Chapter 3
3
Elliot Crane
Get ice cream.
Seth Mays
Any particular flavor?
I will eat anything with chocolate.
The more, the better.
What time will you be back?
A little after noon.
Lunch, then hiking?
Sounds great.
I was doing a grocery run because I wanted to make dinner for Elliot—I needed to demonstrate that I had actual use value while I was working on getting myself a job so that I could get my own place. I hadn’t looked for apartments because I had no budget to speak of, so putting caps on rent was meaningless until I had some sort of income I could budget around.
I was making stroganoff with ground turkey and mushrooms, as those weren’t terribly expensive, assuming I could find vegan sour cream in the grocery store in this tiny-ass town.
I was in luck—not only did the grocery store have plant-based sour cream, but they also had cashew ice cream, so both Elliot and I could have dessert. One of many irritating things about alpha-gal was the fact that if I wanted things like ice cream, I had to spend a lot more money on a little pint than I did one big carton of the regular stuff for Elliot. Same thing with the vegan sour cream.
I also got bread, garlic, and splurged on the not-store-brand olive oil so I could make an olive oil dip for the bread. It was a thing Noah liked to do when he had Lulu over—fancy bread and dipping oil instead of old-school garlic bread. Don’t get me wrong—I love garlic bread. But this stuff was good, too, and it felt like the oil would go better with stroganoff.
I didn’t see Elliot when I got back, so I took the food to the kitchen and unpacked, putting the cold stuff in the freezer and fridge. I took out the various containers of vegan not-M&Ms, mixed nuts, sesame buds, corn nuts, raisins, and dried pineapple, then found a giant bowl and mixed it all together into what my mother had always called “gorp.” She’d never put dried pineapple in it, but I loved the stuff, so I was more than happy to have an excuse to eat some.
I then pulled out the little box of sandwich baggies and made up a good two dozen baggies of the stuff. I knew if I just started eating it, I would probably eat the whole bowl, and I at least wanted it to last a couple days. I have much better self-control when things are already portioned for me. And yes, I know, I’m allowed to eat more now, but this was more about making the gorp last so I could enjoy it, not about me restricting my food intake.
We hadn’t gone out for the hike Elliot had promised me the day before because it had poured all day, so we’d agreed to postpone until today. Elliot had needed to install some cabinets this morning, though, so he was out doing that, and I had gone shopping for sandwiches and dinner food.
Once the gorp was done, I pulled out two baggies and set them aside to go into a backpack that would carry snacks and water, then got to work making sandwiches. Ham and cheese for Elliot with tomato, mustard, and mayo, and turkey, onion, tomato, mustard, and pickles for me. I also pulled out a bag of Fritos and poured them into a bowl. I’d gotten an extra container of vegan sour cream so I could whip up an onion dip with it that I could actually eat.
I was just about done mixing it when I heard the approach of an engine—Elliot’s truck returning, I assumed. My assumption was confirmed when the door opened, and I heard the distinctive slight shuffle of Elliot’s feet on the carpet. He doesn’t really shuffle, not in that lazy or drunken kind of way you might imagine ‘shuffling’ to look like—there’s just a little bit of extra drag when he walks.
You’d never hear it with human ears, but I didn’t have those anymore. I’d noticed it the first time the day before—just a touch of friction between his bare or socked feet on the carpet or the tile. And then I couldn’t unhear it. Not in a bad way—not like when you notice a radio personality sucking in a breath or making those weird dry-wet mouth noises that completely ruins your experience of their show. This didn’t bother me—it was just very distinctively Elliot.
The fact that I was already that aware of his presence should have been a clear indication of just how much trouble I’d landed myself in, but I was still somewhat in denial. I knew I was falling for Elliot Crane, but I hadn’t yet realized just how hard and deep.
But at the moment, I was just enjoying the feeling of easy familiarity. It had taken me about forty-eight hours to feel less awkward—but our heart-to-heart after my freak-out in the kitchen had broken down some of the walls. I was less self-conscious about the fact that, yes, I was a brand-new shifter. Elliot understood, and he was careful around me without treating me like I was broken or made of glass. He seemed to understand when I needed him to be normal and when I needed kid gloves.
