https://youtu.be/VUz3UurahB4

Alex

So, I'm pretty sure Elias and I are going to be banned from using private town car services for the rest of our lives--and quite possibly using cars in general. I don't know what it is about us and backseats, but let's just say the extra twenty minutes of traffic we hit on Sunset Blvd. was kind of magical.

Mainly because Elias's mouth is magical and apparently while he's working, I'm not able to keep my mouth shut.

Did I expect him to spend the entire car ride underneath my dress? No. Did I expect the things he did to make me shout out his name to the point where the driver turned back and screamed at the two of us? Absolutely not.

But life is full of surprises. And ours came in the form of a red-faced, pissed off, driver man.

He pulled off the road about five minutes shy of us reaching UCLA and asked Elias to "step out of the car". Back East, when a person is asked to step out of the car, the result of that request usually ends in violence. But the most violent thing that's happening right now is the sound of my heart going haywire as I watch Elias go head-to-head with a man who looks about ready to blow a blood vessel or two.

Elias is standing outside of the car straighter than a soldier while Mr. Driver Man scolds him. And when I say scold, I really mean scream because I can hear the majority of their conversation loud and clear.

"I don't know how your parents are bringing you kids up these days, but screwing in the back of a private car is an absolute no go in my book! You want a driver who's okay with it? Hire the people who cart the Kardashian's around!"

Elias runs a hand through his thick mess of hair and shrugs like a ten-year-old boy.

"Dude, I know what it sounded like, but I promise I didn't do the deed in your backseat. Scouts honor. You can ask my girlfriend if you want. I was just--trying to keep her happy. You know how it is."

Elias turns back around and winks at me through the window. Thank God for tinted glass because if he had visible evidence that his otherworldly level of suave turned me to a stuttering, blushing, mess every time he busted it out, I'd be mortified.

And quite frankly, I already am. In all the romance novels, once a couple finally gets back together, they take their time to get physical. The sexual tension between normal lovers is less of an explosion and more of a slow burn. They're poised and patient, and when the moment finally happens, it's beautiful.

But the fact that I practically begged Elias to consummate our rekindled relationship in a bathroom stall is anything but.

Maybe some people aren't cut out for conventional romance.

Some of us are too weird, too horny, or too awkward to fall in love with class.

Elias and I don't fit inside the lines. Our history makes us, jagged, wild and unpredictable.

We're certifiably crazy.

I'm generally nuts.

Elias is a crazy writer.

But I guess that's what I fell in love with.

Earlier tonight, I honestly thought I could hold things together after his reading. I thought I could be that cool girl who could keep her head on her shoulders and her clothes on her body for longer than a few hours after reuniting with her author boyfriend.

But I'm not that girl.

Apparently, I'm the kind of person who finds poetry readings, street kisses, and restaurant make out sessions to be extremely erotic.

Is this a mildly horrifying new discovery about myself? Yes.

But maybe this is what happens when you spend too much time denying how much you miss someone.

And I've missed him.

More than I admitted to anybody.

More than I admitted to myself.

But that's the funny thing about the truth, it always finds a way to fight to the surface.

No matter how embarrassing.

No matter how ugly.

Everything always comes full circle regardless of whether you're ready for it, or not.

Mindy was one of those truths.

Non-existent Zen Alex would like to say that running into her was fine--that nothing about it was awkward, and the whole "let me tie a napkin delicately around your boyfriend's hand" situation--wasn't a big deal.

But straight-outta-New-Jersey-school-of-hard-truths Alex, thought everything about the way Mindy acted was weird.

Really weird.

I mean, I get it, her and Elias used to mess around or whatever. But as of three hours ago, all Elias-related bandaging, and coddling, and touching privileges belong to me.

Maybe that's possessive.

Maybe I need to get over the past.

I don't know.

Either way, something about Mindy showing up bothered me.

Not because of what she did per sé, but because of how Elias reacted.

He looked horrified the second she touched him, practically slapped her hand away, and then he kissed me.

He kissed me in a way that he never has before, and I still feel the shadow of it on my lips.

