"So," she starts pointedly and turns her head. Wisps of hair are playing around her face, softly lit by the setting sun. "Why is he here?"
I keep staring at the coastline, thinking of ways to explain this to her. I could go for humour and mention the fact that Venice is rapidly becoming too small for both him and Viggo. Or I play the dramatic yes, I'm an actor-card and tell her about the fact his mother begged me to take him in for a few days.
Or I tell her the truth. The simple truth of me phoning him, asking him to come and stay for a while, knowing better than anyone that he is exhausted and lonely to his core, and in need of someone other than Viggo or his Mum to make it all bearable. I know how he feels right now. I know what he needs. I still know him better than most.
And yes - I am well aware this was supposed to be a week of quality time for the two of us, but sometimes other people just come first and Elijah is most definitely one of them.
I decide honesty is probably the best policy.
"I asked him to come."
"You- what?"
"You heard me."
She slowly turns her head back and stares at the coastline as well. The sun has almost set and the ocean is a mixture of dark water and fiery colours at its non-existent end. There is a soft, slightly humid breeze touching our faces, and as I watch Elijah crouching down to sit on the sun-warmed sand, I wonder how long it has been since I experienced such perfection.
"This was supposed to be our week," Evi says, and her voice is calm. Too calm. "We start filming in six days and you promised me we were going to make the most of these last quiet days together. I can't believe you're doing this to me. To us."
"You make it sound like our relationship won't survive without this week alone," I mutter and refuse to turn my head to look at her. "Why are you being so overly dramatic about this?"
"I was looking forward to these days. I don't want to see them interrupted. By anyone. Not by one of our friends here on the island; not by my mom - or yours for that matter. But certainly not by him."
I can't help it, I turn my head around so fast my neck hurts.
"Now what's that supposed to mean?" I bite back, and maybe I'm too loud, too sudden, too cold.
She looks back at me, and it is because I read her better than she sometimes cares to admit, that I know her look of defiance is nothing but a masquerade. A pretence. Fake. I return the stare and resist the strange urge to smile. I hate fighting with her, but this is something I can't, no - something I won't take lying down.
So I don't do what I normally do. I don't smile to make us both see the folly of our ways. I'm going to see this one through, because this one is touching on something too close to home.
"Again," I repeat, and my voice sounds hostile. I break the stare because of it, returning my gaze to Elijah's back, watching small puffs of smoke circle away from his head, his free hand slowly dragging through the sand; lifting it, letting it slide through his small, clever fingers. The sight makes me shiver.
"Again... What was that supposed to mean?"
She turns around in silence and starts walking back to the house.
I wrap my arms around myself. It isn't cold, but I'm shivering nonetheless.
Elijah is still sitting in the exact same spot; his back slightly hunched, his elbow resting on his knee. I know Evi is standing at the top of the little steps to the patio, looking at me, waiting for me to turn around and follow her inside, but I ignore her eyes boring into my back and I walk towards the shoreline.
When Evi slams the door, Elijah's head moves up and he startles a little when he looks behind him and finds me standing barely three steps away from him.
He turns back again and pushes the fingers of one hand back into the warm sand. I take the last two steps needed for my ankle to touch his knee, then I lower myself and squat next to him. Elijah fumbles two new cigarettes out of the pack, lights them and hands one to me.
"She mad?" he asks, tossing the pack and lighter to his left, dragging on the clove, blowing smoke through clenched teeth.
"Yeah." I mutter. "Forget it."
"Can�t."
"Sure you can. She'll come round."
"She doesn't want me here. I'll catch a flight back tomorrow."
"Don't talk out of your arse, Elwood. I asked you to come, I want you here."
"She doesn't," Elijah sighs, and releases another cloud of smoke into the cooling night air. "She wants to be with you, alone. I don't want to be in the middle of that; don't want to be the cause of you two-"
"Stop being so damn chivalrous all the time, Elwood," I cut back. "Think of yourself once in a fucking lifetime, okay?"
He giggles, barely audible. It's the one thing we've been bickering about since forever. If there's one thing Elijah needs to learn, it's how to be selfish every once in a while. There's this unbelievable, never-ending, slightly nauseating tendency in the guy to always put other people before himself. I touch his knee, feel his warmth through the denim of his jeans, and squeeze softly.