He’d been through it himself, of course. And I was willing to bet that I wasn’t the first new shifter he’d known. But even though Noah did this—helping new shifters and homeless shifters—for a living, Elliot seemed to understand what I needed better even than my own twin.
I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that. Or what it meant that some guy I didn’t really know understood me better than the man I’d known for literally every second of my life.
I wondered what that said about me .
I finished mixing the dip and put it on the table next to the Fritos and two plates with sandwiches. “Right on time,” I said out loud.
Elliot gave me one of those lopsided smiles. “Excellent.”
I hadn’t been hiking in a while, and the smells and sounds of the forest made me all but lightheaded, almost giddy. It felt like I could smell the worms in the earth, the grubs in the rotten logs, the unseen roots of mushrooms and moss. The literal salt of the earth, melting with dew and summer rain into the veins of the forest.
I’d already enjoyed the woods. Now I fucking loved it.
It felt like my lungs were clearing, breath by breath, the stagnant air of city and stress being breathed out as I drew in the green and beating life of nature.
God, I’d needed this.
“You’re getting high on the trees, aren’t you?” Elliot sounded amused, and I turned to look at him, my brain lost in the sounds and smells of the woods around us and struggling to put together sense from his words.
Then my neck flushed. “Yeah,” I admitted.
Elliot grinned at me, and I thought that maybe his teeth were a little sharper than they had been a few minutes ago. “It’s one of the best parts,” he said. “About being what we are.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I can see that. Smell it.”
“It’s even better in fur,” he said, hazel eyes glittering.
I felt a surge of adrenaline that was part excitement and part fear. I could control my urge to shift most of the time, but I’d never intentionally shifted from human to wolf. I knew that’s what Elliot was getting at.
“I—” I swallowed, lost in Elliot’s gaze.
“It’s not control until you can go both ways,” he told me softly, his voice so low it almost blended in with the sounds of wind and wild things around us. “You can keep yourself from shifting, but you aren’t controlling it until you can choose.”
I’d never felt like I wanted to shift—like I was about to, yes, but never that I wanted to choose to experience the world as a wolf. Shifting was something that happened to me, not something I did. It was a fugue state, a break from consciousness and control, a black hole I fell into until the part of me that was still human—or human-like—dragged me back out.
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
Elliot nodded. “I know.” Just that. He didn’t try to cajole me or guilt me or convince me in any way. He didn’t tell me not to be afraid, didn’t tell me I didn’t need to be afraid. He just told me that he knew. No judgment. No pity.
Not for a single moment had I ever wanted to shift. But out here, surrounded by the singing, buzzing woods, I wanted to know what it would be like to understand it as a part of it. To let myself feel and smell and hear and taste with the senses of a thing of nature.
Elliot watched me, waiting.
“I—”
I didn’t want to hurt him.
“Trust me, baby shifter, I can handle myself.” He sounded amused.
I drew in a deep breath, then let it out.
“Don’t let me eat a squirrel or something, okay?”
He barked out a laugh at that.
“I’m serious. I eat a squirrel, I go into anaphylaxis, and you’re going to have a hell of a time catching me and giving me an epipen without thumbs,” I grumbled.
“So then don’t eat a fucking squirrel,” he told me.
I shot him an incredulous look.
“Seriously,” he said, his expression suddenly serious. “You need to be able to control your actions in fur. If you can’t stop yourself from eating a squirrel, you also can’t stop yourself from biting somebody who deserves it much more and has pissed you off—but you can’t do that unless your life is literally threatened.”
Despite the best attempts of the Magic-Free Movement and other anti-Arcanid groups, shifters were still allowed to defend themselves against attack or assault—or murder—by shifting and using teeth and claws. But the law was very clear—you had to match force with force, as in any case of assault. You couldn’t beat someone to death with a bat if they groped you, nor could you chew someone to death if they only hit you with a bat. And, in practice, it tended to be the case that juries and district attorneys were much more likely to prosecute a shifter or other Arcanid for excessive force in self-defense than a normie, even when it was justified.
