Swish

Endgame

~Eli~

"So this is your place? Or at least, while you're in New York?"

"Yeah, me and Matthew are roommates, but he kindly offered to stay in a hotel for tonight, so we could have some privacy."

"How...courteous of him."

V's words came out soft and nervous, and as she stood off to the side by the kitchen island as I deposited my suit jacket on the arm of the sofa and I took a moment to take her in.

She hadn't changed at all since I last laid eyes on her, except for the makeup and fancy clothing, she was still V...my V.

I didn't waste any time going to her and grabbing her hand, pulling her with me to the couch. I desperately wanted a shower, but that would happen with her, later, and we'd take turns washing each other off.

But first...I probably needed to explain myself.

"V...about why I was acting so-"

"Rude?"

I cringed at her supplemental word.

"Argumentative? I don't know. The reason I was like that was because I had no idea if you were only there out of pity for me or if it really was because you wanted to be with me. I went without you for nine months, total radio silence, and when you came out with new music and everything it felt like you were getting along so well without me. I thought that there was no way you'd still want to be with me after all that."

Her hand came down on mine, interlacing them together and the warmth from her skin warmed up the rest of me that still needed thawing from the frigid hospital.

"It wasn't easy, though. I might've shown it to the outside world, but I was suffering on the inside. Besides, it looked like you'd moved on with models and your career after a few months."

"I never went home with a single one, we were only photographed leaving clubs at certain times. I took up drinking, though, that's something I really need to kick...it was just easier to forget the world when I'm fucked up. I don't know, I just... at first I thought you weren't even real. Like you were some sick joke made up by the bump on the back of my head, but then everything you said, and touching you again, holding you in my arms, I knew this had to be real."

"Y-you wanted it to be real? I was so scared that-"

"That what? I wouldn't want you? I'd have to be insane not to. I was on my way to that game tonight to tell you exactly that."

"You were?"

"Of course. Got a little held up, though..."

We shared a shaky laugh, but then the tension erupted. It was like a match was struck, or we had been shuffling barefoot across a static filled carpet, and I couldn't keep my hands off her, trailing up her sides, her face, through her hair that she'd taken down on the car ride over.

The pain of not being able to see her again was so overwhelming that the moment I could see her again, touch her again...it was almost too much to handle.

She was soft and curvy in all the right places and her dark skin under mine looked so good to me, like we were two pieces of a puzzle finally coming together.

"I feel like I need to tell you again, because I didn't say it earlier," she started, but I knew right away where she was going with it.

"I love you, Eli. I'm so sorry for waiting so long to tell you that, and I'm sorry it took me running into your freaking friend at the airport to realize how much I missed you, how much I needed you in my life. I don't know where your head is at right now, but I'm all in."