Page 14 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)

Elias tilts his head in agreement, not bothering to argue.

Which is somewhat surprising. Most men would try to defend their actions.

Justify them in some way. He doesn’t do that.

He doesn’t deny the way he acted even though we haven’t really discussed it.

Ever. Elias accepts it. I don’t even know if he tried to contact me after the one phone call he made that night after the date.

Too much had happened in one day, by the end of that night, he was the furthest thing from my mind.

Plus, I blocked his number, so even if he did want to contact me, there was no chance he could.

“So, what’s in the bag? The tools you use to sharpen your vampire fangs?

” he asks, clearly deflecting. Which is perfectly fine, because I’m not sure I’m ready or even want to talk about what happened between us all those years ago.

I just want to get through this project and move on and, well, I don’t know what comes after.

“Well, I’ve been up most of the night brainstorming and—”

“Right, the insomnia.”

I hate that he remembers anything about me. “I stopped by the hardware store and grabbed paint samples.”

“We aren’t really at the painting stage yet.”

I level him with a glare. “You think I don’t know that?

I grabbed them to look at color schemes because the color scheme is going to have an impact on everything.

The walls, the furniture, the style we decide to go with.

If we start with a blank slate and start choosing things, they might not come in the color we want.

And if we run into that later into the project that makes everything else that much harder. ”

While the interior design aspect of my life is fairly new, I’ve researched and studied it a lot.

And I’ve played enough Sims in my teenage years that it could practically qualify me alone to get the job done.

In actuality though, I’ve been in classes over the last year since I moved to Blue Grove.

I decided that if I wanted to throw myself into this, I may as well go head first into the deep end.

“I’d think starting with the actual building would make more sense. You can’t have colors when we don’t even have a layout.”

“Wasn’t that what you and Jacob were going over the other day?” Jacob had shown me some of their plans for the expansion. Little did I know he had a reason behind why he was showing me.

“It was.”

“Did anything change in those plans?”

His cheek sinks in like he’s biting it in frustration. A small smile tugs at the edge of my lips at the realization that I’m getting under his skin already.

“No,” he mumbles.

“Then what I have is fine, because I just so happened to take a picture of the blueprints so I could make sure I planned accordingly.”

I start unpacking my bags, quickly filling his countertop with the color schemes I put together along with a few wallpaper samples in case we wanted to go that route, and finally my ancient laptop that’s about one inch thick. Right on cue, Elias starts laughing.

“What is that?” he asks in between breaths.

“My computer.”

Moving closer, he starts inspecting it like he’s never seen a PC before.

I’ll admit it’s an older computer, but when Dad passed away, I had to take over Mom’s medical bills and without much experience, high paying jobs weren’t exactly an option.

So, I’ve been stuck with this dinosaur for way too many years.

I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t died on me yet and I make sure to back up everything on my external hard drive after each use just in case it decides it’s done all of a sudden.

“That thing belongs in a museum.” He disappears into the maze of boxes that fills the living room in search of something. A groan fills the air after he stubs his toe on one of them and from the amount of pain laced in that groan, it was packed with something heavy. Good.

“You deserved that.” I don’t bother looking up from my dinosaur and start the process of turning it on.

I have to make sure it has plenty of room to breathe so the computer doesn’t overheat, which it does frequently if I use it for longer than an hour.

Which I do. I had to buy a specific computer tray for it to sit on with fans that plug into the USB port and run synchronized with the computer.

But that uses more battery power, so I have to make sure it’s also plugged in the whole time I’m using it.

Once I’m set up and my ancient artifact is turned on, Elias has finally emerged from his adventure among the boxes.

And he’s carrying one of the most expensive laptops I’ve ever seen.

It’s one that’s in the aisle at the tech store that I don’t even bother going down because I know I can’t afford them.

It’s thin and sleek. It’s also gray and boring.

Mine is pink, the back decorated with stickers I’ve collected over the years. Mine at least has personality.