And I don't know what it was about it. He seemed lonely again. Desperate to be close me. Desperate to prove that his feelings were as deep as his words.

He kissed me in front of Mindy like I was the only person in the room. Like he needed it to breathe. Like his subtle wants turned into unspoken needs-- and it threw me.

I tried to understand him in that moment. I tried to work my way through why he'd gone from comfortable to chaotic in a matter of seconds.

But the only reason for the change I keep coming back to is her.

But I don't want to think about her.

Or worry about her.

Or silently compare myself to her anymore.

She's a ghost.

I'm his girlfriend.

Fact.

Elias pulls open the passenger side door and leans down towards me until we're eye-to-eye. He flashes a slightly exasperated smile and pulls me into a quick kiss before saying anything.

"Do you want the bad news or the good news first?" He says.

My stomach does a half somersault at the idea of anything else about tonight going wrong, but I bury my nerves and plaster on a brave face regardless.

"Bad please."

"We can't ride back together. He'll take you the rest of the way back to our dorm, but I have to walk."

"You what? What kind of crap is that? He can't throw you out. You didn't even do anything wrong!"

Blush lights up his cheeks, and his lips perk up at the corners.

"I had you screaming my name louder than the radio, Jersey. Apparently, he didn't enjoy my talents as much as you did."

I stop looking at his gorgeously troublesome face and decide to stare at my knuckles instead.

"Who cares?! Hasn't he heard of involuntary responses? Like honestly, why can't two people in love just--"

"What was that?" He asks.

"What was what?"

Elias wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me in close enough for our noses to touch.

"Did you just tell me you loved me?"

My cheeks heat up like a hot plate.

"I would never do such a thing, especially in a place like this where all things related to love and love making are against the rules. What kind of girl do you think I am?"

He kisses the smile off my lips and then lifts me out of the car and into his arms.

"You're mine."

And just like that, Elias opens his mouth and melts me into a bubbling puddle of sap. But you know what? Sappy Alex is a happy Alex. Screw Mindy. Screw last year. Screw every single thing that's gotten in between us. Maybe we don't have to be the people our pasts are trying to turn us into. Maybe we can choose not to be broken.

"I like the sound of that," I say, my lips just brushing against his.

"I like the sound of you, especially when I make you--"

"Come on, kid! I just talked to you about this! Kiss your girlfriend goodbye and meet up with her after I'm gone. That, or I'll leave you both stranded. Rules are rules."

Angry driver man appears out of the front seat and stares at the two of us like an rabid animal. He kind of looks like a middle-aged bulldog. A husky guy in his late forties with a few too many folds in his face. He hates us. I see it in the furrow between his eyebrows and the bulge of an unnaturally large vein over his left eye. Maybe he's divorced, or lonely, or bitter, like I used to be.

I get it. I hated couples too---until Elias and I became one. Ladies and gentlemen, infatuation is real. No joke. I wish I could say that I could turn off my hormones and take my hands off of Elias, but given the things we've done tonight, we might as well have been tar and feathered together. Gruesome reference? Totally. But accurate none-the-less.

Elias and I glance over at him and then back at each other, and stifle inappropriate laughs.

"Yeah, we heard your rules. But fuck em'," Elias says.

He lifts me out of the car and into his arms again. He pins me against the back of the car, brushes the hair out of my face, and looks up at me like he's staring at the whole universe.

"Alejandra Jersey Summers. What do you say we make love? Right here--

He pushes up against me, and it takes Thor-level strength to not gasp the way I want to.

"--right now."

I loop my hands around his neck, he leans in, and leaves a trail of kisses along the outside of my ear. I giggle like a maniac which totally catches him off guard. Elias stares at me sideways for a couple seconds and then shakes his head.

"I'll just take that weird baby bird gargling noise you just made as a 'yes'," he says.

He leans in to kiss me again and even though I'm too punch drunk to stop him, driver man has absolutely no qualms about stepping in where he isn't wanted.

"And that's it! Both of you are walking back! Don't bother trying to rehire this service again!"

He darts into the driver's seat, slams he door, and then honks his horn to scare us away from the car before swerving back on to Sunset Blvd. Elias places me back on my feet, and we flip him off in tandem like the petty people we are.