So yeah, I could bite somebody if they were trying to kill me, but if it wasn’t going to end with me being dead, I probably had to keep my fangs and claws to myself. So Elliot wasn’t wrong—but I’d also never shifted of my own free will before, so not eating a squirrel by accident seemed like a big ask. And no squirrel was going to take me to court for wrongful death or unintentional homicide.
I sighed. “This is a bad idea,” I said. “I—I don’t even know how to force a shift?—”
“Jesus fuck, are you telling me you’ve only shifted unintentionally?” Elliot sounded both shocked and angry. And it was also apparent that he and Hart shared a common vocabulary, at least sometimes.
My whole neck turned red, and my skin prickled.
“Don’t you dare,” he snapped at me, which absolutely did not help me keep myself under control. It did make me cringe a little, because Elliot’s rough voice angry was honestly a little scary.
He froze, hazel eyes wide and nostrils flared. When he spoke again, his voice was wound tight, but it was softer than it had been. “Seth, you know I won’t ever intentionally hurt you, right?”
I nodded, although I honestly wasn’t entirely certain of that. I didn’t know him that well, after all.
“Please don’t lie to me.” He sounded frustrated, tense.
I swallowed. “I?—”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he said softly. “I won’t ever hurt you intentionally,” he repeated, “although I will do what I need to do to keep you safe.” And, like when Noah had wrestled with me in wolf form, that might mean I would get a little battered. Better that than I eat somebody. Or even just maul them. Or make myself fatally sick by being dumb enough to eat a squirrel, I guess.
“Okay,” I managed, when it became clear that he expected some sort of response from me.
“It’s really important that you learn to control yourself. To be able to make conscious choices while you’re a wolf, just like you would as a man.”
He wasn’t wrong. I understood this on an intellectual level. But in order to get to that point, I’d have to go through the horrible ordeal of actually shifting.
“You know that, right?”
I nodded.
“So it’s better to practice out here, where you feel less stressed.”
And where I was less likely to maul an innocent bystander or break something. Or myself.
I nodded again.
“I’ll be right here with you.”
He didn’t say he wouldn’t let me do something stupid. He didn’t have to. I understood that a wolf has much longer legs than a goddamn badger, and if I took off, there wasn’t going to be a damn thing Elliot could do to stop me.
“I have my contacts in,” I said, knowing how utterly inane it sounded even as I said it.
Elliot’s dark brows rose. “So?”
“Wolf eyeballs are not the same size as human ones,” I pointed out.
Elliot blinked rapidly. “I—That is not a problem I have,” he said, drawing the words out as he thought through the implications. “Are they the kind you throw out every day?”
“Yeah, but I can’t see shit without them.”
“Can you see as a wolf?” he asked me.
“I don’t know?”
“Well, I promise not to let you break your leg in a hole as long as you don’t run off.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he confirmed. “I will keep you from breaking a leg and eating a squirrel as long as you stay close.”
I gave him an exasperated look.
“Seth, you need to learn how to shift. If for no other reason than if you only ever shift in a panic, you will never, ever learn how to control it. Which means that, sooner or later, you are going to die when someone puts a bullet in you in wolf form. And I am not willing to let that happen.”
I stared at him, shock and horror hitting me hard. Because while, yes, technically, I knew that if a shifter went feral and hurt someone, or even went feral and seemed out of control, the most likely outcome was absolutely getting killed. Put down , as the news would likely say. But somehow my stupid post-Arcana-addled brain hadn’t put that together for me . That I could be shot if I didn’t get my shit under control.
And now all those days of going to work exhausted and emotionally wrung out, stressed to shit and not even remotely physically, mentally, or emotionally prepared for what I’d put myself through… I realized just how fucking stupid that had been. How much danger I’d put not only the people around me, like Quincy, in, but how much danger I’d been in.
It must have shown on my face, because Elliot’s expression softened, and he reached out as though he were going to touch me, although he didn’t, even though I wanted him to. “Oh, baby shifter.”
