Ellie is Cool Now

Chapter 31

It's super late when we finally come up for air. We doze lazily, me resting my head on his shoulder, him with his arm draped across my stomach. He traces circles on my skin, across my ribs and down to my belly button. It feels so good I could die. Happily. Right here in his arms.

My stomach decides to interrupt this perfect moment with a chorus of angry growls.

"Hungry much?" Mark asks, kissing the top of my head.

My stomach answers him, loudly.

"I think that one shook the house," he says. I grimace as he drifts out of my embrace and into boxers. Then sweatpants and a T-shirt. "I'll order a pizza."

I toga myself up in the plaid bedsheet and follow him down the stairs to the kitchen. I plop down on the horrible couch while he pours two glasses of water and orders a pepperoni pizza.

"With mushrooms?" he asks. I wrinkle my nose. "Scratch that. Black olives?" Thumbs up. "Extra olives."

He hangs up and sits next to me, admiring my makeshift outfit. He hands me a glass of water and I chug the whole thing. Some of it drips down my chin. When I'm done, he's staring at me with a funny look on his face.

"What?"

"You're different."

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I mean it in a good way," he says. "There's nobody like you."

I consider that for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"You just are who you are," he says. "You don't make any apologies for being Ellie."

I lean back. "That's different from high school, I guess."

"You were always like that," he says, tilting his head. "Remember ninth grade English class when we all did a dramatic reading of Romeo and Juliet? And you played Romeo."

I drop my face into my hands. "Please, don't remind me."

He wraps a hand around the wrist closest to him and I peek at him through the cage of my fingers. "You got so into your death scene that Ms. Kipler thought for sure you'd cracked your head open."

"I had a knot on the back of my head for weeks," I admit.

"You committed," he says. "You commit to everything." He looks away sadly, and I lower my hands to my lap. I chew on my bottom lip, unsure of what to say next.

"It's better not to commit," I say, "than to commit to the wrong thing."

"I'm not thinking about Liz," Mark says, his gaze flicking back to me. He holds my eyes intently, making sure he gets his point across. "I'm sure about you."

But how could he be? We've literally been dating for 24 hours. He was engaged to and allegedly in love with another woman... yesterday. He could have had sex with Liz like, last week or the morning before brunch, or.... Jealousy winds itself up around my guts. My face screws up and I manage to flatten it back out before he looks over.

I don't want to say all of that out loud, even if it's true. This moment is bigger than a big fat reality check from me. I just want to sit, wrapped up naked under our sexy time bedsheets on his repulsive couch and pretend the rest of life isn't waiting on the other side of that front door.

"When do you have to go back?" Mark asks.

"I'm an adult. It's not like I have a curfew," I say, trying to stay on track.