Page 18 of Standing Still

“I… yeah, I did,” she says quietly. She turns away from me, but not before I see something in her eyes she really wouldn’t want me to have picked up on.

I pull out my wallet and while Rachel is handing over her cone to Elle, I pay for them both. Elle sees and frowns at me, but I just wave a hand and take my cone. “Keep the change, Rach.”

“Thank you, sweetie. Now, I don’t know how long you’re here, but don’t you leave without coming in to say goodbye. And I may have you sign a couple of books, if you don’t mind,” she says with a cheeky grin.

“Absolutely,” Elle tells her. “And thank you,” she raises the cone.

We head back outside. “Wanna walk over the draw bridge? Or we can go down Gravel Street along by the water?”

“Gravel,” she says, licking her ice cream.

“Yeah,” I clear my throat. “Okay, good.”

Elle glances at me and I turn to make sure no cars are coming again because fuck if I want her to see the look on my face right now. We cross over and head down the side street that runs alongside the Mystic River. Seeing her licking that ice cream is doing things to me that I shouldn’t be letting it.

Stick to the plan. This isn’t the most picturesque of walks along the riverbank, but as the sun is setting, the air around us is still warm. We’re eating our favorite ice cream and, just for a little while, I can forget about all the shit going on.

“So, you took over running the business recently?” she asks, bringing me back to our problem.

“About three years ago. Acer was struggling with his health, he started staying back at the office more, then he felt like he was getting in the way because he couldn’t go out on the boats.”

“That was when he… got sick?”

“None of us knew it was as serious as it was. He didn’t tell us a lot of what was going on and he didn’t go to the doctor. I was happy to help, and he’d already been teaching me a lot about running the place, not just being his manager.”

“Is Charlie still there?” she asks as we pass the First Church of Christ.

“Yeah, he’ll probably die in a fishing boat.”

She laughs a little. “He never wanted to take over?”

“Charlie?” I laugh. “God no. Not just because he wouldn’t have the first clue how to run the place, Acer never would have let him.”

“They always were like an old married couple,” she says, using the napkin Rachel gave her to wipe some melted ice cream from her hand.

“I’d say it was more like heavyweight competitors,” I say dryly, drawing a short laugh from her.

We come to a patch of grassy land, which leads to a wooden dock. It’s where the residents on the street moor their boats. Nothing fancy, mostly just small row boats. We head towards the dock because there really isn’t much else up here besides people’s houses. She leans against the wooden rail and looks across the river.

“It was colon cancer?”

I nod, finishing off the last of my cone and wiping my mouth. I pocket my napkin. “It had spread by the time he got diagnosed. He didn’t want the treatment.”

“Why?” she asks, her eyes holding an edge of disbelief.

“Because it wouldn’t have helped, and he only would have felt sicker. He didn’t want to spend the last of the time he had unable to get out of bed.”

Elle looks back out over the water, her ice cream forgotten. It has begun to melt over her hand. I reach out and take it from her. She looks at me but doesn’t do anything to take it back. I put it down on the ground. It’ll melt, and birds will come for the cone.

“You okay?” I ask her softly.

She huffs out a laugh. “Not even a little.”

Despite everything, I can’t help but want to comfort her. When a couple of tears slip down her cheeks, I say fuck it and put an arm around her shoulders. She’s stiff at first, but whatever power she’s been using to hold herself together for the last few hours finally gives up. She turns into me, and I wrap my arms around her, shushing her and gently rubbing her back as she cries.

Fuck, this isn’t how I saw this night going, and having her in my arms like this brings back a swirl of memories and emotions I never thought I’d experience again. I’d thought she’d be aloof, distant, and completely uncaring. But whether Elle wants to admit it or not, being back here is affecting her.

This is the perfect opportunity to get under her skin. And I feel like an absolute bastard for thinking that, but I need to get her to agree to Acer’s terms, no matter what.

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