“No. About you going home. Are you sure that’s the best plan?” He strolled around the courtyard to the far side where a set of French doors led back into the house.
I kept pace beside him, assuming we were headed to one of his walk-in closets so I could get into something better than a bath sheet.
“Why are you giving me so much shit about going home?” I asked, not hiding my frustration.
“I’m just worried about you, man.”
“I’m fully aware. You don’t need to keep saying it.”
“Actually, maybe I do,” he groused.
“Banks.” I shifted my gaze to look at him in my periphery. “What the hell is this really about?”
“Shit.” Elijah stopped at the vestibule of his master bedroom and faced me. “Maybe I should just come right out and say it.”
I gripped two fistfuls of my disheveled hair before blurting, “Damn, I wish you would.”
“Fine. I’ve just noticed, in glaring ways, that you have this…look…in your eyes. I don’t know.”
His words were coupled with an awful set of gestures. A small shrug combined with a slow head shake. His actions made me feel equally strange. Like he was my disappointed parent, giving up and resigning himself to my failure.
If that were the case, who was left to champion my cause? I was depending on Banks to support me through my self-pity and morbid introspection stage. And after that, I needed him to cheer me on through my phoenix-rising stage, and then to help me celebrate during my congratulatory phase. It was our truth, after all. The tidy roles we normally played. Elijah was the deep thinker here. And me? Well, I was…not trying to pinpoint that right now.
“What the hell do you mean?” I urged.
“I don’t know, Grant,” he repeated. “I don’t know how to explain it. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
I gave a curt nod.
“Do you know the last time I saw a similar look on your pretty-boy face?” my best friend asked. When I didn’t respond, he bulldozed through the silence. “Dude, it was the day we found your mom.”
I shook my head. For a long moment, that was it. Because what could I really say? The man had always been incredibly perceptive. Even when we were kids, Banks knew when something was off with one of his friends long before the rest of the crew did. But how much did I want to saddle the guy with now? He didn’t need to be weighed down with the grisly details of what happened on that damn cargo boat. Worse, he didn’t need to know all the shit that had been going on in my head ever since.
What were my options, though? Go home alone and climb the walls? No thanks.
Option two: unloading all my psychological baggage at Rio’s front door. She had enough of her own crap to deal with. To take on mine too? That would be another massive no thanks.
I was already skating on very thin psychological ice. Losing her on top of everything else I was dealing with… It’d be the final fissure in the frozen version of Lake Twombley. I’d fall right through to the icy waters beneath before completely drowning.
The only other friend I could call was Sebastian—but that was if the almighty Shark agreed to speak to me after tending to his biggest priorities: a brand-new baby and his fiancée. Still, this was the first time in our entire friendship that a squabble lasted this long, and it didn’t feel good.
In theory, a relationship as deep and long-lasting as ours should be able to endure any tiff, big or small. But this shit… It was far beyond a tiff. Once someone did Bas dirty, they were dead to him. In his mind, that was exactly where I stood, and I certainly wouldn’t be begging the man for an audience.
“Hey. Sorry I went there, buddy.” Elijah’s voice was drenched with deep concern.
I jolted, having forgotten he was still standing there.
“But are you good?” he asked.
“Nah, man, I don’t think I am.” I looked at him with worry, already feeling the thick, stinging flood waters rising. “But…I don’t know what to do.”
Oh, holy crap. They were going to crest and spill over any second. I looked up toward the ceiling, hoping like hell that would send the shit back where it came from, because I couldn’t remember the last time one of us cried in front of the other.
Elijah wisely kept to his side of the conversation. I sensed how excruciating it was for him, holding back on delivering the hug and shoulder claps that were an ingrained part of his personality, but if he went there, I’d probably deflate one of his kidneys. Maybe both. I was barely holding on as it was. My hair-trigger temper was another thing I was still getting used to.
Finally, he settled for murmuring, “It’s okay, man. Whatever it is, all or nothing, you know it’s totally okay by me. You need a few things to break? An empty wall to punch?”
“No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know.” I pulled at my hair in frustration before continuing. “I…just don’t know where to start, you know? Part of me thinks, ignore the shit. That usually works for everything else.” I blinked rapidly and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to cut off the hideous burning sensations in my sinuses. “It always works itself out. But this…is way heavier than normal.” I thumped on the center of my chest. “In here, man. It feels really, really bad in here.”
And fuck if the tears didn’t spring right back up just when I thought I’d gotten the upper hand on that mess. Goddammit.
“Have you given any more thought to staying here for a while? You know what I’m saying is true, right?” My friend’s hazel eyes were nearly gray with emotion.
“I miss her, though,” I managed to croak out. “You get that, right?”
“Of course I do. Probably more than you think,” he replied. “And believe me, she’s been a mess without you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t see her. I’m saying maybe you shouldn’t be her personal Dr. Freud for a while. At least not until you have your own shit worked out again.”
“That’s just it.” I scrubbed my hand back around to my nape. “I never felt like I had shit like this to work out before now. How am I supposed to know where to start or what to get worked out?”
“What do you mean?” He moved deeper into the bedroom, absently rearranging items atop his dresser, as if to give me ample time for contemplation.
I huffed and shook my head. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” he all but ordered while disappearing back into the closet. “Seriously, just try. So I can be of some kind of help here.”
I sat on the bench at the foot of his giant bed. I looked around the room for a long minute while he found something for me to wear. I noticed he’d painted the walls a warm gray in here, and I really liked it.
Maybe all I really needed was a little scenery change, and I’d be right as rain again.
And maybe Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny would invite me over for poker night next weekend.
Elijah finally tossed some clothes my way, so I stood up to dress.
“Okay”—he waved his hand through the air as he dictated—“finish your thought. You said you feel like maybe you have some issues to work out? Like what? Mental health stuff? Do you feel depressed?”