Chapter 2
2
Seth Mays
Where are you?
ELLIOT CRANE
Basement.
Looks like a closet door next to the pantry.
I found the door in question and went downstairs, finding Elliot at a massive worktable. I was surprised by the brightness of the workshop—basements aren’t usually places where one feels warm and cozy, but Elliot had installed warm, downward facing lights that illuminated the huge central table, and two of the walls had been hung with woven mats and blankets—the wall opposite the doorway held long wooden shelves filled with all sorts of things—hardware, adhesives, larger tools—while the wall beside the door had a pegboard hung with smaller tools.
He was playing music—at the moment, something that sounded almost, but not quite, country. It wasn’t anything I was familiar with, but I liked it.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs, and he looked up at me. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
He was working at sanding something, the muscles of his biceps bunching as he leaned his weight into the handle holding the sandpaper. I caught myself watching for longer than was polite.
“I didn’t know people still hand-sanded things,” I remarked. Not that I spent a lot of time paying attention to what people were doing in the world of carpentry, but I might have started looking up videos of carpentry online as a way to try to understand Elliot a little better. Most of the videos I’d seen had people using power sanders.
Elliot made a funny grunting sound that I thought might be a scoff. “ People might not,” he told me. “But master carpenters do.” He went back to his sanding, the pattern of his tattoo bulging with the muscles of his upper arms.
I stared again.
“Did you want something?” he asked. “Or did you just miss me?”
I gaped at him, not certain how to respond to the innuendo. If it even was an innuendo. I wasn’t sure.
I saw the moment he decided to stop teasing me. His lopsided smile softened, and he put down the sander. “What do you need, baby shifter?” he asked gently.
I swallowed. There had been a point to me looking for him, after all. “Oh. Um. I was going to ask if it was okay if I made a ’mater pie.” I shrugged. “I thought it’d be good for lunch.”
“A what?” Elliot asked. “And yeah, you can make anything you want. Did you need help finding stuff in the kitchen?”
“I—no. Not unless you don’t want me looking through the cupboards. But I can do that so you don’t have to stop working. I need to get tomatoes, anyway.”
Elliot’s eyebrows went up. “You haven’t looked in the back yard, have you?”
“No?”
“You don’t need to ‘get’ tomatoes,” he told me. “Just walk out the back door and pick whatever you need.”
“Oh. Um. I also need onions and cheese.” I could feel my neck starting to heat a little.
“Onions are in the pantry. And this is Wisconsin, baby shifter. There’s going to be at least three pounds of cheese in the fridge.”
“You say that like everyone has three pounds of cheese in their fridge,” I told him.
“They do,” he replied.
“That’s… obscene.”
“No, that’s Wisconsin. Dairy state. What are you doing making shit with cheese in it, anyway?”
The heat crept further up my neck. “I mean. I’ll make one that doesn’t have cheese. But it’s better with the cheese. So…” I shrugged.
Elliot sighed. “You don’t have to make me anything different from what you make yourself—or make me anything at all, if you don’t want to,” he said, coming over and reaching out to touch my arm, sending tingles through the whole limb.
“You didn’t have ’mater pie when you were in Richmond,” I said. “And you should have some sometime. And it’s supposed to have cheese.” I shrugged again. “We’re each going to eat a whole one either way, so I might as well make yours right.” I’d tried to make one for myself with vegan cheese, and that had been a disaster. I went with the onions, extra breadcrumbs, mayo, thinly-sliced potatoes, and some sort of white beans. It was hearty and pretty tasty, even if it wasn’t the same.
“How do you know I didn’t have it?” he asked.
“Because in Virginia, you only make ’mater pie with fresh tomatoes, and March is not tomato season,” I replied. “You really should use Hanovers, but you can’t get those anywhere else.”
“Why not?”
“They’re Hanovers because they’re grown in Hanover county,” I replied. “The soil chemistry in the area causes a very particular balance of flavors in the fruit, and the variety is meatier than your average tomato.” I shrugged. “They’re the best tomatoes in the world. So it won’t be quite right, doing a ’mater pie here, but it’ll still be good with fresh tomatoes.”
Elliot was looking at me like I was delusional. “It’s a tomato ,” he said.
“Are yours better than store tomatoes?” I asked him pointedly.
“Well, obviously. But that’s because they’re actually ripe when you pick them, and not genetically designed to be red even though they’re still only half-ready.”