I felt emotion rising in the back of my throat, threatening my control. On the up side, that probably meant that making myself shift would be easier—since it would be less making and more letting it happen.
I let out a shaky breath. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, no, not really, but you’re right. So… Okay.”
Somehow, he followed what I meant. “Give me the backpack.”
I’d been carrying our snacks and water, insisting on it, in fact. Elliot had let me with a shrug. I passed it over with muscles shaky from nerves.
“Now your clothes,” Elliot instructed, and I gaped at him for a second before flushing as I realized that this wasn’t a weird sort of come-on—while I could shift while wearing clothes, I would probably destroy them in the process and was much more likely to panic if I was trapped by my own stupidity.
Naked—thank God it was at least hot out so I wasn’t cold and utterly embarrassed, although it wasn’t like Elliot hadn’t seen me naked before—I stood there, my feet on a cushion of pine needles, trying to figure out how to make a shift happen.
“Should—do you think I should take my contacts out ?” I asked Elliot, mostly as a way to stall.
“No idea,” came his response. “I don’t wear them. What happens if you don’t?”
I had no clue. I’d been wearing my glasses the day they’d taken me into the hospital, and I’d only shifted without them in. “I don’t know. My contacts could fall out, or they could get stuck behind my eyeballs.”
He made a face. “That sounds unpleasant.”
“Yeah, it is.” I was already pulling out the right one, although once I had, I had no idea what to do with it and stood there stupidly holding it between my fingers. I didn’t want to just drop it on the ground, but it wasn’t like we’d brought a case or saline to store it.
Elliot stepped forward and held out his hand, an odd expression on his face. “What do I do with it?” he asked me, staring at the tiny translucent disc in his palm once I’d placed it there and reached for the other one.
“Trash?” I suggested. We’d brought a little bag for that—I’m a responsible hiker. I make sure that I can always carry out everything I brought in with me. Including, apparently, my own contact lenses.
With both contacts out, everything was fuzzy. I’m not so blind that I couldn’t tell Elliot was Elliot, or that the trees were trees, but the ends of branches blurred into nothingness, and the ground was more uniform in color than I knew the unevenness of the terrain should have been. Great.
Elliot rustled through the backpack a little, then settled, my clothes stuffed into it along with the water and snacks, and my hiking boots and socks sitting beside Elliot’s feet.
“Ready?” he asked me.
He was too blurry for me to be able to read his expression.
“No,” I answered honestly. “But I don’t think that’s a good excuse.”
“It’s not,” he confirmed, then waited.
My heart was pounding in my chest, my palms sweaty, my skin covered in prickles, and my mouth filled with saliva. And yet it didn’t feel like I was about to lose control—it felt like I was on a precipice, but if I wanted to go over the edge, I would have to jump, rather than being in danger of an immanent fall.
But having to jump was terrifying .
I knew Elliot was watching me, but I couldn’t see well enough to tell whether he was waiting patiently or with irritation or worry or some other emotion.
Then I wondered why no one at St. Cyprian’s or even at Hands and Paws had bothered to teach me how to shift. Everyone—from the nurses and doctors at the hospital to the staff and volunteers at Hands and Paws—had talked about how not to shift, but none of them had given any advice for what to do to make it happen.
“How come no one teaches you how to actually shift?” I asked Elliot.
He made a soft grunting sound. “Dad taught me,” he said softly.
“But didn’t you both turn at the same time?” I asked.
“We did,” he confirmed. “But I was eleven and a mess. They kept me out of school for most of a year until I could keep from shifting every time I got upset about anything.” He paused a moment, and I could see his form shrug, although his expression remained a blur. “Val brought my homework, and Mom and Dad watched him like a hawk.” He made a small grunting sound that might have been amused or nostalgic. “I remember Mom dragged him out of the room a few times. Dad stayed to deal with me, of course.”
“Your dad didn’t have the same issues?”
“He was in his late thirties,” Elliot replied. “He had a lot more self-control than a kid on the edge of puberty.”
“That’s fair,” I commented.
