Page 73 of Make Me Love You

Chapter Twenty

Everything was fine.

It was Wednesday, which meant Eli had his usual patrol of 19E, followed by a long, slow drive from one end of Hart’s Ridge to the other. It didn’t matter that this particular Wednesday was the day after the election, and it definitely didn’t matter that Emma had left him for the last time yesterday. There was work to be done, and so he did it.

Because everything was fine.

Usually when that work was done, he stopped by Goat’s Tavern to hang out with Luke for a couple hours, but tonight he headed straight home. Luke had a way of pulling information out of a person, whether that person wanted to share the information or not, and Eli wasn’t in the mood for that. Not that there was anything to share, anyway.

Because everything was fine.

He set the oven to preheat, grabbed a frozen pizza from his freezer, and put it on the counter. But frozen pizza wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted pasta that was too chewy in some places, and too hard in others. He wanted cheese that was burned around the edges. The pizza went back in the freezer, and out came the lasagna.

Frozen lasagna wasn’t much better than frozen pizza. But it had been his favorite of all the frozen dinners growing up. It was more expensive than pizza or potpie, so it was a rare treat. It also took twice as long to cook as a frozen pizza, which meant something in and of itself to young Eli. If he smelled lasagna when he walked in the door, he knew his dad was sober. And if his dad was sober, then everything was fine.

Right now, Eli really needed everything to be fine. He just had to redefine the word, that was all. Fine now meant every layer of his skin had been scraped off. Because that was how he felt. Raw and bloody and...and exposed.

That was fine.

The lasagna went in the oven. Eli cracked open a soda and flopped into his recliner to wait. An hour later, he pulled it from the oven, piping hot and oozing nostalgic goodness, just as the doorbell rang. His heart gave a pitiful throb of hope.

It wasn’t her, he told himself as he crossed the kitchen into the living room. People who left didn’t come back. He knew that. Clearly the message hadn’t gotten to his heart though, because when he opened the door and saw who was on the other side, it felt like it had cracked in two.

It wasn’t her.

“Hey, man. Do I smell lasagna?” Luke pushed past him through the door. “I could eat.”

Eli followed him into the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking on you. Where are your forks?”

Eli sighed. He produced two forks from a drawer and handed one to Luke. “I’m fine.” He gestured to the lasagna on the counter between them. “Help yourself.”

Luke sectioned off a good-sized chunk with his fork and shoveled it into his mouth. He gave Eli a once-over while he chewed, then swallowed and shook his head. “You’re not fine. If you were fine, you would have stopped by the bar after work. Or you would be with Emma.”

Eli winced because the hot cheese burned the roof of his mouth. Not because it hurt to hear her name. “I didn’t feel like going out tonight. This might come as a shock to you, but some of us aren’t scared to spend even a single second alone. Some of us even like it.”

“We’re not talking about my issues tonight. We’re talking about yours.”

“I don’t have issues.”

Luke snorted. “Oh, you most definitely have issues. If you didn’t, you would be sharing this lasagna with Emma right now, not me, and you probably wouldn’t look like I punched you in the gut every time I say her name.”

“You can say any name you want. I don’t care,” Eli lied.

“Really?” Luke wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Emma, Emma, Emma,” he said in a singsong voice.

Each time hit Eli in the chest, not in the gut, which proved Luke was wrong.

“You’re an asshole,” he muttered.

---