It wasn’t until Jeff said those horrible words to Chelsea that Eli had seen the truth. Yes, he’d blamed her for so much bad in his life. When some girl left him—usually in a rage—Eli had thought of Chelsea and how this wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t
for her.
But hearing that from Jeff made Eli see himself in a way he didn’t want to. The truth was that Eli had never really liked any of the young women he’d dated. They were too dull-brained, too uninteresting, too easy to obtain. Something.
In other words, they weren’t Chelsea.
In those moments when he heard himself through Jeff, Eli changed. First there’d been a burst of anger at himself—and he’d taken it out on Jeff. Eli had wanted to hit himself, but it was Jeff on the floor with what was the beginning of a black eye.
For a while Eli had been too horrified at his own actions to be able to think clearly, but as he began to calm down, he looked at Chelsea. But he wasn’t looking at her with the eyes of a wounded boy, but as a man. His mind wasn’t full of what-you-did-to-me, but of concern.
He looked at her as does that very underrated creature, a true, deep, and loyal friend.
What he saw was a woman whose eyes darted around nervously. She seemed to be searching for something, but wasn’t seeing it.
She was too thin and her words about her beauty being her only asset haunted him. There were delicate, faint lines at her eyes, and he wondered how her polo-playing, race-car-driving boyfriends were reacting to those lines. He seemed to remember photos of those men with girls in their early twenties. At thirty-two, Chelsea just might be considered too old for them.
When they went back to the booth, he watched her throw back another straight shot of tequila in a way that showed she’d done it many times before.
His life had been missing her. But what was missing in Chelsea’s life?
She put her empty shot glass down and looked at the dancers on the floor. Her eyes stopped at a man who was moving about with a pretty blonde clinging to him. He was holding her, but he was looking at Chelsea.
“Am I going to have to fight him too?” Eli said.
Chelsea turned back to him. “Not on my part. I never like men who are too easy to get, and he’s a one.”
At Chelsea’s glance, the man moved him and his date closer to their booth.
Eli stood up, putting himself between the man and the table. Eli was taller, younger, and had more muscle than the man. With a derisive little guffaw, he moved away.
Eli sat down beside Chelsea on her side of the booth and reached across for his beer. “What’s this ‘one’ mean?”
“It’s a girl thing. Would you really have hit him for me?”
“Would you like it if I had?”
Chelsea groaned. “You sound like my therapist. But to answer your question, a one is from the Challenge Test. A girlfriend and I made it up. We judge men as one to three.”
“On their looks?”
“Heavens, no! That’s old-school. It’s how hard they are to get. How much you have to work to get a man to notice you—without letting him know you’re interested, that is.”
“And that guy is a one?”
“More like a point one.” As she picked up Eli’s beer bottle and drank from it, she smiled at the guy who was dancing.
“So you’re just playing with him now?”
“Yes. And I can see that you don’t approve.”
“Seems like a waste. But the concept is interesting.” Eli took his beer back and drank deeply of it. “Any threes in this room?”
She didn’t take her eyes off his. “The man at the bar.”
Eli was a bit shocked but also impressed that she’d been observing the people so closely. Turning, he saw that every stool at the bar was full.
“The one on the far left,” she said. “The big guy with the smoldering good looks. He’s a three. Top-of-the-line. He’s well built, has a good face, no wedding ring, and he’s minding his own business. Since we’ve been here, two pretty women have tried with him but he’s not interested.”