“Are they better than some you’d get at a farmer’s market?” I asked.
Elliot paused, thinking. “Some,” he said, finally. “But not others.”
“Because of the soil chemistry,” I told him. “The right balance of clay and acid can produce a richer flavor than something sandy or loamy.”
“Shit, you sound like Dad,” he muttered.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Sorry?”
“Don’t be.” He was shaking his head. “I just didn’t expect anyone else other than Dad to care that much about plant chemistry.”
I blinked. “I’m a biochemist,” I pointed out.
He looked at me, surprise clear on his face. “I thought you worked at crime scenes?”
“I do—did,” I said. “But we have to have degrees to do that.”
“I mean, yeah, I knew that,” he said, and his cheeks might have been a little darker. “But I just figured… criminal justice or something. Like Val’s is.”
I shook my head. “My MS is in forensic science, but my BS is biochemistry.”
“So you’re a science nerd, then?”
“Obviously.” I offered a tentative smile.
He studied me for a minute. “So can you tell me why my squash isn’t doing well?”
I shrugged. “Maybe? It’d be easier if I had access to a lab. And I’m guessing you don’t have one of those in another closet somewhere.”
I’d expected him to laugh and agree, but, instead, his expression turned thoughtful. “Probably not quite what you mean, but… maybe Dad has something that might act like lab equipment?”
I blinked. “Really?”
Elliot shrugged. “He was into herbalism, homeopathy, that sort of thing. Except,” he continued, glancing up and probably reading the skepticism on my face, “that he did actually know what he was doing. Mamaceqtaw have been using herbal remedies for centuries—are you going to tell me that we’ve been using things that are useless for that long?” An edge of defensiveness had crept into his tone.
“No,” I replied. “A lot of the chemical compounds that we use as medicines are derived from similar compounds found in nature. Willow bark, for instance, is chemically similar to aspirin. It contains salicin, aspirin has acetylsalicylic acid—the salicil tells us that they’re chemically related. So yeah, I’m sure they did have remedies that worked.” I shrugged. “There are also a lot of homeopaths who wouldn’t know willow bark from black locust. Which, by the way, could kill you.”
Elliot blinked. “You know herbalism?”
I felt my neck flush a little. “I… know what can kill people.”
Elliot let out an amused grunt. “Can willow bark kill people?”
“It’s a blood thinner, just like aspirin. So not really by itself, but if you’re taking it or if someone gives you enough of it, you can bleed to death a lot more easily. It’s more common in accidental death than as a murder weapon, though.”
He was staring at me, and I felt the flush creeping higher on my neck.
“What?” I asked him.
“Just…” He shook his head. “I don’t know, actually. I probably shouldn’t be surprised that you know shit like this, given the fact that you were texting me about how many bars of soap you can get out of a corpse.”
The heat had reached my face. “Sorry about that,” I muttered.
“Don’t need to be sorry,” Elliot replied. “It just never occurred to me that you might know about plants.”
“Oh. Yeah. I like plants, actually.” My cheeks were warm behind my beard, although I didn’t think they’d gotten any worse. “I know way too much about poisons.”
“Then you’d love Dad’s poison garden.”
I felt my eyes widen. “He had a poison garden?”
Elliot nodded. “Yeah. The courtyard. I’m not entirely sure what’s in there or how to care for it, though.”
“Can I go out there?”
Elliot narrowed his hazel eyes at me. “Not until after lunch.”
It took me a second, but then I laughed. “Fair enough. Although generally speaking, you wear gloves when you work with poisonous plants. Accidentally poisoning yourself or breaking out in epic hives isn’t a fun way to garden.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he teased. “I love rolling around in poison ivy.”
I shuddered faintly. I hate itching. “You have a lot of that?”
He shrugged. “It’s the north woods. Do you not have it in Virginia?”
“Of course we do,” I replied. “I just hate it.”
Elliot snorted. “Ticks and poison ivy. I think you might actually need to stop rolling around in the woods.”
“I don’t roll around,” I muttered.
“You don’t dress appropriately, either,” he retorted.
“How would you know?” I asked him.
“Because I grew up in the north woods and have never once had a tick, and have only gotten a poison ivy rash once.” He grinned at me. “Of course, badgers don’t react to it.”