"I want you here, Lijah," I repeat and he stares at me, crushing the barely finished clove in the sand. "You have done nothing but work for the past three months, doing those same bloody interviews over and over again, flying around the fucking globe on a daily basis, and smiling that godforsaken smile everywhere. I don't know when you last checked a mirror, brother, but quite frankly, you look like shite."
"Thanks," he mutters, looking down, trying to fumble a third clove from the pack, but I close my hand around his and still the movement. He looks up at me again, eyes huge and dark, deep circles marking his beautiful face.
"Hush," I say and lift his hand to my lips to kiss his fingers. "Stop that. You don't need those."
"Yes I do," he answers with unexpected petulance. "And you should go inside and patch things up, okay? I don't want you guys to fight over me."
"That's actually a pretty flattering thought, isn't it?" I grin and hang on to his hand when he tries to pull it back.
"Fuck you," he mutters but rests his body against my flank.
"I might," I grin, softer this time. He's too tired to respond to that and I instantly know I did the right thing in having him fly out here. He squirms against me for a few seconds, then repositions and rests his head against my shoulder. Suddenly, his eyes are closed and I find myself brushing tiny strands of hair away from his forehead.
His hair is thick and almost black, and I carefully run my nails through the soft-scratchy hair of his sideburns. I can see goose bumps rise on his bare arms, and I wonder if he's cold. His body is hot against mine, though, and I slide my finger along the sharp edge of his jaw and chin.
I turn slightly to look over my shoulder and notice that the lights in the house are all turned off except for the one in the living room, the tiny one, by the window, and the porch light, attracting fluttering moths. The doors to the garden are still open, though, and I wonder where in the house she is. I turn back and continue watching the ink black ocean, listening to the waves lapping at the shore, and I ask myself if this is something we'll work out. Evi is very special to me in many senses of the word, and she lives in this house exactly because of that, but for some reason she has always been almost hostile when it comes to Elijah.
Which is strange, really, because she adores Billy, and, for that matter, anyone else in my life who is only slightly connected to Rings, but merely mentioning Elijah's name has always invoked feelings of mistrust in this woman and I wonder what that says of her, because I never thought it possible for Lij to wake such emotions in anyone. Ever.
"She's scared," I mutter suddenly, and Elijah slowly turns his head on my shoulder, opening his eyes. I didn't really want to say it out loud but it's such a revelation that I wonder why I didn't see it before.
"Is she watching us?" Lij's voice is distant.
"Probably," I answer, and I hate my answer.
"Go inside, Dom," he says again, still detached, almost cold. "Find her and make it up to her and tell her I'll be gone in a day. I'll book a flight back tomorrow..."
"Elijah," I start, and it's not often that I use his full name. "Will you fucking stop about that? You really need some rest, and some surfing and some Monaghan piss-taking, so of course you'll stay and I really don't want to hear another word about it."
"Sblom," Elijah sighs, and lifts his head from my shoulder. He doesn't call me that often anymore either. I stare at him. "I don't want to be used in your power games with Evi. I'll get that rest in my own home and there happens to be a pretty big ocean nearby, so I'll manage just fine."
Why is it he always has the best comeback in the end? People always think that's me, that I am the one with the perfect, snappy answers; but when it comes to shit like this, Elijah has more fucking sense than I do and suddenly I don't know what to say.
"They're not power games, Lij."
So now I find myself lying to him, and it's all because I...
And then I find myself lying again, to myself this time, because the reason for the first lie is so powerful and painful and revealing that it takes my breath away. I drop my eyes.
I remember telling Evi the truth about Elijah's arrival earlier this evening, when the sun was still clinging to the last vestiges of the day; and I can't believe I am telling her the truth and lie to him.
"Yes, they are," Elijah says and grabs his cigarettes again. He lights one for himself and places his head back on my shoulder while taking drag after drag, blowing smoke away from us. "They are."
"So you won't stay?" I ask after a while and I wince when I hear the pathetic need in my voice. I wrap my arm around his shoulder, rubbing his arm slowly, feeling strong muscle underneath his skin. He's so thin these days; I suddenly wonder about when and what he eats.
I know the junkets didn't help that. If I try I can still feel the way his ribs protruded under my hands after the press rounds for Return of the King, or how his shoulder blades felt like they could easily cut through his skin, those first days after his release from hospital.