He sets his on the counter and simply opens it, unlocking it with his fingerprint. It’s quiet and turns on quickly. Then again, if it did make noise, I don’t think I’d even be able to hear it over the sound mine is making. Suddenly, it feels a lot louder than it usually does.

I allow myself to look at his MacBook with longing for a brief moment and wonder what all it could do and what programs I could use it to enhance the interior designs even more. Or maybe an iPad. That would be nice too. I could freehand a lot on there and draw it all out.

Elias catches me staring and heat rises to my cheeks in embarrassment.

The fan from my computer tray echoes through the space and I try to focus on anything other than how loud it is.

Usually, the sound of it brings me comfort.

I like the white noise, but right now it just reminds me of everything that I haven’t been able to do in my life.

“I have a copy of the blueprints here.” For once, Elias didn’t take the opportunity to rag on me even a little bit. Perhaps he realized the vulnerability I let slip.

“Jacob sent them to me too. They’re loading. Did you both collaborate with them or did you design it completely?”

When Jacob first showed me the blueprints I was surprised by how spacious it all looked.

I expected him to have space to work with, but the way Elias designed everything, it utilizes every single inch of it.

The ceilings are higher than his space now and the concept of it is pretty open besides an indoor gated space for the shelter dogs to run around in the back.

“He gave me his ideas and the things he absolutely wanted and didn’t plan on budging on and I just implemented them.”

“Mmm.”

“What, no comment about how I didn’t actually do anything? How I just went off of what Jacob told me to do?”

Without looking up, I decide to be civil. Only this once. “No, actually. I was thinking about how difficult a job like yours must be especially if someone makes changes and how if they do, it must change the whole design. I think what you did for Jacob is really impressive.”

“Did…did you just give me a compliment?”

“I believe I did.”

I pull out my phone and start typing.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Telling Sky we are getting along for at least two whole minutes.” He gives me a questioning look.

“She didn’t think we’d last for two seconds.”

“I assure you, I can last longer than that.”

Part of me wonders if he meant to say it or if it just snuck past the ever present filter of his.

He’s usually so careful and precise with his words.

And the other part of me, the more prominent part at the moment wants to watch him squirm.

He started this. Challenged me. And I’m not going to be the one to back down first. Even if I do hate him. Mostly.

“I assure you, with me, you couldn’t.”

“Are you propositioning me, Charlie?”

“I think you propositioned first, Eli.” Our eyes lock and to my surprise I can feel my body react.

The crush I harbored for so long throughout our high school years and the feelings that grew so strongly throughout our one summer together come raging back.

The feelings that made me dream about his sandy hair and dark eyes, stupidly thinking about our future together that became nonexistent.

The crush I had on him in high school would result in teenage doodles in my notebooks.

They would be covered by the end of classes with little E’s plus C’s.

I remember begging the universe for him to notice me and when he finally did, it was because he couldn’t just be at the top of the jocks, he had to take over the other side of the school too.

Elias wasn’t just athletic. He was smart too.

Really smart. So smart, he challenged me for everything I was the head of.

Debate team, chess club, student council, art club, it didn’t matter what it was.

Whatever club I was in, he was suddenly there too and it quickly became a game in each one.

Who could do it better. Who could win. We were never really friends, even though I secretly wished he wanted to be.

I never knew why he did all those things until our first date.

He said it was because he liked me and like the idiot I was, I believed him because of a stupid high school infatuation which turned into a brief summer romance.

That I am apparently not completely over.

Fuck.

He takes it one step further, literally, moving closer to me.

Our eyes lock and I can feel my breath quicken.

I’m not sure what he wants right now and there might be part of me that just wants to fall into old habits we spent a summer building.

It would be so easy. But I can’t let myself have that.

I built walls for a reason and they are not meant to be broken down so easily.

My eyes shift quickly along his features as he pauses for a second before taking a step back a look of hurt flashing across his face.

I don’t think I feel all that bad though. He did worse to me.