26…Commencement…
I wake to the sound of terse whispering. I am not in my room, but Leif's, and it takes my brain a moment to figure out how I might've gotten here. The latter part of the night comes tumbling back in a rush; he must've carried me. A shiver runs through me remembering Leif's kindness and comfort. And how it felt to be wrapped in his arms. The whispering intrudes on that line of thought before it really takes hold, thankfully. I tiptoe to the door to listen for a second. I think they're talking about me and it feels all kinds of wrong to eavesdrop. When I wrench open the door, Leif and James are facing each other in the hall but immediately fall silent.
I decide not to mince any words. "Are you talking about me?" James has a sad look on his face and Leif's expression is inscrutable. I can't deny the jolt I get in seeing him still in his jeans and shirtless in the daylight. "What? Tell me!"
"I came in to wake up Leif and you were…you were in his bed," James shakes his head forlornly, looking at the floor.
"And what did Leif say about that? You were obviously arguing." Gosh, I sound like my plain-spoken grandmother at her sternest.
"He said it was your story to tell," James replies quietly. I can't help it, a small laugh bursts out of me at this particular choice of words, clearly startling both men.
"James, you're coming with me and we're going to talk right now." I grab his arm to drag him the few feet toward my bedroom door. I'm not waiting for Em to "get the scoop," or for her to work her Coordinating magic because I know now that is a pointless endeavor and I am over this nonsense. I push James into my room and turn to a flummoxed and possibly amused Leif. I make a dismissive motion with my hand. "And you…shoo for now! Shoo!" I put my hand over my heart, adding in a whisper, "And thank you. For last night." I hope James didn't hear that part because it could be interpreted wrongly. But if it is, I'll clear that right up, too. I shut the door behind me and motion for James to sit on one of the beds. I put on my robe first, then fold my legs to sit facing him.
"I refuse to be a point of contention between two great friends. So please tell me what's going on." When he doesn't speak immediately, I prod, "Does this have to do with what you referred to at our first dinner?" He nods sadly. "You're afraid Leif's going to do something to me that will mess up you and Em."
"I don't want to give you the wrong impression—he truly is the best man I know underneath it all—but he can be an arse sometimes." Another laugh bursts out of me and James looks up at me with such a sweet bewilderment.
"Truer words were never spoken, but he can also be incredibly kind, as I'm sure you know. Let me allay your fears about last night." And I briefly explain the pertinent elements of last night—about my being a girlfriend beard, the comfort of hand-holding, about our little jokey fifty percent agreement and even about my parents' accident and Leif taking care of me when I had those debilitating flashes of memory. It is a revelation to me how almost…easy that part is when it's always been near impossible to talk about my parents before. My family barely even does! In fact, I've only ever told Em the very basics of it. Something in me unlocked last night maybe because of sharing with Leif and the comfort he gave me. I even tell James about the revelation I'm having in this moment. He takes my hand.
"You were orphaned at such a young age."
"I never thought of myself as an orphan, I guess because I had my grandparents."
"I'm so sorry, Ellawyn." He wraps me in a hug.
When we pull apart, I say, "So let's get back to your ass of a friend. He was my El Protector last night and I'm so grateful to him. He and I are firmly in the friend zone." There's no need to share with James that that zone is not by my choice. "So, I'll make an agreement with you, too. I promise not to be a part of anything that might make it hard for you and Em, regarding Leif or anyone else. You are the sweetest man I've ever met and I love the way you two are together. And I love this new friendship foursome of ours. I've come to love you and I've come to love L..." I pause from a twinge of panic because I was about to say, Leif—like it was just going to trip right off my tongue! I have quickly continue. "And you need to promise to let go of that worry you have regarding he and I, okay? Just look at the two of us—we're so different!" He is beautiful and I'm sort of geeky, and not even the cool kind of geek, like were plentiful at Stanford. Geeks and gods just don't go together. "It breaks my heart to see you arguing about me when there's no need. We can even get Em down here and all shake on it."
"Emory, I think, would like it if you and Leif were a couple. Sometimes I'm almost sure she's trying to Coordinate it," he smiles ruefully.
"Well, that's not going to happen, so put your worries away," I beseech, and it gives my heart a pang of something that feels like grief to acknowledge that.
"Speaking of Em, she won't wake up and Leif and I have an errand to do before graduation; that's why I was coming to get him this morning. Will you go check on her and make sure she's up? We have brunch reservations for ten at The White Dog." I nod and we both stand. "So you really got Leif to agree to keep his arse over elbow behavior to a minimum?"