“What? How is that fair?” I wanted to know.
“You want some fun trivia?” he asked me.
“Sure?” I like trivia.
“You’re not a primate anymore.”
“What?”
“Shifters aren’t primates. I don’t know what we are , but we don’t react to poison ivy, and only primates react to poison ivy,” he told me. “The one time I reacted to it, I was little—six or seven, I think. Not a single reaction since I first shifted, and I’m sure I’ve gotten myself into it plenty of times.” Then he grinned at me. “Elves? Elves are primates.”
“Are you telling me you gave Hart poison ivy?”
He barked out a laugh. “Not on purpose, although I did get it all over him once that was particularly bad. He was covered in little red bumps and blisters for a week.”
“That’s horrible ,” I chided him.
“I didn’t mean to!” he insisted.
“But you laughed about it,” I pointed out, although I wasn’t as horrified as I pretended. It still seemed mean, though.
He shrugged, but looked a little chagrined. “He’s the one who tried to pick me up,” he half-muttered.
“And how old were you?”
“Sixteen? Seventeen?”
That made a lot more sense. Teenage guys are stupid dicks. But then I frowned. “Didn’t he not get Arcana until later than that?” I asked.
“Oh, he wasn’t an elf then. He’s gotten himself into it all on his own since, though.”
“Without your help?”
“Yep. I mean, I was along for at least two later incidents, but I did try to warn him.” Elliot shrugged. “Val’s stubborn.”
I snorted, unable to help myself. “Do tell.”
He grinned at me. I smiled back, and the moment warmed a bit—maybe too much, and I shuffled, a little uncomfortable. “So I can root through your kitchen?” I said, bringing us back to the original reason I’d come downstairs.
“Yeah, of course.” The smile he gave me then was smaller, but still genuine. “And the tomatoes.”
I nodded. “Right. Great. Thanks.”
I turned, feeling a bit like the world’s most awkward roommate, and went back upstairs to start rifling through Elliot’s kitchen.
“Seth, are you serious?” Noah sounded incredulous, and that was probably not a good sign. He and Lulu were on a layover in some airport somewhere, but it was in the US, so he’d taken the opportunity to call me to yell at me about my life choices. “You just… drove all the way across the fucking country?—”
“Halfway. Wisconsin is only halfway across the country.”
“Shut up, baby brother.”
“An hour doesn’t count,” I muttered, the same way I always did when Noah pointed out that he was older than me.
“Not the time or place, Seth.”
I sighed.
“You drove halfway across the country to stay with some guy you barely know and are whoring yourself out for room and board?” I might have mentioned the fact that Elliot and I had been more than just friendly when he’d been in Richmond as a way of trying to explain to my charming twin why I’d decided to come here .
I was about to object when I realized that Noah wasn’t entirely wrong. “I don’t think my room and board are contingent on the sex,” is what I said. I’d meant it to be reassuring. Apparently I failed at that.
“You think?! ”
I rolled my eyes, even though my overprotective twin couldn’t see it. “I didn’t explicitly ask him if I was exchanging sex in lieu of money for rent and food, but he also didn’t ask .”
“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Noah muttered.
“Leave them out of it, please.”
“Seth, you’re literally some sort of… food whore.”
“Would you rather I took up crack?” I asked, irritably. I was aware, even then, that part of my irritation was due to the fact that he wasn’t entirely wrong. And I didn’t really like the notion that Elliot might expect me to essentially compensate him with sex.
“No, I would rather you weren’t a self-delusional sex worker.”
“Don’t be snobby about sex work,” I told him.
“Fine, asshole. I would rather you weren’t in a coercive relationship in which you feel obligated to have sex with some guy just because you’re homeless. Which you wouldn’t be if he hadn’t convinced you to leave Richmond.”
“Elliot didn’t convince me to leave Richmond. He said I’d have a place to stay if I wanted to come to Shawano.”
“How is that not convincing you?—”
“He offered hospitality, Noah. He didn’t tell me to move out here.”
“The brother I know?—”
“Doesn’t exist anymore, Nono. He has fur and fangs now, and no job in Richmond, and might be able to get one out here.”
Noah was quiet for a moment. “I got you a job, Sethy.” He sounded hurt.
Now I felt like a dick. “I know. But this could be another CSI job. You know, what I do . Besides, I’ve taken enough from you.”
