Crack In The Ice - Chapter 9: Chapter 9

That was a good start.
I had almost expected Eli to not reply to my text. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he did, but it took a while.
The typing bubble shows up for a couple of seconds, then it's gone. I wait one second, two seconds, three, four... Nothing happens.
That goddamned bubble comes up for a fleeting moment, then it disappears again. But I'm a man on a mission now.
Bubble. Gone. Nothing.
For fuck's sake. Why am I even so invested in this?
Because you're a simp, Liam, that's why. Yup. That's it. That's my existence now.
Shit. It worked.
Be fucking cool, everybody. One breath in, same breath out.
I sit up in bed like my spine has been jolted with electricity.
Forty-five minutes. Eli will be here in forty-five minutes.
I get off my bed and open the wardrobe. Do I have time to shower? I should shower.
I'm quick but thorough in getting clean, and put on a nice pair of navy pants my mom got me for important family events and a white dress shirt. The creature staring back at me in the mirror looks scarily like a wannabe clone of my dad. Way too formal.
Not a date. Just food with a friend.
I take it all off for some oldish pair of jeans and a basic t-shirt. I look in the mirror. This is fine. It's good. Casual. Too casual.
Who am I fooling? I still want to look hot.
I switch to a nicer, tighter t-shirt that wraps around my chest and lean torso, and leaves very little above the waist to the imagination. I take a good long look to appreciate the result in the mirror. I look... way too obvious.
Hot, not desperate. Just food with a friend.
I take it all off, careless of where the clothes land at this point, and decide to go for a lighter pair of jeans and a deep-blue button down. I remembered Eli once commented on the color of my eyes and this shirt brings out the deep ocean blue. It's probably subtle enough to work.
Okay. That's good. We're good.
Now.
Perfume or no perfume?
Urgh. Why am I being this weird? I wear perfume to go out with Chloe and Gus. It's never been a big deal, it's stupid to make it a big deal now.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror again and my eyes zero in on my hair. I look like I've been in bed. Which I have. That's not necessarily bad though, right?
I tilt my head from side to side, as if that would help me get in tune with my bed hair. Then I run my hands through it to tame it down and bring it back to life, ruffling it just a bit. For that bed hair look that's intentional instead of actual crusty bed hair.
I take a step back.
I look good. I smell good. And I'm late.
Shit, how can forty-five minutes go by so fast?
When I make it downstairs, Eli is waiting on a small table for two in the corner, with Hannah standing next to him. Eli's eyes find me as I make my way to him and Hannah turns around to follow his line of sight.
"There he is." She smiles. "He was probably getting ready. You know our prince in his tower needs time to look pretty." She laughs, looking between the two of us. "Your suite is the tower by the way. Does that make sense? Not sure the metaphor works, your suite is only one floor up."
Eli raises his eyebrows, peeling his eyes away from me to look at Hannah. "You been up there?"
Hannah laughs again, this time more naturally. "Yeah, but no. Not like that. No, no. You can hear the wails of past conquests haunting that bed."
Eli purses his lips, looking down. "I'm sure you can."
I bite my lip, because... Well. Does Eli count as a conquest? He should count as a conquest. Is he a conquest?
"Don't you have tables to wait on, Han?" I ask.
She just looks around the room as way of answering. Aside from the three of us and an older regular across the room, The Lodge is empty. Yeah. Mondays in May aren't exactly busy.
"I can go wash dishes or something, though. If you want me gone."
I force a smile, trying my hardest to look friendly because I don't want to be rude to Hannah, but also because I don't want to look desperate to sit alone with Eli.
Just food with a friend.
"I would never want you gone."
Hannah laughs. "Should I bring you a menu or will you have the usual?"
"The usual is fine."
Eli looks at me. "Let me guess. Grilled cheese?"
"Yup. Should I get you two orders?" Hannah asks.
"Sure."
"Be right back then. Or-" she squints at me, "-not."
I take a seat across from Eli as she walks away.
"It's nice to see she hasn't changed much," he says.
"Is it?"
"Kinda?"
I smile.
I catch Eli's eyes taking time to give me a once-over above the table and my chest flutters against my will. Does he like what he sees? It's kind of impossible to read Eli's thoughts unless he lets you.
Do I get to indulge my eyes a bit too? I let myself take the risk and eye the t-shirt his wearing and the way it hugs his broad shoulders nicely, exposing his toned arms.
Those arms... Reaching over his head to grip a headboard for support. Those are some of my all-time favorite memories. Sometimes when I can't sleep I count all the different headboards in my head.
"You smell good," Eli says in a low, intimate tone that brings me back here.
I just sat down in front of him and I'm already way too affected. I need to dial it back. Douse this heat in my stomach and get a grip on the situation.
"Thanks." I do my best to flash a cocky smile. Cocky is good, because cocky is shallow. "It's my natural musk."
He smiles. "Sure it is."
"You smell good too." I try for a balance between honesty and playfulness.
He snorts. "Thanks. It's shop brand soap."
I gasp. "All for me?"
"Of course."
Hannah comes back then and I'm glad I made the effort to cool down, because the scene she finds is a believable scene of Eli and Liam, two bros getting food. As opposed to, you know, me about to get under the table to sink my face in his crotch, with two gallons of drool pouring down my chin.
"Hey again." Hannah says, setting two Water's on the table. "Forgot to ask you for your drink orders. Liam always drinks water because he's an athlete and all that, and you're an athlete too so I figured you'd want water too. Probably. But I can bring you something else if you want." She almost gets all that out in a single breath.