"Well, that solves that problem. One less douchebag trying separate us. A hundred to go," he says, a bit more morosely than I expect him to.

"What do you mean?"

He crouches down in front of me and points to his back.

"I'll tell you on the ride back to school. Hop on, Jerserella."

"That's a disgusting nickname."

"I like it. It's gritty. Raw. Perfect for our kind of royalty," he says.

I climb up on his back, and he lifts me into the air like I weigh significantly less than I do. He really has grown up. I loop my arms around his noticeably broader, more masculine shoulders, and rest my head in the cranny of his neck. He always smells like the ocean in San Diego. If he was less egotistical, I'd tell him how attractive it is, but he's a narcissist so I keep this my little secret.

"We are not royalty, Elias. We're ratchet. Royal people have class. We're like the slightly more normal version of the people who go on the Jerry Springer show. We're horny all the time, we hook up in bathrooms and backseats, and we can't even make it through a nice dinner without causing a scene."

He laughs to himself as he begins the ascent up Bellagio Dr., but the light in his voice disappears about as quickly as it came.

"That was my fault. I'm sorry how I acted earlier. I was having such a great time with you, but seeing Mindy kinda threw me."

"Yeah. Small world, huh?"

"Too small."

We walk a couple labored steps up the hill in silence before Elias decides to break it.

"I made a lot of mistakes with her last summer, Jersey. But I didn't know they were mistakes until I met you. I'm sorry."

He stops walking, and I slide off his back and turn him around to face me. His eyes are full of completely unexpected tears, and I reach up to wipe them away.

"Babe, I don't care about what happened between you and her back then. It doesn't matter anymore."

He inches closer, leans his forehead against my shoulder, and cries quietly to himself. By himself. But I wish he knew he didn't have to anymore. I've never asked anyone to depend on me before. I've always been the person needing other people. Needing help. But I want him to know that he has me. That he can hold onto me when he needs to. I want to get to be strong enough to be someone he can hold on to.

"It does matter. You don't know what I did. You don't know what she did to me, because I--"

"Elias, slow down. Everything's okay, just breathe."

"I can't."

I press my hand against his heart and feel it racing its way out of his chest a frantic beat at a time. He clutches my fingers tight enough for my skin to pale, and lets out a ragged breath that's riddled with tears.

"There's something I need to tell you. I've wanted to tell you for a while, but I couldn't. And I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry because you deserve to know everything. But I'm so fucking scared that once I say it that you'll leave. You'll disappear and I-- "

His voice hitches in his throat as sobs rack his body. I pull him to me, and the second we connect, he completely falls apart. There's a different kind of pain in the way he cries. One that overwhelms and consumes him to the point where I see glimmers of the boy he used to be. All that sadness trapped under layers of hollow smiles and resistance comes spilling out of his mouth and into the cool night air. I've seen Elias cry before. But never like this. I don't to want to ever again.

"--I'm not ready to lose you."

I take his face in my hands as gently as I can and brush away the weight of his secrets with my fingertips. I know what it's like to walk around with shadows on your shoulders, with a past that leaves scars, and sins that leave stains on the soul.

We're more alike than he knows. Because the things he doesn't know about me would kill him, and I'm not anymore ready to spill my secrets than he is. I'd rather bury them somewhere where they can't hurt us anymore, and start new. I wanna live like today's the beginning of everything we are and everything we will be. I don't want to look back. Maybe neither of us have to.

"Elias, look at me,"

He doesn't. A trail of tears tumble down his flushed cheeks and disappear at our feet.

"Look at me, please. I need to ask you something," I say.

He sucks in an unsteady breath and forces his gaze to meet mine.

"Do you love her?"

He winces at the words. His expression says everything.

"No."

I trace the line of his jaw and tip up his chin until his wild green eyes finally find their way back home.

"Do you love me?"

"More than you understand."

I take his shaking hands and hold them steady.

