Chapter 21
21
Elliot Crane
Are you awake?
Seth Mays
Yeah. Why?
Sometime around eleven, I’d managed to get off the couch and make my way to Elliot’s guest room, where he’d already unfolded the futon and put clean sheets on it. My back was gradually getting better, thanks to the heating pad, time, and maybe a little bit Elliot’s tea, although I was retaining skepticism on that one. Maybe I was being stubborn, or maybe I was being a scientist.
Yet despite the easing of the pain, it was still strong enough that it was keeping me from sleep, so I’d been reading on my phone, a spy novel that Noah had recommended because he thought I needed to read less adult content. Not that kind. I like non-fiction—esoteric stuff, like Mary Roach and food histories and books about random weird things like the history of socks. As long as it isn’t about forensic science procedure, it doesn’t feel like work, and I like learning new things, especially if they’re things I am likely to never, ever need to know. But Noah liked spy novels and thrillers, and he also liked to get them for me, with the theory that we could then talk about them, although we rarely did.
I read a lot at night because I don’t really sleep well anyway, thanks to Lyme disease. So I was still awake when Elliot texted me, presumably from somewhere else in the house. He didn’t answer my question, and I was wondering if maybe he’d sent the message to the wrong person—although that made me feel a little unsettled, which was stupid, since he’d made it very clear that we weren’t dating and we weren’t going to be. I was just here because he might be in danger, and Smith wanted a pair of eyes and ears here to make sure no one broke in or left another skinned animal in his driveway.
Which was the main part of the reason I hadn’t been sleeping very well, in addition to the Lyme and the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the absolute shitshow that was our terrible single date.
A soft knock on my door interrupted my thoughts. I put my phone down and pulled on my glasses. “Come in.”
Elliot opened the door—it was dark, but my eyesight was a lot sharper in low light than it used to be, so I could see that he wasn’t wearing anything—but his expression told me that this wasn’t a sexy visit, not that I’d expected it to be.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, my stomach clenching. There were so many possible answers. Me being here. The dead badger outside. The fact that he was being threatened. The fact that someone might want to murder him—just like his father had killed been last year.
Elliot shook his head, his hair hanging loose around his shoulders.
Whatever it was, I wanted to help, because I still cared about him. And because no one should have to go through what he was going through. I also still felt bad about having taken advantage of his hospitality and essentially coercing him into going out with me. I was pretty sure that he’d only done it because I wanted it. It hadn’t been that he wasn’t ready— it was that he didn’t care about me. At least not that way.
All those reasons, and I still held out an arm to him, setting my phone down on the nightstand. “Come here?” It was both an offer and a question.
What I should do wasn’t going to stop me from making the offer, even if it should have.
Elliot crossed the room in silence, leaving the door open, although it’s not like there was anyone else in the house besides us. He sat on the bed, the weight of his body and emotions pressing on the mattress, drawing me towards him on a downward slope. Inevitable.
Kind of like how it had been inevitable that my heart would be broken. Was broken. It was my own fault for not listening when he’d told me he didn’t want a relationship. For not respecting Rule Two.
I reached out to put my glasses on the small table next to the bed, and I don’t know if Elliot thought I was offering, but he laid down, his back against my side, his head resting on the meaty part of my shoulder. I froze for a second, not sure what to do—what he wanted from me. Whether I should turn into him and wrap him in my arms, or whether I should stay as I was.
I wanted to do what he wanted, what he needed.
I wanted to hold his body against mine. Not in a sexy way—not at that moment, anyway. Just so that he would know I was there. That I would give him what he needed.
That I wouldn’t ask anything more of him than what he was willing to give.
And then he slid his hand out along my extended arm, threading his fingers between mine and pulling all of them into a soft fist.
I took that as an invitation, slowly—in case he resisted me—turning so that my t-shirt-clad chest pressed up against the skin of Elliot’s back, my un-held palm resting on his top shoulder. I felt him suck in a slow breath, then release it, pressing back into my body as he pulled my arm around his chest, drawing me even closer.
I didn’t know what to think—whether this was supposed to mean something or whether this was… I had no clue what this was. Part of me—the masochistic part—wanted this. Wanted to hold him even though I knew this wasn’t what we’d agreed to. It was more intimate. More emotional. More meaningful. This wasn’t what you were supposed to do with the guy you had been just casually having sex with before he broke it off.
This was what you did with someone you cared about.
And I did care about him. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.
What I didn’t know was whether this meant that he also cared about me. Or maybe I was just convenient. I had no idea. And I didn’t know how to ask—although I did know that now was not the time, either way.
My heart wanted to hope. My brain should have known better.
