noveldepot Chapter 210: I Want To Be Your Fighter
Chapter 210: I Want To Be Your Fighter
A nice afternoon light sat over the city as Liam settled into his seat at Maison Noir, a five star restaurant he had spent twenty minutes finding specifically because it felt like somewhere Elena would agree to meet without complaining about the choice.
Inside the restaurant dark wood paneling ran along the walls, low warm lighting from fixtures overhead throwing amber circles across each table, white linen, candles, the kind of quiet that came from everyone in the room having decided to be somewhere expensive and conducting themselves accordingly.
Conversation murmured around him, present but contained, polite, each table existing in its own atmosphere.
Liam was sitting alone at a table near the center of the room.
He checked his phone.
She was an hour late.
He set his phone face down on the table and looked at the ceiling briefly. Then at the other tables. Then at the entrance. Then at his phone again.
’I should have told to Kelvin stay,’ he thought. ’At least then I’d have someone to talk to while I sit here.’ He turned his phone over once in his hand. ’Actually no. Second he heard it was Elena he practically ran to the car. Never seen him move that fast before.’
He set his phone down.
He started tapping his fingers against the table. One hand. Steady rhythm. Not thinking about it.
’If I had texted her to come over to have sex, she would have been there in twenty minutes,’ he thought. ’Probably less. But I ask her to come talk and suddenly an hour is a reasonable amount of time to keep someone waiting.’
He tapped.
Movement in his peripheral vision. A waiter. Young woman, dark uniform, professional smile, stopping at the edge of his table with her hands folded.
"Are you ready to order, sir?"
"I’m still waiting for someone," Liam said. "I’m good for now."
She nodded, smile staying exactly where it was. "Of course." She started to turn.
"Actually." He paused. "Water would be good."
She smiled again, genuine this time, small and warm. "Of course. I’ll bring that right over."
She walked away and Liam went back to looking at the entrance.
Around him the restaurant moved at its own pace.
Conversations at nearby tables.
A waiter crossing the floor with two plates balanced on one arm. Someone near the window laughing at something.
All of it continuing, completely unaware that he had been sitting alone at this table for sixty minutes.
He tapped.
A glass of water appeared in front of him. She set it down with a small nod and was gone before he could say anything.
He picked it up.
He was mid-drink when the entrance opened.
Elena walked in.
His throat forgot what it was doing.
Water went somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go and he started coughing immediately, his glass coming away from his mouth, his other hand going flat on the table as he tried to get it under control.
She hadn’t seen him yet.
She was talking to the maître d’ near the entrance, one hand resting lightly on the edge of his stand, her head turned slightly to the side as he pointed toward Liam’s table.
She was wearing a deep emerald dress, floor length, its fabric catching the light of the restaurant as she moved, its neckline sitting low enough to show the full line of her chest without crossing any line, fitted at the waist and falling cleanly from there.
Her hair was pinned up, simple and precise. Gold at her ears and at her wrist. Heels that added height she didn’t need.
She looked like something the restaurant had been designed around.
Something shifted in the room.
Not loudly. Not all at once. But it moved through the space the way it moves through rooms when a certain kind of person enters, heads turning by degrees, conversations dropping a register.
"She looks expensive."
A woman at a table to his left, low voice, leaning toward her companion.
"Is that—"
"I don’t know but her skin—"
Two men near the bar had stopped their conversation entirely. One said something to the other and the other nodded without looking away from the entrance.
"She’s unreal."
A woman at a corner table leaned toward her friend. "What is she wearing. I need to know what she’s wearing."
Elena crossed the room toward him, navigating between tables without looking at any of the attention following her, her pace unhurried, her expression composed.
She reached the table and sat down across from him.
Liam was still coughing.
She set her clutch on the table and looked at him. "You don’t need to overreact."
"I’m not—" He coughed once more and cleared his throat. "I’m not overreacting. I just didn’t expect you to dress like—"
Everything froze.