“So what’s your excuse?” he asked me, and I could hear the teasing tone in his voice.
“I’m too old for tantrums, so nobody bothered to teach me how to shift into a wolf—only out of one?” I didn’t actually know, so it came out as a question rather than the answer Elliot had asked for.
Elliot sighed. “You’d think somebody would do better,” he grumbled. “No fucking wonder shifters are constantly being harassed and blamed for shit.”
“They’re not any more likely to kill people than anyone else,” I said. Statistically, it was true.
“Once they make it through year two, you’re right,” Elliot countered. “But all predatory Nids are more likely to commit an act of violence in those two years than a non-predatory Nid or Arc. Statistically, though, that violence is most likely to be committed against a friend or member of their family—someone unlikely to report it.”
I blinked, not that it helped to provide any clarity. “Then how do you know that?” I asked.
Another shrug. “The Nation keeps track—we do better providing community support to our shifters and Nids than the US government, and definitely than the state of Wisconsin.” He shifted his weight a little, and I wondered what his facial expression would have showed me. “We don’t have the medical facilities, but we can knock on doors and provide meals for each other.” He sighed. “We also don’t ostracize Nids the way mainstream society does—probably because we have old legends of skinwalkers and other shape-changers. Some people even say that people used to be like this—Arcs and Nids and humans—and that Arcana simply returned us to the way we were in the days of legend.”
“Do you think that’s true?” I asked him, caught up in his words.
“No clue,” came his prompt reply. “But I’m not going to complain about the fact that it meant we had elder shifters providing support—that’s how Dad learned, although I don’t remember anyone other than Dad working with me on shifting.” A pause. “Speaking of which… You’re stalling.”
I felt my throat flush. He wasn’t wrong.
I closed my eyes—not like I could see very well anyway—and drew in a deep breath, tasting the earth and leaves and summer humidity on my tongue and the back of my throat. It was intoxicating.
I wondered if being a wolf would let me taste more …
I wanted to find out.
Saliva flooded my mouth as my jaw started to ache, the joint cracking as it lengthened, pain pushing through the bones of my face, then to my inner ears, then down my spine in a flood of heat and acid. My body curled in on itself as my hips twisted, reshaping themselves to align differently with legs and feet that were shorter and longer in different places. Stabbing pain rushed through my left knee up to my hip, followed closely by worse pain on the left side.
If I’d still been human, I’d have been gasping from it.
As it was, I was panting, my hands now paws and my back legs shaking with it.
But, holy shit , the smell was incredible .
I don’t have synesthesia—a condition where your senses get mixed up and you taste sounds or whatever—but as a wolf, it was like smells had colors and sounds. It was overwhelming, but, weirdly, not in a bad way. But I needed a minute—well, a lot of minutes—to just absorb it all.
I laid down, my legs folding oddly and my head resting on my arms—legs? It was weird. Not bad, just… weird.
It was like adjusting to bright sunlight or sudden darkness—it took me a few minutes to adjust so that I could actually pay attention to the details around me. The feel of pine needles under the pads of my paws, the specific smells of dirt and pine and grass and…
Elliot .
I turned to look at him, then had to look up. That was weird, too. Elliot wasn’t that much shorter than me—maybe three inches or so—but almost everyone is shorter than me. I rarely have to look up at anyone, especially not as far as I currently had to look up to see Elliot’s face.
He was still blurry, for the record. My vision was not noticeably improved by being a wolf. The pine needles between my paws— Jesus, I have paws —were clear, but beyond the distance of a foot and a half or so, things became fuzzy again.
“Seth?”
I snapped my head back up to look at him, his rough voice musically multi-tonal to my canid ears. He took a step towards me, and my tail thumped against the ground, startling me. I hadn’t done that consciously, and I yelped a little.
“It’s okay, baby shifter,” he said, softly, crouching down near me. “You’re okay.”
I was okay.
It was weird, but it was okay. I wasn’t sure how my body worked, what made parts of me—like my tail—move, or how to orient myself in a world where everything was so very much … but I was okay.