I woke up, groggy, achy, and stiff—and not in a fun way—when Elliot got up, sometime after dawn. I wasn’t coherent enough to say anything to him as he shuffled out of the room, blinking blearily before managing to grab my glasses off the nightstand. By the time I staggered out of the room, leaning heavily on the wall on my way through the door, he’d disappeared, presumably back into his bedroom.
My knee was throbbing, and my back was so stiff I hadn’t actually managed to stand fully upright before I shuffled down the hall toward the kitchen and, hopefully, coffee. I could hear Elliot’s shower running, and I knew he was going to want coffee when he got out. I started the coffee maker, then shoved my clothes from yesterday into the wash, then went to shower myself.
I spent a lot longer in the shower than usual, although that hadn’t been my intention. But once I had hot water beating down on my back, I really couldn’t make myself hurry. So by the time I finished and pulled on the sweatpants and t-shirt Elliot had lent me last night, it had probably been a half hour, maybe longer.
Elliot had put my wet clothes in the dryer and left a mug out beside the coffee pot. I spooned sugar into the mug, added almond milk, then poured in the coffee, letting the hot liquid mix all three together. I’d taken three sips before the caffeine woke me up enough for me to wonder where Elliot was. I listened—I couldn’t hear anything.
He wasn’t stupid enough to have gone outside—was he? I walked down the hallway, checked in the garage, opened the door to the basement.
“Elliot?” I called, looking down the stairs into darkness.
“Right here,” came his reply from behind me.
I turned, a frown on my features.
His nose was red, his cheeks flushed. His hands were dirty, and he held some sort of root.
“You went outside,” I accused. “ Elliot .”
He scowled at me. “It’s my fucking yard,” he snapped back.
“Yeah, well, some asshole skinned a badger in your fucking yard,” I retorted.
“I’d have smelled anyone approaching,” he told me.
“Are you sure? Even upwind?”
That earned me a glare, but I was pretty sure my point had been made.
“That was stupid, Elliot.”
“Am I supposed to stay in the house for the rest of my life? Or only go out when someone can act as my fucking escort?”
“It’s been less than twenty-four hours,” I pointed out. “You could give the police a chance to figure out who did this.”
“And it’s unlikely that they’ll come back within twenty-four hours, especially with all the fucking yellow tape still out there.”
This time he was the one with the valid point.
I was trying to figure out what to say when the timer on the dryer went off. “I need to go pull up the plaster casts,” I told him, turning to reclaim my clothes from the dryer.
He didn’t follow me.
My hands were both numb and yet somehow still painful with cold by the time I managed to get up all the plaster casts—two sets of tire tracks and multiple boot prints. From what I could tell, there were at least three different sets of boots across the dozen or so prints I’d pulled—although I needed to do a better lab analysis to be certain.
Three might be better than a dozen, but it was still three against Elliot’s one, and I didn’t much like those odds. At least Smith had texted me to let me know that he had the highway patrol in place and that the county would be sending someone through the ATV trails at least once or twice a day.
I brought the casts back into the house, carefully packing them in a box I’d kept for that purpose. I’d have to call Henry and the Post Office today to get permission to print their tires, as well. I didn’t think either would match the set in Elliot’s driveway, as the mailbox was down by the road, and Elliot had told us he hadn’t gotten a package. He’d also said he hadn’t seen Henry, either, but it was hypothetically possible that Henry had knocked while Elliot was working, and he hadn’t heard.
As I was packing up, periodically stopping to try to blow feeling back into my hands, Elliot came down the hall with one of the dozen or so canvas tote bags he usually used for groceries.
“Here,” he said.
I frowned at the bag, confused. “What is it?” I asked him.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then shrugged. “More tea. A cream that Henry makes out of frankincense, myrrh, and hot pepper oil.” He paused a moment, then mumbled, “Mittens.”
I stared at him, confused. For a man who essentially wanted nothing to do with me, he was going out of his way to be generous and kind. And yes, I know he didn’t say he wanted nothing to do with me, but he had said he didn’t want a relationship— wasn’t ready for one—with me. Yet here he was giving me tea and capsaicin cream (which is supposed to be good for arthritis) and mittens. I told myself to be polite. “Thank you,” I said, a bit awkwardly.
Elliot nodded. “Are you going?” he asked.
“As soon as I get packed up, yeah.”
He nodded again, his mouth pressed in a line. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Did you—want me to stay?” I asked him, realizing that he might have asked because he didn’t want to be here alone. He’d argued against having police on his property, so Smith had suggested I not tell him about the patrols.
“You have work to do,” came his answer. “I shouldn’t keep you. Thanks for staying.” And then he turned and walked back down the hall.
I took it as the dismissal it clearly was, pulled on my shoes, then put the straps of the tote on my shoulder along with the heavy kit bag, picked up the box full of casts, and left.