"I don't quite know if he agreed, but I definitely made the request," I laugh. "Baby steps."
"I must say he's different with you than anyone else I've ever seen him with, but perhaps it's because you're not panting after him like every other woman in the free world." I don't correct him. "But still…Good luck with that."
"I know, right?"
"You might be the wisest teenager I've ever met and I can heartily say I've come to love you, too." He laughingly pulls me into another hug and it is then I notice the adjacent bathroom door is ajar by an inch or two.
Turnabout is fair play, as the saying goes, but I say a silent prayer anyway. Please God, no! Don't let him be listening.
While Em's getting ready—I literally had to drag her out of bed, we're going to have a talk about this drinking!—I call Henry and then Bea when he doesn't answer. She says don't worry, he's fine and reiterates her instructions to pick her up at The Rambler before dinner tonight with Henry. I hear the boys come back and the shower turn on next door, so I take my packed bag downstairs to wait for everyone. We're leaving directly from the graduation ceremony. I clean out the couple things in the fridge and generally straighten up. Henry had said that a housekeeper would come after we left, but I want to make it as easy on him or her as I can. I put away the quilt and collect the two remaining ribbons from on top of the dryer. Before I'd taken my shower, I'd noticed my neck was red from pulling at that damn ribbon last night, but the ribbon itself was gone. Leif must've taken it off; he'd taken my hair out of its braid, too, and I wish I was awake to have seen that. And felt it. I left my hair down today to hopefully cover the redness.
I do a sweep around the house to look for anything we might've left. When I peek in the living room there's the crystal glass Leif had last night so I go to retrieve it. Instead of picking it up, I trace the rim of it, where his lips touched, then step to the bank of windows he was in front of last night when I truly thought, in my weird state, that he was a ghost. But he's not, he's real and in my life in such a big way and I want him in it even more, in every way. I don't ruminate on that because a shiver passes through me and as I turn I hear a click and there he is in the doorway lowering a camera with a look of wonder on his face that might be a mirror of mine. Neither of us moves.
I drink him in. He's gotten a haircut—that must be where he and James went this morning. As much as I loved those loose black curls that caress his ears and forehead and neck—lucky curls!—the close-shaved sides and spiky cropped top are just… just…no words. He has on a dark blue suit, crisp white shirt and a cardinal red satin vest and matching…bowtie. No man in the whole history of time has ever looked so damn caliente, in a bowtie. I assume it's a school tie as I looked up the Penn colors before coming here and that's why I chose my own dark blue sheath dress with cardinal red felt flowers appliqued on the hem. It's vintage, my grandmother's. But him…the whole of him, in those colors and sharply-cut suit and vest and even the bowtie, coupled with his austere hair puts the planes of his square jaw and Roman nose in sharp relief and he looks even more stern, more intense, more fierce. But…but for the soft look of wonder on his face.
In this moment, I am quite sure, that it might be possible to die from this much beauty…His.
My heart thrums when he starts walking toward me, slowly. He puts the camera on the table next to his glass and stops right in front of me. He reaches out to caress my jaw. I close my eyes and lean right in to his warm hand. He moves his fingers through my hair, fanning it out around my shoulders. He does something to one side of my hair and it feels so comforting and familiar and thrilling—he's tying something into it. When he's done, I touch it. A ribbon. A flower.
"My ghost girl. Right here," he says softly, inhaling into my neck and I let go of the fact that he can probably tell I've sprayed more of that clean sea potion of his right there. I can't care about that right now. I open my eyes and I swear I feel the house sigh. Or maybe it's just me.
Because in this moment, I'm quite sure it is also possible to die from love. Yes, love. And that is all mine.
Doctor Oz, gives the keynote address and once again, I almost crave my grandmother. She worshipped him because he's plain-spoken, practical and positive, as was she, plus, cute as a button. Her words. When she was trying to get Henry to watch what he ate and to forego the occasional cigar he would have when meeting with a group of his Russian friends, she would say, "My second husband, Mehmet, would agree with me." She would love to hear him today.
Em has her head resting on my shoulder and we hold hands through the address. At brunch, she'd barely touched her biscuits and gravy and barely said a word, other than that she set out last night determined not to drink too much. When she said she felt drugged rather than drunk, both James and Leif looked at each other in alarm and began plying her with questions about whether or not she had anything but the champagne that was sent to our table. She doesn't remember, but I'd chimed in that she didn't. Except for my short foray to the terrace, I was with her the entire time. And yeah, I feel a familiar stab of guilt for leaving her for James to see home when I was so determined to find out more about Leif at that bar.