My tail thumped the ground a little again, and this time it didn’t scare me because I was more aware of its presence than I had been the first time.
“You with me, baby shifter?” Elliot asked me, and I wanted to let him know that I was—I could hear him and understand him, although I couldn’t say anything, obviously, and I didn’t really want to bark or growl at him. Instead, I moved forward, crawling on my belly through the pine needles until I could touch my nose to one of his jean-clad bent knees.
His face was clearer now, and I watched a grin split his face. “Hey, baby.”
He slowly reached out a hand, and I pushed my nose up into it, smelling the musk and earthy scent of his skin. Dirt and wood and sweat and salt. My tail thumped the pine needles again.
“Hey,” he said again, and slowly moved his hand to rub my head, over my ears, the contact sending little pleasant shivers through me. “You know me, don’t you?”
His tone was… not quite what you’d use with a dog, but not what you’d use with a person, either. More like some combination of the two—I wasn’t sure if I should feel insulted or not, but given that this was the first time I was doing this on purpose instead of in a panic, I probably should give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t know how with it I was.
I wondered if Rule One—the no kissing rule—applied to licking his hand.
I nosed at his fingers again, letting my tongue just stick out enough to taste salt and skin.
Elliot laughed, which I took as permission to actually lick his hand, which he then used to ruffle my ears.
Then he stood. “Okay, baby shifter, let’s see what these new legs of yours can do.”
“Oh, fuck me ,” I snarled, or tried to, curled in around myself as muscles spasmed from the pain stabbing through my joints. My spine, my knees, my hips, my elbows… my joints throbbed, and it left me feeling both nauseous and hollow. That was sadly normal—when the pain got really bad, I’d have flashes of nausea and blackening vision. Usually it passed within a handful of seconds, a minute at most.
That wasn’t happening this time.
I didn’t know how long it took for the pain to dissipate, but it was definitely longer than a few minutes. It probably wasn’t an hour, but pain does funny things to your perception of time.
“Seth?” Elliot sounded worried. And close.
I groaned, then forced my eyes to open.
It was extremely bright. I shut my eyes again with a moan.
“Seth? Look at me, please.”
I obeyed, blinking until I could see his face, only about a foot above mine. It was then that I realized my head was on his thigh. I tried to say “hi,” but only managed some sort of whine-grunt.
A thumb pulled at one of my eyelids. I weakly batted at Elliot’s arm, making a noise of protest.
“I’m trying to see if your pupils still contract, hold still,” he told me.
I wanted to protest that I didn’t have a concussion—and hadn’t hit my head—so there was no point, but that many words were a bit beyond my capacity. I also didn’t know that I hadn’t hit my head mid-shift. I certainly hadn’t beforehand, but even though I could remember what I’d done as a wolf, I didn’t really remember much from the start of my shift back to the end of it… other than the pain. It’s entirely possible that I’d hit my head, although I didn’t feel any tenderness or have a headache.
I heard Elliot let out a breath that might have been relieved, or might just have been exasperation, I wasn’t sure.
“It really shouldn’t hurt as much as it looks like it hurts,” he told me softly.
I looked up at him, at the frown on his features made by worry. I grunted, swallowed, then tried speaking again. “S’ry.”
Elliot snorted. “I don’t know why you’re apologizing,” he murmured. “I’m the one who insisted you shift.”
“Was a good idea,” I mumbled.
“Was it?” Elliot asked me, although the furrows on his brow had smoothed out a little now that I was talking to him. I still didn’t want to move much, though. Moving hurt. Not moving also hurt, but it hurt less.
“Should be able to,” I replied. “In case.”
He let out a sigh. “But it shouldn’t hurt you like this,” he fretted.
I thought about shrugging, then didn’t. “Lotsa things hurt me that shouldn’t,” I replied.
The frown increased again. “What do—because of the tick thing?”
“Lyme, yeah.”
“The other tick thing,” he clarified. “Not the food thing.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ask the doctors if that was why shifting hurts you?” he asked me.
Some of the spasming was dissipating, so I risked a shrug. “Not much point,” I replied.
“Seth.”