"Then that's all we need. Yesterday doesn't matter to me. Last year doesn't matter to me. Nothing else matters to me except for our here and now, and right now, I am factually and undeniably in with love you, Elias King. I am in love with you, and I don't care if you need a million years to tell me your secrets because it'll probably take me a million years to tell you mine. But I'll wait for you. I'll always wait for you. Real talk."

He kisses me. He kisses me, and I feel the curve of his lips mold into a beautiful smile against my mouth. He pulls away and stares down at me with all the admiration in the world and whispers the best word in the universe.

"Fact."

We connect again, but the sudden incessant buzzing of Elias's phone shatters the moment.

"Answer it, already! The sooner you answer the sooner we can get back to groping each other," I tease.

He shamelessly slaps my ass and winks at me while fishing his phone out of his pocket.

"Can't wait. We'll be lucky if we make it back to the dorms at this rate. If you're not careful, I'll rip your clothes off and take you against the next wall I see."

My face turns fuchsia for obvious reasons.

"Less talking. More answering!"

He smirks, slides his thumb over the answer screen, and switches the call to speaker.

Incoming Call from Indigo :

IR: Is my roommate still walking among the living?

EK: Hey Go-go! Yeah, she's right here.

AS: Hey Indigo! I'm fine. Sorry my phone died, and I kinda sort of got lost on the way back, but Elias found me so everything's okay!

IR: Good to know. Where are you fragile souls?

EK: Walking back. We're already on De Neve, so we'll be home in about five minutes. We might stop by and say hi, or we might go straight to my room. Depends on how naughty your roommate is.

IR: Wow.

AS: Elias King!

EK: What?! It's true!

IR: And, there are some truths that aren't meant to be shared. Speaking of truths, there's still loads of paparazzi downstairs waiting for your return, Mr. King, so if I were you, I'd send Alex back here for supplies, meet up after, and stake out the night elsewhere.

EK: Are fucking kidding me?

IR: 'Fraid not. Roxy took the liberty of confirming where you lived for them so, yeah. You're a stowaway for the day. Sorry. Alex can come back though.

EK: I don't want her to, what if they figure out who she is?

AS: And, how would they do that if they don't know my face, Elias?

EK: Oh yeah. Okay, you can go. Just hurry back, alright? We gotta figure out somewhere to go.

IR: Sunset Rec is a good spot. Security's barely around, and it's a cool place to hang out for a couple hours.

EK: Is it private? As in nobody-can-hear-us kinda private because Jersey's a total screamer. You should've heard her going when I went down on--

IR: Too far.

AS: Okay! Call ending. Indigo, I'll see you in two minutes. Elias, we'll reconvene in ten.

EK: I don't even know what reconvene means, but it sounds super sexy. Should we skip the whole you going back to the dorm thing, and "reconvene" all over Sunset Rec right now? We're practically already there.

AS: Elias! Shut up and hang up the phone!

EK: Only if you make me.

IG: I'm still here guys.

AS: Sorry, Indigo.

EK: Yeah, no offense, Go-Go. You know I love you, right? Actually, once Alex and I get back into the swing of things, I wouldn't hate the idea of you maybe joining us sometime?

AS: Are you out of your mind?!

IG: Clearly. And the answer is no.

EK: Relax, ladies, I was kidding. You two need to learn how to take a joke.

AS: And you need to learn how to end a phone call. Bye, Indi! We'll--I'll see you in a minute!

EK: Don't keep her long! Otherwise a certain someone's gonna end up with blue balls. Real talk.

AS: And, you're gunna end up with no balls if you don't stop--

IG: Let me do you both a favor, and put an end to this call before we end up infinitesimally cycling in cosmic circles. Namaste.

Call ended

***

(Thank you guys so much for reading/listening to this chapter! We can't wait to share the next part with you next Sunday because I think both you guys (and Elias of course) will absolutely be looking forward to it! We know you've been through a lot of ups and downs with these two and that we've successfully scared you guys into thinking everything's going to go wrong. And while we won't reveal the future, just know these two are stronger than you think ;))

PS: BONUS QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What kind of secret do you think Jersey has to hide that would take 1 million years (obviously not literally) to tell Elias?!? Share your thoughts/theories in the comments!