She barely even smiled when she gave James and Leif their graduation gifts of beautiful, and expensive, I'm sure, leather briefcases with their initials embossed in gold, which they both seemed touched by. Normally, she squees delightedly when giving gifts. After brunch, when we'd taken photos of the boys and us—James in a coordinating blue vest with bowtie—around campus before they had to come here to line up, she was listless. She has become "the quiet one." It was me who chatted easily through brunch and coordinated getting the photos, some of which I'd emailed to Megan at the shop.
Dr. Oz is giving his Top Ten tips for the graduates. He says to find a mentor that makes you "comfortable being uncomfortable." He explains that the comfort zone keeps you small. I think of Henry, who is a sort of mentor to everyone around him. He would agree. I bark out a snort/laugh when, during another one of those tips, Dr. Oz says, "No one is a jerk on purpose." Em looks up at me then and I just smilingly shake my head, saying, "Tell you later, I promise." She's not even seen Leif's pendejo proclivities because she's been googly-eyed over James, but also, Leif tends to be more of a jerk privately to me when I make him uncomfortable. Dr. Oz goes on to say that people have complex motivations and some have deep-seated difficulties and it can be hard to understand why people do what they do. People will evolve over time, and if they don't, learn to forgive them. Let people surprise you, he says. It's like he's giving this keynote address directly to me about one particular graduate. I make note to tell Henry about it.
Dr. Oz's number one tip is to make the driving force in your life…love. He urges to apply love even to difficult decisions. I ponder this as the next speaker, a student from Greece, addresses the grads. My grandmother did it—applied love to everything—Henry does it continually, Bea does it in her own way, and so will I, even to discovering the truths behind all these family mysteries I'd found out about this past week. I look at Em, the best friend anyone could ask for, and think of the other friends I have, new and old. She's put on James' suit jacket—both boys had given them to us to hold so they wouldn't get too hot under their gowns—claiming she was chilly, but I think it's mostly for the comfort of having something of his around her. Though she hasn't said, I think she's come to love him in such a short time. Entiendo, Em, I think. Entiendo.
I vow to hold onto my love for Leif, even though I don't understand the full scope of it myself. Am I in love with him? Or is it another kind of love? Either way, I will make it be the driving force in our friendship, while forgiving everything else; even the fact that he doesn't feel for me what I've come to feel for him in such a short time. I can just let our friendship be what it is, and love him regardless. I put Leif's jacket over my shoulders, feeling comfort from wrapping it around me and something else entirely from inhaling his scent. I squeeze Em tighter to me.
Entiendo.
When both James and Leif's names are called out to stand on the floor as honor students first, there are hoots and cheers and quite a few whistles for Leif, too. Em rallies up some energy and screams for them, as do I. Loudly. Then when they're called individually within their Cohort groups—James more fully explained the Wharton "Cohort" concept at brunch today—we scream and yell and make absolute fools of ourselves again as their degrees are conferred on stage.
When it's over, Em and I find our friends surrounded by their separate Cohort groups on the Palestra floor. James' face lights up when he sees Em and motions her over to his group, immediately putting his arm around her. I hang back ten yards or so to lean against the short wall surrounding the floor, quite content to watch Leif from a distance.
"What did you think of this achingly long spectacle?" I look over to see Captain Gray and another man standing next to me.
"That I liked Dr. Oz's speech." I smile at him, then exclaim. "What are you doing here?"
"Falk has a rather large scholarship program at Penn as part of the Falk Foundation. We came to glad hand with the Wharton brass and check up on our young-uns," he laughs.
"Did you go here?" I ask.
"Nope, but he did." He motions to the man next to him, who's looking off in the distance. "Miss Ellis, I'd like you to meet McMorgan Falk, more commonly known as Mac."
I take a better look at him as he looks through the crowd of students. He's a big man, tall with red hair peppered with grey and skin bright white except for sunburned patches. He didn't hear the Captain, who slaps his arm, "Mac! Mac!" For just a second, they look like little boys. I can almost feel the friendship between them. Like with Leif and James.
