not pregnant," She told him. "But the way that you've been snatching my sleep, I soon will be."

"You can tell me no anytime."

"If I didn't want it, you wouldn't be getting it. " She informed him. "I just... I don't want...I can't be second to this, Eli."

"I would never." His voice throbbed. "I would never put his job, this badge, before my wife; my kids."

"You wouldn't mean to," She replied quietly. "You have all these plans, Eli, but you are just one man. Something is going to fall through the cracks. Let's be realistic."

"Hm," Eli scoffed tucking his shirt in with agitation. "Let's. Are you going to put us, put this, ahead of those vultures you work for?"

The door slamming behind him echoed throughout the apartment long after he Eli had left.

It didn't matter how loud she played the stereo, or how deep she cleaned the kitchen, Lani couldn't stop her mind from replaying how Eli's eyes had gone from hurt and angry to flat and nearly emotionless before the had ended their argument so abruptly; leaving her standing in his room upset.

"Is this why you haven't moved in with me?" She muttered to herself.

If he paid attention...

Lani couldn't roll her eyes any harder if she tried.

She'd scrubbed the stovetop down for what had to be the fifth time before frustration got the best of her and she threw the brush into the sink; the cleaner, too.

Palms pressed into the counter, Lani blew out a breath. It wasn't unreasonable for her to feel the way that she felt about this whole situation.

She wanted a life, kids, and she wanted them with Eli Grant; but she was not about to be in a relationship alone, raise kids alone, or allow Eli to be a part-time, absentee parent so he would have something to leave them. She knew what that was like, and he did, too.

How could he not see that?

Lani was so off, and inside her head, she was moving furniture to vacuum, folding damned laundry, as she tried to sort out things in her mind.

She hated laundry.

Anything that multiplied like that was sinister.

She loved Eli Grant's frustrating ass. That had never gone away. Through all the shit that she had put them through, Lani had loved Eli Grant.

After the totality of the situation that preceded it had been laid out for him, for everyone, and he had lived, rightfully, in is mad; Lani had still loved Eli Grant.

When she had just known that it was over, when she had tried to move on, Lani couldn't because she loved Eli Grant. He was goofy, moody, infuriating, and all too often, entirely too selfless for his own good.

But he was hers and she was his.

She did not doubt that they would come through his. They had come too far not to. That didn't mean that they didn't have some serious things to work through, or that she wasn't scared about it.

She sat on the couch flipping through channels, still unable to concentrate. She should be laid up with her man right now, basking in it, but he couldn't, or wouldn't, delegate. Still, his face kept playing over and over in her mind. His touch was still warm on her skin.

Even though the man insisted on living in an icebox.

"Only man I know who has to live in the artic year-round. Only Eli would have the windows open like it wasn't January."

Lani shivered as she walked back to his room for something warm to put on. Something his. He would probably be the night. Eli was meticulous even without Trask breathing down his neck. Whoever was stealing drugs from the hospital, dealing them on the streets, was about to spend some considerable time wishing that they hadn't, Lani thought as she started pulling drawers open.

His scent was immediately upon her, stronger here than in any other part of the house. Lani could live with her face buried in Eli's neck.

She couldn't find the sweater that she was looking for so she went through the top drawer for a pair of his socks when she saw it.

Her heart thumped hard in her chest, she could feel the beats in her throat. Her blood rushing was white noise in her ears.

Lani's hands shook as she reached for it.

There was no telling how long she held the small felt box in her hands wishing that she could look through it.

She set it on the dresser then sat on the bed away from it; staring. Glaring. Demanding, silently, that the inanimate object explain itself.

Then it hit her.

What had been going on with Eli.

"What time are the reservations again?"

"I know how important this is..."

"What were you going to say to me?"

"Gonna love me forever?"

"Girl, I'm gonna love you always."

"I would never put this badge before my wife, my kids..."

Lani stared at that damn box like it held all the answers; like it would tell her what to do.

Eli wasn't the only one not seeing things.

She knew something was up, but she never thought, never allowed herself to believe, that it could be this.

She truly had been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Putting it back." She muttered. "I'm putting it back."

But when she picked up the ring box, it was like Lani's hands wouldn't work; like she didn't know how to use them.

It fell from her fingertips to the floor at her feet. Lani's breath loud in the room around her. She was really about to leave it there, leave the room, the whole house, but she made herself come back and snatch the felt box up from the floor; snapping it open.

"What...?

Empty.

The box was empty.

Why in the hell would Eli have an empty ring box just living in his damn sock drawer?

Men are so...weird, she thought. Then: "Oh...hell no."

Gabi's?

Had Gabi's ring been in this box?

Lani's hands were steady when she threw the small box back where she found it, slamming the drawer so hard that the mirror shook.

It could be, she knew. Gabi's ass had made sure that Lani knew about "the diamond" that Eli had bought her; waving it under Lani's nose after that everything had all come out.

Sitting in his house wasn't an option for her any longer, not with her mind moving at 100 miles a minute. She needed to know. Lani grabbed his coat, stepping out into the cold January air.

As she walked, Lani couldn't come up with a plausible reason as to why Eli would be holding on to an empty box. It could be Gabi's, but why would he keep the box after he had told her that he had pawned the ring then drank the profits? And two, if the ring wasn't Gabi's then why hadn't Eli just asked her to marry him?

One second she felt like she was drowning, then the next it was like her feet weren't touching the ground.

Marriage.

They had talked about it before...then. Then things weren't...they weren't.

Getting back together hadn't been some cakewalk, or automatic after all been said and done. She had hurt him; no matter the reason for it. She couldn't take it back even if she could go back...there'd been too much at stake.

Apologies hadn't been enough then. Even now, when they had to go back there, to that time, there was still pain; and there probably always would be. One day, she hoped it wouldn't be quite so raw, and it could be something that they could talk about without the "what ifs".

What Lani couldn't apologize for, what she wouldn't, was the way that she felt about Eli's inability to delegate. After the department had been sued by Gabi DiMera and Ben Weston, Eli had been sworn in as Commissioner. After the last two, Eli had something to prove. She didn't begrudge him that, but what she felt was valid. And, no, their jobs weren't the same. He was responsible for the safety of the people while she was to a business, but she was still finding her way just the same as he was.

Lani wished that he understood that.

The sooner they talked this out, the better.

When she came around the corner, Lani stopped dead in her tracks.

Eli stood at the end of the docks looking down at his hands. The pain that rested on his face was so intense that it hurt her. She started to go to him but, again stopped; watching while he pulled himself together.

For long seconds he looked down at his hands before him. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the glint off the ring he held in them. She watched as Eli washed a hand over his face, still looking down; watched as he kissed the ring to his lips, a pain too deep sliced through her; watched him reach back then throw the ring as far as he could out into the dark waters of winter.

She couldn't catch her breath; make herself move.

All Lani could do was stand there, breaking as Eli, unknowingly, walked away from her.