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Ellis was worried and confused, which, with all honesty, was pretty much his default mode.
That morning he had woken up feeling a bit down thanks to the fact the girl he liked clearly liked someone else better. And like, he totally got it. Annie had chosen to spend her birthday with Rory, and it was fine; she was free to do whatever she wanted to, but it didn’t change the fact that it still hurt. It hurt especially because he could never be what Rory was, even if she actually liked him.
Anyway, after his early morning depression, he still had work to do — not everyone could live off of their parents’ credit card, you know — so he brushed aside everything else and focused on opening the store and making sure everything was stocked for the day. After, he had gone to pick up someone from the airport, and there on the waterplane he finally felt like he could forget about the ridiculous girl haunting him.
Except, of course, he couldn’t because he knew as soon as he read the reservation that he was taking the guy to Rory's place, which made him think about last night. That was just great. God must have been surely laughing in his face or something because then he heard the voice he was trying to drown out.
Which led him to now.
“Annie.” He heard the man saying as he walked the steps with the baggage. Ellis had hoped to be wrong, but of course he had the worst luck.
“Dad.”
Dad?
The typical american tourist he had been around the last hour was her dad? Oh, man. He had been waiting for a quiet day.
“Are you staying here?”
The man asked, and he was finally reaching them. He was afraid to get there — to face her. But well, he was being paid to do it. He should be given at least twice the amount just for the emotional baggage, but he didn’t want to rip off Annie's dad. If she asked, he would work for free with no complaints — to be fair, Ellis knew how problematic that was, but it was true.
“No, I'm not.”
Then, he saw her.
Annie was there looking tired and lost and saying something that didn’t quite reach his ear.
Annie did not look well. Why didn’t she?
And why was he so fucking awkward?
He should just leave to let them have their conversation, but he couldn’t do that when she didn’t look well. They talked about paying or something like that, he just knew it involved him, and truly he couldn’t care less; there were more pressing issues.
She was leaving Rory's house the morning after wearing the same clothes. Ellis was not stupid, he could understand pretty well what that walk of shame was. But it didn’t mean he had to like it. His brain tried to come up with things like maybe she was just very drunk and thought it was better staying. Somehow that was even worse; he worried about her, he wanted her to be okay, and she did not look okay at all.
Annie stepped in his direction and his brain short-circuited as she pulled his arm. And then the hand on the arm turned into a hand on his hand and maybe his brain did turn into mashed potatoes.
Like an idiot or a very good friend, he followed along, completely unable to deny her anything. Sometimes he thought his father was right: they would always leave at the end of the summer. Except he didn’t want to think about the end of the summer. He wanted to think about right now and right now she wanted his help. So he allowed her to pull him by the hand and stepped into the boat, making sure she had stabilized herself before taking off and leaving her dad behind in the mansion.
He didn’t dare to look at her.
Annie was curled up on the seat, appearing to want to be invisible and only telling him to go faster. He granted her wish by looking forward.
“Ellis I- oh, my god. Oh, my… please look away.” She said and, naturally, he looked to see her getting up and leaning to the side of the boat.
“Please look away! I-”
Those were the last words she managed to blurt before throwing up directly on the water. Right, his eyes snapped to the view ahead of him, he wasn’t going to stare like she asked. But he did slow down the boat, making sure she was not going to fall off it. The last thing he wanted right now was having to jump into the lake after her.
The sound of the motor was louder than anything else (and the sound of her puking). Even so, after a couple minutes he had to ignore her request and turn to look. Ellis was not just going to let Annie be sick by herself.
She looked… a mess honestly.
He thought there was a good chance her top had been inside out based on the tag he could see on her back, her hair was falling into every direction, earlier he had seen bags under her eyes, leftover makeup and just an overall ‘I want to die’ face.
Not his circus, not his monkeys, his brain tried to tell him as he saw her inched outside the boat with hair covering all her face. But it was his circus, she was Ramona’s sister, and like it or not, he really wanted it to be his monkey. And, even if neither of them were true, he still would've helped. He wasn't the kind to turn his back to people, no matter how much it hurt him to help.
