That Thing Between Eli & Gwen

“You almost called me Gwen,” I managed to say.

He kissed my back. “You are my Guinevere; Gwen is for everyone else.”

I could live with that.

He moved from behind me, and I realized it had only been only him holding me up. My legs gave out.

“Guinevere!” he called, turning off the shower.

I laughed, trying to cover my mouth. “You really did fuck me 'til my knees went weak. You're amazing.”

He snickered, reaching out of the shower enclosure to grab two towels, one for my hair and the other to wrap around my body when I stood again. Only when I was taken care of did he grab one for himself, tying it around his waist.

“I was watching that,” I said.

He laughed. “Careful, Ms. Poe, or we will never leave this bathroom.” He gave me his hand, helping me out of the shower and back toward his bedroom.

“Are my clothes still in the living room?”

“Over there.” He pointed to the dresser by his cl

oset. He had folded everything nicely. “But your shirt is damaged beyond repair. Have this.”

“Thank you.” I took his shirt. “I’ll head back and bring it with—”

“Don’t go yet,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s only 2 AM. Stay, sleep here for now. I can make breakfast when we wake up in the morning.”

For some reason, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t want to be that girl who never leaves, Eli—”

“I’m the one asking you to stay. Believe me, if I need space, I’ll let you know. But our relationship is more than sex. Or at least, that was my plan before last night,” he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Remember what I told you about Hannah and Sebastian?”

“We said a lot about them. You’re going to have to refresh my memory.” I took off the towel and put on his shirt.

Coming over to me, he helped brush back a few strands of my hair, which were starting to curl from the water. “I said that any two people with working organs can have a great screw, but that a relationship based only on sex won’t last. I was right. They didn’t. I don’t want to be like them.”

“I was going to tell you this during dinner, before everything happened last night.” I looked up at him. “You might not have noticed, but I’m a little weird. I have full conversations with my dog, and honestly sometimes I think he’s a secret mastermind. I make weird faces because I’m having a conversation in my head. I change into this super polite doll when I’m around adults, even though I am one. I’m still a little jaded from my ex and worry I’m going to ruin this because I suck at dating. Like you said, I snore…I still will never admit I drool though. There are times where I hate getting dressed up and just want to eat ice cream and watch Netflix until the sun comes up. Because I like you, I lie, and say crazy things like I run nine miles every morning, when in reality I think the fact that you do that every day is insane. Oh yeah, and I ramble…apparently.”

“So what you are saying is, you aren’t perfect and you're a handful?” he said slowly.

I nodded. “I will drive you crazy, which is why I wanted to warn you last night, before we went further.”

He laughed and kissed my forehead. “Maybe you forgot, but I knew all that from the beginning. It still didn’t stop me from liking you. Any other warnings you have for me?”

“In the morning, my hair will look like a French poodle. Don’t worry, I will fix it. It’s the price I pay for shower sex.”

He just shook his head. “Do you want anything to eat before we go to bed? I'll bring it.”

“Anything is fine,” I told him, falling onto his bed…I was so sleepy.

Eli

Safe to say she was by far the most unique girl I had ever been with in all my life. Her list of faults…I believed every one of them, and yet I didn’t seem to care. She made me happy. Next to her, because of her, I smiled and laughed more than I had in any other period of time. Even in the beginning, I got a kick out of her just getting worked up over my words. Now her rambling and mishaps just seemed to be part of her charm. Taking the tray, I headed back in to find her buried under my sheets, blissful, her eyes closed.

“That smells good,” she whispered, sitting up in the middle of the bed.