And loneliness is his worst enemy, it always has been. I know how quickly Elijah gets used to having people around in his life. I know how hard it was for him not to have his Mum on the other side of the lawn the first few months after he had finally moved out; how much he always wanted me around in and after New Zealand.
And I have seen the pictures - I have heard him rave about her on the phone with me. They're joined at the hip most of the time; they do everything together. He is totally mad about her - crazy in love. Whenever I used to call the past few weeks, he was either caught up in interviews for Lexi or Liev, or he actually picked up but sounded disgruntled, hurried, out of breath most of all. That happened twice. I got his voicemail after that.
She's gone now. On tour. And he's miserable. Here on my beach. And I'm suddenly afraid I didn't necessarily make things better.
"I'd only feel guilty, Dom," Elijah answers, breaking my train of thought, and he looks up at me, lifting his head once more. "She doesn't want me here, she never wanted me here." He swallows and sucks on his clove.
"You're right," he mutters then, mostly to himself - an afterthought in the ocean breeze. "She's scared."
He sits up and scoots away from me. It's just a few inches; enough to watch a slit of sand come into existence between his and my thighs. Enough for me to feel inexplicably cold all of a sudden, while it's never truly cold on this island. Not even at night, when the sun is playing in another part of the world.
"And she should be," Elijah mutters - another afterthought. He bends back towards me, pushes the finished clove in the sand and flips it over to where the others lie abandoned.
His hand grabs the hair at the back of my head and suddenly all the sand and cold and distance disappear as he pushes his lips against mine. I open my mouth, wanting him inside of me, and he accepts, his tongue sliding against mine, slick sounds vaguely registering in my head. He slants his mouth, sucks at my bottom lip and bites, still keeping my head in place with the surprisingly fierce grip he has on my neck.
I move around and try to wrap my arms around his body again, deftly sliding my hands under his t-shirt with shocking familiarity, moaning pathetically into his half open mouth as I marvel once more at the heat emanating from his skin.
He grunts something unintelligible when I push him down on the sand, vaguely wondering what happened tonight, or last week, or the past few months for me to react like this. As I wonder about the fact that Elijah initiates this, lets me straddle him, lets me ravage his mouth.
Again he mutters something under his breath, something angry, something wild. And he bites me again, his tongue a broad swipe against my teeth, my lips, the corner of my mouth. He bucks up against me, and I know this still lights the old fires in him. I lower my body and the friction is there again.
The old drug; the old times. The wonder years.
And then he's gone.
And we're breathing hard. And looking at each other.
Staring.
His lips are swollen and glimmering in the faint light that comes from the porch light behind us.
"Fuck," he stammers and gets up, almost tripping over his own feet, like only Elijah can.
"Lij," I try to salvage.
"Fuck," he mutters again, grabbing his smokes and lighter from the beach together with a handful of sand that disappears between his clenching fingers. He turns and looks at me. Stares at the porch light, then looks at me again. His eyes are huge. Shimmering. Huge.
"Fuck," he chokes out a third time. "I-I'm sorry. Dom..." he steps away from me, eyes still burning like they used to with the old pit-of-fire-blue. "I'm so sorry, Dom," he stammers again. "This... this shouldn't have..."
I finally wake up and get to my feet.
"Lijah," I try again, but he turns around one final time and runs for the house.
* * *
I put the phone down the minute Evi enters the living room.
"Who was that?" she asks and looks at me, yesterday's cold gone from her eyes.
"Called a cab," I mutter and turn away from her to stare out the window at the sunlight bouncing off the ocean.
"Why?" she asks again as I pick up the little note from the backrest of the couch, together with one cigarette and a box of matches.
She follows me outside, but stops at the end of the patio, watching me walk all the way to the water line where I sit down. Hesitantly, she comes closer, wondering if I am ready for the talk we probably need.
I light up.
The clove burns strangely hot within me, and as I exhale I think about the smoke mingling with the breeze that felt so cool on my face last night.
"Dom," she says, and her voice is unsteady.
I don't look at her; I just wait.
When the taxi pulls up, honks once, briefly, I take the clove from my lips and turn around.
"That's yours," I say and turn back, closing my eyes.
Somehow I manage to miss her words of protest, her pleading and her curses, her slamming the door a second time, the taxi driving off. I manage to switch off and smoke my clove. His clove.
His matches.
His note.
Not this time, Sblom.
Maybe one day, you know...
Close your eyes when it burns. It's so much better.
I love you.
Fin
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