Looking down, he moved some commands to make sure the boat stopped moving entirely. They were already out of sight from Rory’s place and her dad’s eye. He couldn't just stay moving without checking on her any longer. So he did.
The fact that she did not say anything by the lack of movement spoke volumes to Ellis. Added by him getting to her side and she still not saying a thing was starting to freak him out.
“Hey,” he whispered as he slowly approached her tired figure. “You good?”
She simply groaned, and since it didn’t particularly look like a yes, he moved his hands to pull her hair back. There was a thin layer of sweat on her forehead and he could guess the hair was getting in the way. He had nothing to tie it with, so he just made sure to bunch it all and hold it with one hand in a way it wasn't falling on her head or neck.
“Deep breaths.” He instructed and considering she hadn't screamed at him yet, he touched her back with his free hand, making slow circles. Hopefully that would calm her, she had always looked like a touch person.
“I- thank you.” She breathed out and her voice was raspy in a way Ellis had to do his best to ignore.
“Anytime.”
He hadn't realized he was so close, mostly being worried about making sure she was not going to fall off the side. But when she straightened herself, changing from hanging forward to leaning back directly on his chest, it was impossible to ignore that. Yeah, he might have stopped breathing. Besides letting go of her hair, he didn’t move. Her head was inched back resting on his shoulder and Ellis was internally freaking out.
He wasn't sure where to put his hands. Like, should he touch her, hug her, let them hang to the sides like an idiot? It was too hard; that's why he usually didn’t do this. Every option seemed like the bad one, he just didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.
Eventually he decided on placing them on the rail of the boat ahead of him… only to realize it made it all worse because now it looked like his arms were around her.
His friends many times had made jokes about him being forever girlfriendless, and that had been much thanks to the fact that he was terrible at talking to girls. It had been true then and it remained truthful now. Was he supposed to say something? Like, she literally just left another guy's house. Still, he couldn't find himself to care that much about it; he was an idiot, for sure. If she wanted his company, he wouldn't deny her, never.
In the end he chose to do nothing. He simply let her have that moment to gather herself, she had been through so much these last weeks. They all had actually. If she needed to breathe in some fresh air leaning on him to get over a hangover, he could be there, no question.
“Is the boat still moving?”
“No.” A nervous laugh. She somehow always made him laugh.
“It feels a bit like still is.” Annie insisted and he could feel her hair brushing his jaw as they spoke. It was a lot.
“That’s the leftover drink speaking.”
“I hate alcohol.”
Ellis was starting to agree even more with the sentiment. Ramona had been completely out because of it the other day, now Annie was not her best thanks to it. And he was not naive or anything, he understood their reasons to drink, but mostly it didn’t seem worth it. Usually, he himself was not the most prone to drinking, he was generally the guy who took more care of people than actually drinking. Besides, you couldn't drive a boat drunk, his father would kill him if he ever did.
Well, not that he cared that much about his father’s opinion at the moment.
In one almost swift movement, she turned around, looking at him. Almost because she had hit her head on his nose doing so — she was still pretty unsteady and surely the movement of the water did not help. He stabled her with one hand on the arm and she blinked a few times, trying to focus on his face despite the sun.
“Ellis I-” Annie started and stopped. He waited patiently until she gathered her thoughts. “I- well, I, it's just…”
Instead of a coherent sentence, he was facing tearing eyes.
“Annie…”
“Don’t say anything!” She stopped him with one finger up but there was no denying the tear falling on her face she tried to wipe away discreetly.
“Did something happen?” Ellis was a masochist asking her that; he knew, most of all, because there was an obvious something that happened. But she was upset, really upset. “Did… anyone, uh, hurt you?”
Even not saying the name, it was very clear what he meant. Did that guy do anything to you?
