Page 7 of Standing Still

“I’ll let Larry know you’re both here. We’re just waiting for Susan, though you know her, always late,” Ev draws my attention back. There is a small scowl on her face, like she saw the way I checked Elle out. It’s hard, but I manage not to roll my eyes.

“Thanks, Ev,” I say, giving her a wink. She blushes and I grin. Behind me, Elle huffs. I turn, still resting my elbow on the counter as Ev makes the call to let Larry know we’re here. I raise a brow at Elle. She glares back, but her heart isn’t in it. I don’t know what the hell to say to her, so we both just remain silent,staring at one another. She’s checking me out just as much as I checked her over.

“He won’t be a moment,” Ev interrupts the stare off. “Would you like a coffee, Ben?” she asks sweetly.

“That’d be great, thanks.”

She beams and heads out from behind the counter. She spares Elle a brief glance but ignores her.

“Typical.”

“What was that?” I ask, lifting a brow.

“Nothing,” Elle turns away, her eyes lower to her lap.

My gaze follows, noticing her hands wringing together. It is a nervous tic I recall from when we were younger. A small twinge of sympathy and a touch of guilt passes through me as her face falls. She’s trying to be strong. I don’t doubt this is hard for her. Even though she made her own bed when she abandoned us. Her dad, I mean.

She has no one left. Well, here, I’m not sure what family she has out in New York. Acer did say she got married about six years ago. They did not invite him to the wedding. He also informed me she got divorced. I didn’t think there were any kids, but who knew?

Although I’m not the kind of guy who reads, nor would I ever entertain the kind of books Elle writes, I picked up one or two, from Amazon, obviously. I couldn’t have anyone seeing me buy that kind of thing. I didn’t read them, but I spent far too much time staring at her portrait on the back. I’d tossed them in a box a while ago, though, and forgot all about them.

Ev returns with my coffee, a smug look on her face as she goes back behind the counter, and I realize why Elle is irritated. I glance at Ev as she sits back down. I’m about to ask if she even bothered offering Elle a drink when the door behind the desk opens and Larry peers out.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says, genuinely apologetic. “We’ve had a small school related emergency.”

“Jacob okay?” I ask.

He waves a hand. “You know what he’s like, Ben. He fell off the monkey bars and banged his head. I swear that kid has a head made of rocks. He’s all good. Come on through,” he steps out and looks over at Elle, who gets to her feet. “Ms. George,” he holds out a hand.

Elle comes forward and reaches for his hand, giving it a delicate shake. She studiously avoids making any more eye contact with me. I sip my coffee in her line of sight. It’s petty as shit, but I decide to take it a step further and walk into the room before her. Larry gives me a look, but I ignore it.

There is another man and woman already in the room. One is the admin person, I guess. She has a laptop in front of her and a glass of water. The other guy is Larry’s partner in the firm, Stephen. I greet them both and take a seat close to the window, facing the door. Elle sweeps her hair behind her ear and sits on the other side of the table. Not opposite me, though. Larry closes the door and joins us at the table.

“Susan will be here soon, no doubt. Would you care for a drink, Ms. George? They did not offer you one?” he eyes my coffee.

“Water is fine, and please, call me Elle,” she gives him a small smile.

Larry smiles back. He sorts out all the drinks and returns to his seat. Susan arrives then. She’s as disheveled as ever in mismatching clothes and an old navy pea coat. She grins widely though and apologizes for being late. Elle looks at her curiously. Of course she won’t know Susan. Why would she? She never spoke to her dad.

“Okay, shall we get things started? Firstly, I’m sorry for your loss, Elle. Acer was very highly thought of in the community.”

“Thank you.”

I can’t help the scoff and her head shoots in my direction, her eyes narrowing. I just stare back, my face clearly saying I know she didn’t care one bit about her father. Larry gets the rest of the formalities out of the way and confirms Angela is taking notes,then Stephen gets down to the matter at hand. He takes out some paperwork and hands us all copies. I don’t look at it, instead I watch her as her head dips, some hair falling across her face.

She turns a few pages as Stephen goes on discussing the funeral arrangements, what is going to happen with Acer’s house and the belongings inside. The house is obviously Elle’s. When Larry enquires if she would like to keep it, she shakes her head. He tells her they will arrange for the sale as specified by Acer. She nods but doesn’t speak.

I get it. There are a lot of bad memories in that house. I never understood why Acer stayed. He’d lost everything from that house. Darren’s suicide affected the whole town. He was the star football player, tipped to be heading for the NFL. Everyone loved him. He had the brightest future ahead of him.

It shocked everyone when he killed himself. No one more than Elle. She idolized her brother, and it devastated her when he died. I’d watched as the family fell apart, as her parents slowly forgot about her, and how much it hurt her.

Shit, I need to stop being such an ass.

“There is a sizeable sum of money that Acer has left to you also,” he tells her. “He requested that at least a third of it be donated to a couple of different charities he supported, but the rest is yours.”

“I don’t need the money, you can donate it,” she says.

I shake my head at that. Must be nice not to need money. Her eyes flick to me and again they hold. She desperately wants to know why I’m here.

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