“No such thing. You’re my brother .”
“I know, Noah. And I’ll always be grateful for you and I love you. But I need to do this.”
“Be exploited for sex?”
I sighed. This was not going well. “Noah, I promise you that if anyone is exploiting anyone, it’s me exploiting Elliot for food and shelter.”
He sighed, the sound heavy and resigned. “Fine, but I’m reminding you of this every ten minutes for however long it takes me to drive you back here when things turn ugly.” I didn’t appreciate the fact that he’d said ‘when,’ not ‘if.’
I echoed his sigh. “Noah, I drove myself out here. I have a car.”
“I’ll fly out and you can drive us both back just so I can say ‘I fucking told you so.’”
“Gee, thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. Neither did he. After a long pause, Noah spoke again.
“Love you, Sethy.”
I sighed again. “Love you, too, Nono.”
He hung up, and I put my head down on my arms, resting on the desk Elliot had almost certainly used in high school. The worst part was that Noah was probably right. I was undoubtedly going to get my heart broken again because Elliot had made it crystal clear that he was only interested in me for sex, and that was it. Not that I wasn’t interested in him for sex, because holy shit, yeah. But I was also just plain interested. In his life. His thoughts. And absolutely his heart. He just wasn’t looking to give that away, and he’d been honest and up front about it.
Rule Fucking Two. No emotional entanglements.
I was the one who’d driven all the way across the country and showed up on his doorstep to restart my life. And, honestly, that had been deeply unfair of me. Because I knew how he felt, or, rather, didn’t feel, and I’d taken advantage of his probably-didn’t-mean-it-but-was-too-polite-to-take-it-back generosity.
I sat up, then pulled my laptop over and opened it up to start looking for the jobs site at the Shawano Police Department. Because what I’d said to Noah was accurate—I needed to do this. I needed to get my own feet under me, and I needed to prove to myself that I could be an independent adult.
First step, job.
Second step…
I didn’t want to think too hard about the second step, because it was going to hurt. Because the thing about standing on your own is that you have to do it… on your own.
I was going to have to move out of Elliot’s house.
And I was going to have to tell him the truth.
Which probably meant that I was going to have to move out of his life, because that wasn’t at all what he wanted. And that wasn’t at all what I wanted—I wanted to stay in this amazing house with Elliot. But then I’d never stand on my own two—or four—feet. I wouldn’t know that I could be an independent adult and that I was choosing a relationship because I wanted it, not because it was the next available thing. I wouldn’t be telling the truth, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from a succession of shitty relationships, it’s that truth matters. So I was going to get a job and admit to the man I was falling in love with that I was falling in love with him, and it was going to go terribly , and I was then probably going to have to find an apartment and build a totally new life without him in it.
Halfway across the country from everyone else I knew.
I’m normally a look-three-times-before-I-leap kind of guy. But I’d leapt off this cliff without even bothering to see if it had a bottom, much less whether that bottom was covered in feathers and pillows, water, rocks, or poison-tipped spears.
Either way, it was a long way down and hitting the ground was going to suck.
Elliot picked up both of the empty glass pie plates, then grinned at me. “I think I’m going to enjoy learning about southern cooking,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, but I was pleased—I just didn’t want him to know that. At least not how pleased I was. “There’s not that much to learn,” I mumbled. Besides, if last night’s dinner was any indication, Elliot was already a plenty-good cook, and about all he’d need to ‘learn’ were combinations of ingredients.
“I like tomatoes and all,” Elliot continued, crossing from the kitchen island where we ate to the sink to start washing the dishes, “but this was really good.”
I picked up my plate and glass and brought them over. “They’re not Hanovers,” I replied, “so it’s not quite the same, but your garden has tomatoes that are almost as good—and that’s quite a compliment.”
He laughed. “Is it? Because it sounds like you just insulted my tomatoes.”
“If you’d ever had Hanovers, you know it wasn’t an insult,” I replied, grabbing a towel to dry the first pie plate as Elliot set it—clean—in the rack.
“So what you’re telling me is that I have to go back to Richmond during tomato season?”
“I mean, you probably should,” I told him. “Watermelon, canary melons, and Hanovers? Early summer is pretty great in Virginia.”
“Just not when it’s hot as Satan’s ballsack?”
I snorted. “Is that what Hart told you?”
“How did you know?” His hazel eyes danced with amusement.