Generally speaking, he knew Rory was an okay guy. Just rich and pretentious, but that was common from the people there. However, that was not what he wanted to know. She seemed shaken up from the beginning, and big chances that was thanks to her dad’s presence. Still, there was a possibility it could not be about it, and he needed to know. A lot of things could go wrong in a party, especially because he knew she didn't know many people there; she could have been alone and maybe pressured into doing something…
“No.”
He looked deep into those brown eyes, trying to find any kind of deceit… He didn't find any, good, he was already spiraling by his own thoughts.
“Wanna share with the class, then?”
“It’s just, I, it’s so fucked up.” She looked up to the sky trying to hold in the tears. By now he already knew she was the kind of girl who needed to let all her feelings out and he didn't mind hearing it. “Everything is fucked up, and I am an indecisive bitch because I feel like I really want something in one moment and the next one puff change of heart. And now my father is here to, I don't know, ruin my life? And I feel like I have to do everything right and take care of everything when I'm around him, but I hate doing that. I want to be carefree and do stupid shit, but when I do I feel like shit because I feel guilty.” She shook her head and looked back at him. “Like, right now you are here wasting your time, wasting fuel- do boats even have fuel like cars? Well, that’s irrelevant, and not only that, because my dad didn't even pay you because he couldn't even think about getting some local currency because he never thinks about other people, so it's even worse because you have much better and more important things to do-.”
“What?” It was getting out of hand. She should not be worrying about him. “First, I don't mind being here with you, at all, I am not losing anything, in fact I would pay to spend time with you.” He said seriously and it at least got her to stop for a second.
“Wait, what?”
Her eyes were wide open, and it clicked for him the words that came out of his mouth. Pay to have time with her…
“It sounded a lot better in my head.”
“Are you calling me a whore?” She narrowed her eyes. Considering the context of the morning they were in… it made it a thousand times worse.
“God, no. Annie, I-”
“I’m kidding. I understood, but your face? Priceless.”
She was laughing at him.
But well… she was smiling now. Even if not really how he planned it. Words were really not his thing. Ellis liked to do things, he liked to build stuff, to have actions to show his care, to have touchable acts of affection. Words, on the other hand… words were the reason he was still pretty much romantically obtuse.
“So, what's second?”
“What?”
“You said first, that means there's a second.”
It was almost laughable, how he was not good at giving reassurance speeches. He would have to work on that, he wanted to be there for her.
“Right. Second is… don't be too harsh on yourself.”
“Wow, that's deep,” Annie deadpanned.
“That’s way too judgmental for someone who just puked their insides out in the lake.”
“Hey! Here I am opening my heart to you and you wanna be mean to me?” God he could never admit how much he liked when she was silly and free around him. He wanted to be more like her.
“Right, I'm sorry. Please, carry on.”
“Well, you ruined my depressing mood now.”
“Sorry about that.”
He was not sorry at all for making her smile. Especially when they were still standing close and he could see how that smile looked like up close.
“You should be.” Annie said, trying to be serious, but quickly her face went back to looking a little pained. “Can we… get moving again? If I end up throwing up again, I would rather do it on land.”
“Of course.” He looked attentive at her face for just one more second. “And Annie…”
He never finished his words because he pulled her to a hug.
Oh, he needed that maybe even more than her.
Her hands tentatively rested around his waist, and he didn’t want to be too invasive or anything, so he made sure to not press too hard on the arms around her shoulders. Even so, he could feel her relaxing. See? Actions guy. He much rather hug her until she felt better than to come up with the perfect answers.
They could stay there for much longer, but after a minute he heard her murmuring on his neck.
“Sorry but, I was not kidding, I need… just get me home quick.”
Yeah, he did not want to clean that boat later.
“Alright, alright. Moving.”
That time, she sat a little more comfortably on her seat. It wasn’t much, but he felt a little less lost as he helped get out on her cottage's dock.
He offered to walk her all the way up, which she refused profusely. Ellis even pretended he didn’t see her running up full speed, probably to let her guts out somewhere he couldn’t see.
Yeah, they would be okay.