When he swings his hawkish blue gaze to me, I practically gulp; what arresting eyes. He looks every inch the storied Scotsman, like the Captain looks like…well…a sea Captain. By all rights, Mr. Falk should be wearing a kilt and tossing logs or tossing back a shot of Jameson or something. Varick doesn't look much like him at all.
"I met your son, too!" I exclaim. He looks at me with consternation, much like his son did last night, so I continue, "Vick, I believe he's called. At The Waterworks last night."
"He was in Philadelphia? I thought he was supposed to be in…" He glances sternly at the Captain, then back at me. "And you are?"
"This is Ellawyn Ellis," the Captain says.
He shakes my hand in his big viselike grip. "Do you go to Penn, Ellawyn?"
"I'm all Stanford."
"What brings you here then?"
Before I can answer the Captain chimes up. "She's a family friend of one of our scholarship graduates, young Mr. Vincent." Leif must've told him that. I've not spoken to him since my interview.
"Was that you making that racquet when his name was called?" Mr. Falk asks.
"Will you un-hire me if I say yes?" I smile at him.
"Un-hire you?" Again with the look of consternation.
"Miss Ellis is the one I told you about who is going to be a translator for us in the office," the Captain explains. "Starting tomorrow, in fact."
"You don't even look twenty! What is your age?" he blusters.
Not that old gem again. "Old enough to speak English, Spanish, French, Japanese and Chinese and to have graduated Stanford, Mr. Falk." I meet his blazing eyes challengingly; I've gotten more than my fair share of practice lately in not withering under glaring looks. "Anything else you want to know?" Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Captain trying to hold in his amusement.
"You're quite outspoken for someone so young." From the look on Mr. Falk's face, this is not a compliment.
"Outspoken in several languages," I counter. Yep, definitely not the quiet one any longer.
"Trust me, Mac," the Captain laughs. "She's just what we need." Mr. Falk practically blazes at the Captain and then at me and I have to work to hold in my own amusement now because they look like little boys again.
"I'm gone next week, but I'll send for you when I get back," Mr. Falk says. "We'll talk more in my office."
"I look forward to it," I say truthfully. He seems like an interesting character.
He turns to the Captain, "Let's get on the water, Gray." And with that, he gives me one more piercing stare and walks up the stairs.
"We took my boat down here," the Captain explains. "Give my regards to Vince. See you tomorrow." The Captain follows him up the stadium stairs and I turn to scan the crowd until I spot Leif again.
He turns and …What?...If I'm not mistaken, his face lights up when he sees me. He walks over and I watch every step of his commanding walk, drinking him in all over again.
"Why didn't you come find me? I wanted to introduce you to my Cohorts."
"For closure? Which girl do I need to chase away now? Or is it all of them?" He narrows his eyes at me, but it's humorously, I think. "Speaking of introductions, guess who I just met?" I exclaim. "Mac." He looks at me bewildered. "You know…the head of your company? And mine. The Admiral of the Falk Atlantic fleet?"
"McMorgan Falk is here?" He scans the crowd wildly.
"With Captain Grey. They were leaving, but you can probably still catch them." My eyes swing up toward the stairs they took and Leif's follow to see them near the exit, looking down at us. The Captain waves and Mac gives one stern nod. Leif pauses with an unfathomable expression on his face before he makes a motion touching his forehead, like he's dipping a nonexistent hat. We watch as the two men turn to leave.
We four are outside the Palestra Building coordinating our immediate plans. Well, Leif and I are. James and Em are talking quietly on a bench nearby with their arms around each other.
"So what is this mysterious errand?" he asks again.
"It's called a surprise for a reason." I would give them their gifts today, but there just isn't a proper place to do it. It would lack any kind of ceremony to have them unwrap them in the car.
"I don't like surprises," he leans down right into my face, but he's smiling.
"You're a big boy now, Mr. Smart MBA Honor Student and Cohort Marshall. You can suck it up for two days." I'm having a little too much fun playing with him. We'd already decided that we four would have dinner at the Rehab with Henry after work Tuesday and that's where they'll get their gifts.
"This looks good on you, by the way." He tugs the collar of his suit jacket that is draped around me. Then he puts his hand through my hair and I close my eyes. This does weird things to me, even if I have an inkling of what he's trying to do. "But your flower has fallen out," he says in that voice.
"If you keep up this charming behavior," I whisper, "I'm going to have to ask for it seventy-five percent of the time, rather than the fifty I requested last night." I open my eyes, smirking. "But you're still not getting your graduation gift until Tuesday."