“Lucky guess,” I snarked back. The phrase ‘Satan’s ballsack’ was so obviously a Hart-ism.
Elliot grinned, then handed me the second pie plate. “He really does have a way with words, doesn’t he?”
“There’s nobody quite like Hart,” I agreed, putting the dry pie plates back where I’d found them.
I was not expecting the hands that settled on my sides, warm through the fabric of my t-shirt. I sucked in a breath, my heart rate speeding up and tingles rushing over my skin. I wanted more of his hands in more places. I wanted them on my skin, rough and hot—although they felt less hot than I remembered.
Because now I was a shifter, too.
I hadn’t forgotten—that was impossible—but it was one more reminder that things were different. That I was different.
I still wanted what Elliot was offering.
I leaned back into his hands, the motion accepting the invitation.
One of his hands slid under the cotton of my shirt, the roughness of his calluses sending shivers through me.
The tingling under my skin intensified, sending a bolt of fear through me.
Elliot’s hands froze.
“You’re okay, Seth,” he said softly.
It felt like my pulse was going to push its way through the veins in my throat.
“Deep breaths,” Elliot murmured. “In, and out. In, and out.”
I closed my eyes, panic and frustration thick in the back of my throat. I wanted this. Wanted Elliot’s hands on me—and in me. But I didn’t have the ability to push down the feral animalistic side of my new-shifter self. It also wanted that—but when it wanted something, it threatened to rip through not only my self-control, but my skin and muscle and bone.
“Stay with me here, baby shifter.” Elliot’s voice was calm, even, controlled. I couldn’t hear any trace of disappointment, although God knew I was feeling enough of it.
I swallowed a couple times, too much saliva in my mouth in response to the lengthening of my teeth.
“Breathe,” Elliot repeated.
A few more deep breaths, and I was back in control, although there was still plenty of fear and frustration to go around. It just wasn’t going to win—well, it wasn’t going to force me into a shift. I was pretty sure it had, in fact, ‘won,’ at least in the sense that it had effectively killed my immediate interest in sexy time.
Elliot’s, too, if the fact that he slowly and gently withdrew his hands from my sides was any indication.
I put my hands on the counter, staring down at them, feeling my pulse in my fingers, staring at the lines on my knuckles, the funny cords of my veins and tendons, the slightly leathery texture of the skin on the backs of my hands. How human they looked.
“Seth.” Elliot’s voice was gentle, but there was an edge there.
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say.
“Seth, look at me.”
I didn’t want to. I was too ashamed.
“Seth.” His voice was at once rough and gentle.
I shook my head, my knuckles white from where my fingers pushed into the surface of the counter.
His palm pressed against my spine, soothing rather than arousing. “Seth, it’s okay.”
“I hate it,” I managed, my voice strangled by the mix of emotion and frustration.
“I know,” Elliot replied, the palm on my back moving in a calming circular motion. “It’s normal, at first. You’re still a baby shifter—it’s been what, three months?”
“Three months and a week,” I said.
“Exactly.”
I did turn to look at him, then, and his hand slid from my back. I missed it. “How long is it supposed to take?” I asked him.
“It took me years to get full control of my shifting,” Elliot told me, leaning his hip against the counter on the other side of the sink from me.
“You were also going through puberty,” I pointed out with a grumble.
“True,” he replied. “But it still took years. You can’t expect to have it figured out in only a few months.”
I didn’t look at his face, instead staring down at his bare feet. He’d definitely had work boots on in the basement, and I wondered if he took them off at the top or bottom of the stairs.
“Seth, you’re doing really well,” he said.
I looked up at him, my expression making very clear that I didn’t believe him.
“Do you meditate?” he asked me, then.
“No?” I had no idea why that was relevant.
“They didn’t tell you to meditate or do mindfulness or deep breathing exercises?” It was Elliot’s turn to sound surprised, his dark eyebrows rising.
“No?”
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered, running a hand over his ponytail. “What did they tell you?”
“To eat twice as much as I was used to?”
“Is that it?” He sounded a bit horrified.
I thought back. My brain had still been pretty fuzzy when they’d released me from St. Cyprian’s. “I—I’m honestly not sure,” I admitted. “I don’t remember a lot of what they said to me.”
“Did they have you do deep breathing while you were there?”
