Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 99

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 99

Eli could feel the iron bands around his chest loosen. It was like he could breathe again after
months of getting only sips of oxygen. He wasn’t poison; he still had something to offer. If he
had a mirror, he’d be doing his best Stuart Smalley impression. And gosh darn it, people like me.
Sometimes it wasn’t easy to believe that without proof, and this was proof.
Maybe it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Nick wanted him too.
Oh. As soon as the thought came, so did reality. With a resounding crash.
“Eli? You still there? God damn it, did the call drop?” Margo sounded a million miles away
instead of only a couple hundred.
He shook himself. “Yeah. I’m here.”

-- 206 of 228 --

“So? What are we thinking? Can I put your name in the press release or…?”
Eli swallowed hard. “Can I think about it for a couple days?”
Margo made a blustery sound of acceptance. “Sure, absolutely. Big decision. Big move. I get it.”
There was a pause on the line, then: “Okay, I’m trying to get it, honest. But what the hell else is
there to think about, E?”
“You’re going to make fun of me.”
“Well, now you have to tell me.”
“It’s just… LA is so far.”
“Yes, geographically and culturally, it is quite some distance from New York,” Margo conceded.
“No, I mean, it’s far from here. Where Nick is.”
“Ah.” He could hear her eyebrows winging upward, they were that loud. “Okay! So things with
Nick are getting serious?”
Eli sighed. “No, I’m pretty sure I destroyed every chance I had with him.”
There was a long stretch of silence over the phone line before Margo said, “I’m going to need
you to help connect the dots for me here. If you fumbled your ex-boyfriend, why is this a factor
in deciding whether to take this job?”
“I don’t know.” Eli licked his lips. “It just—it is.” He didn’t know where to begin because the idea
had only now occurred to him, but he knew he wanted to go for it. If he left New Port Stephen
without telling Nick how much he cared for him, then he would always wonder.