Sometimes I think Hannah should ditch the waiting and chase her true calling of pharmaceutical ad side-effect narrator.
"Water's fine, Hannah. Thank you." Eli smiles at her.
"Good." She grins, then looks at me and starts to step back. "I'm going away now. Look. See?"
"Bye, Han." I smile.
She rolls her eyes but leaves.
I laugh, turning back to Eli. "You can ask for something else to drink, if you want."
He shrugs. "Water's fine."
"You sure?"
Eli opens his bottle and raises it in a toast-like manner. "The athlete's drink, right?"
I smile.
He takes a drink and my eyes zero in on the movement in his throat. The slight tilt back of his head. The wetness around his lips. The reddish mark peaking just out of his shirt's collarbone. That last one was me. All me. I put it there. I even remember exactly when and how.
Get a grip, Liam.
"So." I clear my throat. "Enjoying your visit home?"
"Mhm." He licks his lips, setting the bottle down.
I let my hands wander to my own bottle, to play with the edges of the label. "Don't think I asked you when you're leaving."
"Next Sunday."
"Evening flight?"
"Morning."
I nod, tearing a piece off the edge of the water label. It comes off smoothly, dampened by the condensation clinging to the glass.
Eli sets his elbows on the table, leaning forward. I get an actual whiff of his scent and it's not just shop brand soap. There's something beneath it that's so uniquely Eli. Something I can't place.
"Is this what food with a friend is?" He asks.
I look up to hold his gaze as neutrally as I can. "It's perfectly innocent."
"Mh."
"What?"
"I don't know." He shrugs.
I bite my lip, tearing another piece off my label. Eli's eyes take me in over the table again and, although I can't read his expression, I can see the very intentional lingering. Hell, I can almost feel it directly on my skin.
"You look nice," I say. Mostly because he does.
"Thanks."
"Now you tell me I look nice."
Eli smiles. "Why's that?"
"It's only polite."
He shrugs. "Not really the polite kind."
"That's not true," I scoff. "I remember you all 'yes, sir, no, sir' with my dad before you left."
"Don't work for your dad anymore."
"No. I bet now you have people working for you."
"Not really."
I arch my eyebrows. "No publicist or agent or anything?"
"The publicists work for the team, not me. And an agent isn't exactly an employee. Not mine at least. She works for the agency that represents me and Dean."
"Mh." I tear another piece off my bottle. "She pretty?"
"I guess."
I cock my head. "Not your type?"
He looks at me. "I feel like we've been over this."
"What's her name?"
"Zoey."
"Does Dean think Zoey is pretty?"
"She's not his type either."
"What's Dean's type?"
"His own age," Eli says pointedly.
"Oh. So she's an old hag?" I smirk.
Eli rolls his eyes. "More like in her thirties."
"There's something hot in an older partner."
"Is there?"
"Sure. Experience is sexy as fuck."
"Got it."
"Never been with someone more experienced?"
"Seriously?"
I take note of the slight tension around Eli's jaw now. Heat comes pooling around my stomach once again. Right.
A flash of Eli's arms stretched over his head to grip the original headboard comes back to my mind's eye and I gulp. But it's not the image that boils my insides, it's knowing Eli's thinking about it too.
Good job, Liam.
Two plates of grilled cheese are set in front of us.
"There you go."
"Thanks, Han." I smile stiffly up at her.
"Thanks," Eli says too.
She smiles, glances between the two of us, and leaves us alone again.
I focus my attention on my grilled cheese, letting the moment reset. That always seems to work for us. We meet up, we get going back and forth, we get into it, someone says something, tension sets, we pause and reset. Like clicking out of a game you fucked up without saving progress and starting again.
I'm surprised to find Eli staring at me when I finally look up from my dinner after a few bites. The chest fuzzies I'm now used to every time I feel his gaze on me double when I realize he's smiling. It's not too obvious, just a half-smile. Tame and discreet. I've learned to appreciate these half-smiles for the intimate gift they are.
"What?"
He shakes his head softly. "Nothing. How's the grilled cheese?"
I smile. "Delicious, thank you for asking."
The corners of his lips twist like he's battling the urge to smile more. "There's this diner down my street in Calgary, where they make the best grilled cheese in the world. According to Dean, at least. Reminds me of you every time I walk by."
That takes me off guard. So much so that I'm actually surprised by how disarming Eli's confession feels. And how calmly he drops it.
Maybe it's not that deep to him. But knowing he thinks of me, regularly, casually, when he's away... It feels more meaningful to me than something you'd just casually drop during conversation while getting food with a friend.
Maybe that's just the thing about one of us leaving while the other stays behind.
Eli has to connect memories of me to new spots in his new life. Meanwhile, I'm surrounded by memories wherever I go. Even when I try to avoid it.
I think of him when school starts each year and Leah starts leaving her hockey gear around the house. I think of him in the winter, when the lake where we said goodbye and so much more freezes over. I think of him whenever I go for a training session at the Ice Arenas where we almost shared our would-be first kiss. I think of him every time I come to The Lodge where we spent hours together working, going back and forth as we do.
I think of him every time I go to bed, right where we shared our first night together.
And the worst of it all. Sometimes, even after I fall asleep, I think of him too.
I can't escape the memories of us. And over time I've come to peace with the fact that I don't want to. But I never allowed myself to consider that, miles away, Eli could be thinking of me too. And I don't know how I feel about that idea.
Or maybe I do, but I'm not ready to admit it. That's a recurring theme with us.
"Maybe I'll have to see for myself one day," I say without planning to. "That diner."
Eli looks up, meeting my gaze neutrally. He nods after a beat. "Maybe you will."