“Some? I guess?” I went back to studying his toes. “There was a nurse who sat with me at first. He told me to take deep breaths when—” It was hard to talk about, even to Elliot, although I’d already said a lot more to him than I had to Noah. I still felt guilty about that. I swallowed the lump in the back of my throat. “So that’s what I started doing. Whenever things get… hard.”
“That’s good,” he said, nodding. “Deep breaths help. But you should practice even when you’re not under stress—not afraid or emotional or… turned on.”
“Practice?”
Elliot nodded. “I find meditating helps. But some people do yoga or chant or some other means of centering themselves. Dad called it ‘grounding.’” His expression became distant. “I remember he used to go out and sit with Mom under the birches out back.” He gestured toward the arched open doorway that led to the living room—you could see the patio doors through the arch. “Mom always went outside to sit with nature—she would weave out there, or read, or just sit. Dad went out even after she died, sitting under the tree, his palms on the earth. Grounding himself.”
“And you… meditate?” I’d honestly never thought about it. Or yoga. I knew people did those things, of course, but it had just never occurred to me to be one of them.
Elliot nodded. “I do. It helps.”
I studied him, uncertain. “But you’ve been a shifter for… a while.”
His lips quirked. “Thirty years,” he replied.
He’s forty-one. Huh. I would have put him closer to my own age—not that it really matters once you pass twenty-five or so, but I’d literally been born when he’d become a shifter. That was… I wasn’t sure what it was, but it made me think. And then I realized that he’d just given me something personal. Something he wouldn’t have shared with me if I’d asked four months ago when we’d first met.
“And you still meditate?”
He nodded. “Sometimes I do what Dad did,” he said softly, his face turned toward the arched doorway, light playing on his cheekbones. “And sometimes I just sit where I am—bedroom, living room, wherever.” He drew in a breath, then seemed to pull himself away from something, refocusing on my face. “Point is, meditation is useful—it helps you understand your responses—fear or anger or any emotion—and keep them in check. Channel them into something productive, or save them for when it is appropriate to shift.”
“Do you shift a lot?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I don’t know about ‘a lot,’ but I do intentionally shift sometimes. If I need to clear my head or work out something that’s bothering me. Dad grounded himself under the birches—I ground myself by digging.”
“Digging?”
“As a badger.”
“You like to do that?” I didn’t mean it to sound as incredulous as it did.
Elliot’s lips quirked. “I do,” he said softly. “I like what I am. I like being a badger. It helps me feel like I know myself, being in both bodies.”
I had no idea what that must be like—to be as comfortable as a wolf as I was in human form. And yeah, okay, as Elliot had pointed out, it had only been three months. I’d had thirty years in a human body—Elliot had spent those same years in a shifter body. Of course he was more comfortable in it than I was.
But I also wasn’t sure I wanted to be that comfortable in a shifter’s body.
Was Noah equally comfortable being a wolf as a man? I didn’t actually know the answer, and I found that a little odd. I guess that meant that Noah and I didn’t share as much as I’d thought. I wondered if he thought I wouldn’t care. Or maybe just that I wouldn’t have understood—which I wouldn’t, at least not until three months ago.
“Is that… normal?” I asked Elliot, then.
Elliot shrugged. “What’s normal?” he countered. “I know a handful of other shifters, other than Dad. Some like to shift and run through the woods, some don’t. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to be a shifter, if that’s what you’re asking me.”
I let out a long breath. “So I should meditate?”
“You should do what helps you to focus,” Elliot answered. “Maybe that’s meditating. Maybe it’s yoga or weight lifting or something else.”
“Hiking?” I suggested.
“Hiking we can do,” he replied. “Hot as fuck right now, but we can go tomorrow if you want.”
I gave him a look.
“What?”
“This isn’t hot as fuck,” I told him. It had been in the mid-eighties. Richmond—I’d looked—had hit a hundred and two. “Virginia in the summer is hot as fuck and swampy to boot. This is warm.”
Elliot snorted. “You aren’t recommending your home state,” he told me. “Even if it does have good tomatoes.”
I shrugged. “Is there a park near here? Somewhere with trails?”
Elliot gave me a look I couldn’t quite interpret. “Oh, baby shifter. This house sits on twenty acres, most of it woods. I have my own trails.”
I gaped at him. “You… have your own trails?”
He nodded. “I’ll show you tomorrow.”