by Lisa Henry
***
It was late when they pulled up on Pier Lane, at one of the picnic areas that dotted the lakeside. The night was bright and cold. The moonlight danced on the surface of the lake. The air smelled of pine.
Elliott stepped over the low barrier that separated the parking lot from the grass, and Ned followed him. They walked shoulder to shoulder down toward the lakeshore. Tiny waves lapped at the edge of the lake.
They sat on a picnic table that overlooked the water, their feet on the bench seat.
“It’s beautiful here,” Ned said at last. “So quiet.”
Across the lake, the lights from the big houses glittered.
“Not beautiful enough for one of your hotels though, huh?” Elliott teased.
“The numbers didn’t work out.” Ned shrugged. “It’s nice, but it’s not Lake Tahoe, you know?”
“I guess.” Elliott reached out and curled his fingers through Ned’s. “There’s a lot we need to figure out.”
If Francesca had been pissed about Lucien, she was going to be apoplectic about Elliott. Poor John would probably bear the brunt of that for having the temerity to be related to Elliott in the first place, and compounding that sin by never having successfully severed Abby and her children from his life. She probably figured she’d finally gotten rid of them, only to have Elliott pop up again attached like a tick to Ned.
So that was something to look forward to.
There was distance too. Ned lived and worked out of New York, and Elliott lived in Barton Lake. That seemed like an added stressor to a thing that was still too new and fragile to bend under pressure instead of breaking.
There was money, too. When the hell was money not an issue? Ned had money. Capital-M Money. And Elliott had seventeen dollars in his wallet. That seemed like it would be complicated.
“There’s a lot that could go wrong,” Elliott said.
Ned squeezed his hand. “I think there’s a lot that could go right, though.”
“Yeah,” Elliott said softly, warmth filling him.
And that was love, wasn’t it?
Maybe it wasn’t chemistry, or fate, or the adventure of a lifetime. Maybe love was, at its simplest, optimism. Maybe love was choosing to believe that it would all work out in the end.
Elliott looked across the lake at the big houses.
Once, over twenty years ago, a college student had knocked on a door somewhere over there and announced she was there for the nanny job. And two lives had collided over that summer. They took a chance. They made a choice. They weren’t blameless. They were selfish, maybe. Their love came at a cost to the people around them. It hadn’t been free of consequences.
But they’d danced together, right up until the end.
And if that was selfish, then maybe Elliott was selfish too. He wanted that. He wanted love. He wanted to hold on to it and never let it go.
That was his father’s legacy, maybe. Not the art, not his background or the Family infighting, but his love for Abby. He’d shown Elliott what love could cost. He’d shown him that it was a choice he was allowed to make.
And here, under the moonlight, Elliott made that choice.
“What’s your favorite song?” he asked Ned, raising their clasped hands to his mouth so he could press his lips to their fingers.
“What?” Ned smiled. “I don’t know. Is it important?”
“Mmm.” Elliott leaned forward. He closed his eyes as they kissed. “If we don’t have a favorite song, what are we going to dance to late at night?”
Ned laughed. His breath was warm against Elliott’s face. “I guess we’d better think of one.”
“Yeah,” Elliott said, his chest tight with happiness. “I guess we should.”
Everything else could wait until tomorrow.
Two Man Station
Adulting 101
Sweetwater
He Is Worthy
The Island
Tribute
One Perfect Night
Fallout, with M. Caspian
Fall on Your Knees (part of the Rated: XXXmas anthology)
Dark Space (Dark Space #1)
Darker Space (Dark Space #2)
Playing the Fool series, with J.A. Rock
The Two Gentlemen of Altona
The Merchant of Death
Tempest
With Heidi Belleau
Tin Man
Bliss
King of Dublin
The Harder They Fall
With J.A. Rock
When All the World Sleeps
Another Man’s Treasure
Mark Cooper versus America (Prescott College #1)
Brandon Mills versus the V-Card (Prescott College #2)
The Good Boy (The Boy #1)
The Naughty Boy (The Boy #1.5)
The Boy Who Belonged (The Boy #2)
Writing as Cari Waites
Stealing Innocents
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied history and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with too many cats, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
You can email her at [email protected]
Or check out her website at lisahenryonline.com
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