I sighed. “They can’t do anything about it anyway,” I grumbled. “Why make them want to poke me even more?”
“You don’t know that they can’t do anything,” he argued.
“They can’t do anything about the Lyme,” I retorted. “So why would this be any different? Especially if it’s because of the Lyme.”
He let out a huff. “What if it’s something else?”
“I’ve looked it up on the internet. The answer seems to be either tough shit or it will go away .”
“You know you shouldn’t rely on the internet to provide medical diagnoses or information, right?”
“Just as reliable as actual medical professionals,” I retorted.
Elliot signed again. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“You ever had a chronic disease?” I asked him.
“No.”
“Then trust me. Either they treat you like a hypochondriac, a mental patient, or you become a case study that they have to figure out, and they forget that you’re actually a person with feelings and nerve endings. The internet at least gives me a bunch of information I can think about, and, then, if there’s anything that can be done for something, decide whether or not to ask an actual doctor about it.”
I decided to try sitting up, and Elliot immediately changed position to help, one strong hand on my back and the other on an elbow. Moving hurt, but not nearly as much as it would have a few minutes ago, so things were looking up.
“Better?” he asked me.
“Getting there,” I replied, then realized that I was buck-ass naked and sitting in his back yard, giving a full view of my junk to his patio door.
Good thing nobody else lived there. And that Elliot didn’t like the idea of having those camera doorbells.
“You should take a hot shower,” he said.
“You telling me I stink?” I asked him, trying for levity.
“No, I’m telling you that a hot shower might help your pain,” he replied. “You smell like outdoors and sweat.”
“So I do stink.”
He made a grunting sound that I recognized as semi-amused. “You do not,” he retorted. “Come on. It’ll make you feel better.”
As usual, Elliot was right that a hot shower did make me feel better—physically, anyway. Emotionally, I was in crisis. Again.
About Elliot. Again.
My current problem was the same problem I’d been wrangling with since literally the first time he’d touched me in a way that was more than just friendly. The same old fucking Rule Two—no emotional entanglements or attachments.
Elliot trying to help me figure my shifter shit out was only going to make an already complicated and messed up situation even more complicated and messed up. Because he was being gentle, and kind, and pushing me when I needed to be pushed, and trying to help take care of me afterwards. And those things were only going to make me fall for him even harder.
And that was a potential problem, because I was already in trouble. More trouble only meant more pain on the other side of things.
I knew this was a bad situation—not because, as Noah had suggested, I was whoring myself out for room and board, but because it was going to hurt like hell when I finally gave up trying to pretend that I wasn’t falling in love with Elliot and just told him.
I was under no illusions that he was going to feel the same way. If I was lucky, he’d be willing to think about it. If I wasn’t, I was going to need somewhere else to sleep.
Which is why it was important that I actually work on the whole job thing—whether or not it was with the Shawano Sheriff’s Department. I didn’t particularly want to pack groceries or sit behind a gas station counter or clean toilets or serve drinks in a bar, but I wasn’t above doing any or all of them if that’s what I needed to do to be able to fend for myself. Or at least offer Elliot rent on the miraculous condition that he actually felt something for me in return.
But I needed that safety net first.
I’d been homeless before—with Noah, admittedly, and only for the few days it took us to make our way to Charlottesville and then to Richmond, where we were given shelter by Hands and Paws—and I didn’t want to go there again. Especially not until I felt like I really had my shifting under control.
Which, I had the feeling, was going to present a new challenge. Judging from the expression on Elliot’s face, he wasn’t going to want me to put myself through the pain of shifting and shifting back again—but the only way I was going to be able to get it under control (and find out whether the pain would work itself out) was by doing it over and over again. Just like anything.
The question was whether or not I felt confident enough to do it by myself without him there. Or whether I’d be able to convince him that it was worth it.
The other question, of course, was whether or not I could get a job at all, much less one that would make me able to rent my own apartment, undoubtedly shitty and small as I was sure it would have to be.
It was a lot.
With a sigh, I reached out and shut off the calming stream of hot water.
No time like the present.