He laughs at being caught, and I die of the beauty of his smile as he rolls his eyes and looks away over his shoulder. But when he turns back to me, he's suddenly serious again. He whispers to me, "I don't like boat whistles."
What?
There's a scathing woman's voice coming from where he'd just been looking. "So…This is why you shoved me away yesterday? This is why you ran off? This?" Leif puts his arm around me and we both turn toward her. Oh hell! It's shorty-shorts girl. Even though she's looking at me like I'm a lower life form than a paramecium, I can still sort of empathize with her. I felt the same way yesterday when I saw her wrapping herself around Leif.
I smile at her, kindly. I hope. "Hi. I'm Elle, Leif's girlfriend." Yeah, it gives me a thrill to say it, even with its distinct lack of veracity. She stares at him as he shrugs in tacit agreement.
"Girlfriend?" she mouths more than says, looking between the two of us, her hurt palpable. "Girlfriend? You don't have girlfriends!"
He leans down to kiss my hair and her eyes pop at seeing that. "I bet she can't do all the things I can do! Remember those, Vince?" She shoots daggers with her eyes before her face collapses into something crushed and ugly with anguish. She turns and stalks off.
My little thrill is gone. Facing her hurt, I now feel awful at having participated in this duplicity.
After a moment, Leif turns to me, "See, I wasn't lying when I said that about never having a girlfriend." Right now, I can't stand that stupid triumphant gleam in his stupid beautiful eyes, as if he's only caring about being proved right.
"Yeah, but you just made me lie, didn't you!" I hiss. He looks as if I slapped him. Good! "Did you not see her pain!"
I watch his momentary hurt morph into that familiar anger. "I'm honest and upfront with everyone. I can't help what they make up in their minds." He's dripping with disdain and I'm the one who's instantly furious now.
"Don't you even think about using that anger defense of yours on me, because I can tell you my own anger would bitchslap yours right down! It's Ocean Sized!" I practically roar. I take off his jacket and shove it at him, not caring a whit that he now seems lost at sea. "You and James go return your cap and gowns and we'll pick you up outside the bookstore. I've had all I can take of your closure for today." Now I'm the one stalking off.
As I collect a shocked Em from the bench, I hear James mutter sadly, "I knew it." But I can't think of that right now.
We're twenty feet away when I notice I'm practically dragging a still-gaping Em down the walkway. I stop as her mouth opens and closes. "Have you lost your words?" I ask. This is a first for her. "You missed a lot last night." I say.
I explain everything as we walk to the car and drive to the shop. She finally finds her words to ask some questions along the way. When I park again, Em stays in the car claiming exhaustion and the need to "get my mind around all this."
Megan greets me at the door of the shop and can barely contain herself. Thankfully, her huge smile serves to dissolve my remaining anger at Leif. Her husband, Thomas, lurks behind the counter watching my stunned face as she shows me each of the art pieces she created with Thomas and her great-uncle. She elatedly explains some of the things she added to what we talked about yesterday. Each is more beautiful and perfect than the next. When I don't say anything, she bites her lip, looking as if she might cry.
"Megan, Thomas," I can barely gasp out. "I just…no words…can capture… divine artistry…craftsmanship…insight…treasures you created…in one day." Finally I blurt out stupidly, "You need to charge more!"
Megan does cry then, while she's jumping up and down and clapping at the same time. Thomas's face softens seeing his wife's glee. Both of them start putting the two smaller gifts in boxes and wrapping the three larger artworks in the store's brown parcel paper, which instantly reminds me of the thing Leif brought to lunch at the Rehab. I never saw what it was and Granddad hasn't mentioned it once. Something else to find out when I get back.
Megan hands me the greeting cards she sketched saying, "I know Penn's colors are blue and red, but we only have blue ribbon, so you might want to add a red bow or something to the graduation gifts."
"Strangely, I happen to have two red ribbons in the car," I say, thinking of the remaining ones from my flowers of yesterday. I had her just box, but not wrap the gifts for Henry to give to James and Leif so I can show them to Henry first.
When Megan hugs me goodbye, I say to her and Thomas, "I am so honored and grateful to know you both and look forward to meeting your uncle next time." We promise to keep in touch before Thomas helps me carry everything to the car. Em is asleep in the backseat and doesn't stir as we shift things around in the already full hatchback to make room—Em's gargantuan yellow suitcase claiming most of the space. It is after Thomas gently shuts the hatchback that he turns to me, his expression serious. I can see him deliberate and then decide something in his mind.