Waiter mid-step. Couple beside them locked mid-conversation. Every sound cut off at once, silence landing with weight.
A notification appeared in his vision.
[SYSTEM ADVISORY]
[Recommended Action: Compliment her.]
[Execute: Yes / No]
Liam looked at it.
Then at Elena, frozen across the table with one eyebrow slightly raised, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
’Okay,’ he thought. ’Fine.’
Time resumed.
"—like that," she finished for him. "Dress for what?"
"Nothing." He looked at her directly. "You look incredible. That’s all."
Elena held his gaze for a moment.
Something moved through her expression that she managed back down almost immediately, her composure reasserting itself over the top of it.
But color that came into her face just below her cheekbones was less manageable and she didn’t entirely win that one.
"Thank you," she said. Simply.
"You’re welcome." He reached for his water. "I actually need to talk to you about Stiles."
Both her hands came up from the table. A clear and immediate stop gesture. "No."
Liam looked at her. "What do you mean no."
"I mean no." She settled back in her chair and picked up a menu. "I’m not discussing that man while I’m on a date."
Liam looked at her over the menu she had just opened.
’A date,’ he thought.
He looked at the table. Candle burning steadily between them. White linen. The restaurant around them. The way she had dressed.
’Oh,’ he thought. ’She thinks this is a date.’
He looked at her again, her eyes moving over the menu with complete composure, her emerald dress catching candlelight, color still faintly present in her cheeks.
’Oh shit,’ he thought. ’She absolutely thinks this is a date.’
"Okay," he said carefully. "When can we talk about it then."
She looked up from the menu briefly. "After."
"After the—"
"After the date, Liam."
He looked at her.
She looked back at her menu.
"Okay," he said.
She turned a page. He picked up his own menu.
They ordered.
Elena knew what she wanted without looking for long, speaking to the waiter with the ease of someone who had been to places like this enough that menus held no surprises. Liam took slightly longer.
He ordered something that sounded reasonable and the waiter took both menus and left.
Conversation that followed was the kind that happened when two people had more to say than they were saying but had agreed without discussing it to say other things instead.
She asked him about his week and he gave her the version of it that didn’t involve rooftops or old men in pajamas or underground arenas and she listened with her chin resting on her hand and her gold eyes on his face.
He asked her about hers and she talked about a meeting she had attended that had wasted three hours of her life and the particular type of person responsible for that kind of meeting and Liam laughed genuinely at the way she described them, her composure cracking slightly at the edges when she got to the specific detail that had finally made her lose patience.
Food arrived.
Good. The kind of good that came from a kitchen that took itself seriously. They ate without conversation stopping, back and forth continuing around the food, easier now than at the start of the evening.
At some point Elena picked up a piece of something from her plate with her fork and held it across the table toward him.
He looked at it.
Then at her.
She looked back at him with a completely level expression that communicated very clearly that this was happening and his opinion on whether it was happening was not being sought.
He leaned forward and took it off the fork.
She pulled the fork back and went back to her plate like nothing had occurred.
Liam chewed and said nothing.
A few minutes passed.
He cut a piece from his own plate, picked it up with his fork, and held it across the table toward her.
She looked at it. Then at him. A corner of her mouth moved almost imperceptibly and she leaned forward and took it.
He went back to his plate.
Neither of them said anything about any of it.
Dinner continued.
The restaurant moved around them at its own quiet pace.
Candle burned steadily between them. Her dress caught light every time she shifted in her chair.
When plates were cleared and the table was just the two of them and the candle and the remnants of the evening, Liam looked at her across the white linen.
She was looking back at him with that particular quality she had, her composed surface, gold eyes, precise way everything about her was arranged, and underneath all of it something that had been sitting there the whole evening waiting.
He held her gaze for a moment.
Then he said it.
"I want to be your fighter."
Elena looked at him.
Around them the restaurant continued.
Conversations and cutlery and the low ambient noise of people being somewhere expensive. None of it touched the table.
She looked at him for a long moment without saying anything.