"My wife really likes you and she's a good judge of character, but I have to say I didn't know until my part of the crafting was finished, exactly who those gifts were for, or I might not have worked on them. Or at least one of them. James seems like a good guy, but Vince…" He shakes his head. And then he goes on to tell me some new disconcerting information about Leif that certainly fills in some of the holes I had from last night's revelations.
I'm glad Em's asleep because before we go pick up the boys, I need time to process this new observation. I think I'll need Henry's help to be able to get my mind around it. Lord, what an odyssey of a weekend!
Leif is on his phone, pacing, when I pull up in front of the bookstore. James has to lift Em upright to make room as he climbs in the backseat. She immediately rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes again.
I meet James's eyes in the rearview mirror and we start speaking at the same time.
"I will keep my promise…" Me.
"I had a long talk with…" James.
"Sorry, you first." Both of us.
I wait until James continues.
"I yelled at the arse. I don't believe I've yelled at anyone ever before." Welcome to my world, I think. "People actually stopped to stare at us on Locust Walk and you know we English don't like to scare the horses, so to speak. Anyway…Perhaps I've almost been too accepting of him, but I won't accept this disrespectful behavior any longer and I'm so sorry Ellawyn. I think it comes from his upbringing, his past, but no matter. I will work on him some more, if you will bear with both of us. I would forbid him any contact, but I can't do that now as you'll be working together and what with his friendship with your grandfather. One thing I did figure out in our talk is that you—pardon my language—scare the shit out of him."
"I scare him?" James is wrong there. To him, I'm safe.
"Indeed you do! In a way that I've never seen in him and can't begin to comprehend. He doesn't even know and I didn't mention my little revelation to him. I might've said before today that he is fearless, or as fearless as anyone could be, but I couldn't claim that any longer. I will work on him some more. Just please, bear with us. Please. You have to admit you are rather different than most girls your age." I've heard that before. "But I mean that in a good way! A great way! Leif just doesn't know how to deal with it. And, if you could…" he trails off as Leif gets off his phone and walks toward the driver's side door. I reach over and lock the door. I'm not letting him in until James and I are done. I turn in my seat to face James fully, ignoring the glowering pendejo who finds himself unable to open the door.
"I know what you're going to say and I will keep my promise to you. I won't allow anything between Leif and me to come between you and Em, although you may have to accept an occasional bout of arguing between him and me. I don't think there's any hope of avoiding it. Can you do that?"
He nods with rueful smile on his sweet face. "That wasn't what I was going to say, though. I was going to say, if you could, please let Leif drive us home. I'm telling you he will make us all barmy if anyone else is behind the wheel. He is unequivocally the absolute worst backseat driver. There will be no peace in this car unless he drives. And I'd like to catch a wink or two of sleep with my girl. Can you do that for me? Please let him drive?" James looks over at the car window.
"Control freak," I mutter.
"To the nth degree. He's already in a heightened state as it is; you should see his face right now."
"I'll see it in a moment, I'm sure. And as much as I would absolutely love to see him suffer on the trip home, I don't want you to suffer alongside him. Besides, this weekend has been exhausting enough, hasn't it? Speaking of which, I'm worried about Em. Is it possible she really was drugged somehow? Because I believe her when she said she didn't drink that much."
"I don't know. I have seen a girl drugged once and it was similar, but a lot worse. That girl couldn't even lift an arm." He glances at a sleeping Em, passed out on his shoulder. "Maybe she caught a bug. Regardless, I'll stay with her tonight to watch over her."
"You are a good man, James. I'm so blessed you're in her life. In our lives."
"Me as well, Ellawyn. Our lives may be cut short, though, if you don't let the arse in the car soon."
I smile at James as I slowly turn back around in my seat and ever so slowly reach over to unlock the door. I lock it again, rather than unlock it—accidentally of course. Several times. And each time he lifts the handle to open the driver's side door, I can't deny the little bit of passive-aggressive pleasure that courses through me as I watch that beautiful face get madder and madder.
"Ellawyn, please," James says from behind me, but there's a smile in his voice. Seeing the look on Leif's face there is no way I'm getting out of this car to walk around to the passenger side. He'd probably drive off and leave me. I slide over to the passenger seat first. Then I unlock the door.
"Cute. Real cute," Leif says tightly before we drive away.
I'm glad this odyssey of a weekend is nearly over.
