Chapter 32
32
Seth Mays
Be there in fifteen with Culvers.
Elliot Crane
I love you.
I couldn’t help smiling at that.
Elliot had sent me home to shower and get some sleep, since I kept nodding off in the chair they put in his room—once they’d moved him to a real room. It was honestly good that my apartment was only five minutes away—six if I hit all the stoplights. I barely managed to stay awake long enough to take my shoes off before I collapsed on my mattress.
I’d slept until nearly noon, waking up to a text from Elliot saying he’d be able to leave in the afternoon. I’d showered in a rush, then stopped at Culver’s to get him his favorite Culver’s meal—a bacon double cheeseburger, a large cheese curd, and a chocolate fudge concrete shake. I couldn’t eat anything that was even made there, so I’d stopped at a KFC first to get myself four chicken sandwiches and some fries so that I wouldn’t chew off my own arm.
I ate two of the sandwiches in the car before I even got to the hospital.
In my defense, I’d slept through dinner the night before and hadn’t managed dinner the night before that, either.
I parked in the lot, then headed inside, going directly to the elevator that would take me up to the floor where Elliot’s room was, bringing the bags of food with me. I left the shake in the cup-holder on Elliot’s side of the car—it wouldn’t melt outside, and I didn’t want to try to carry too much.
He was dressed when I got there, sitting in a wheelchair, wearing a pair of navy blue sweatpants, a grey t-shirt with a Packers logo, and an unzipped hoodie with the Hands and Paws logo stitched on one side. The most eye-catching part of the outfit was the pair of brand new fuzzy slippers on his feet. They were shaped like paws.
“Where did those come from?” I asked him.
He grinned that lopsided grin I loved so much. “Ma,” he replied. “I told her Taavi would think they were cute.”
“He probably would,” I agreed, unable to decide if they were cute or just ridiculous. “But Hart would hate them.”
Elliot’s grin got wider. “I know.”
I shook my head. They knew each other much better than I knew either of them. I wondered if I’d ever feel like I knew Elliot better than anyone else. He was a deeply private man—I didn’t mind, exactly, but I often wondered what he was thinking or wished he would say more about even the mundanity of his day.
If I meant as much to him as he did to me.
“Did they discharge you already?” I asked him, passing over the Culver’s bag.
He sniffed at it appreciatively. “Not quite. They wouldn’t until you were here to officially take charge of me.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling guilty for having slept so long.
He reached out a hand, and I took it. “Don’t apologize,” he said softly. “They’re waiting on the doctor, anyway.”
I nodded.
Elliot squeezed my hand. “Thank you,” he murmured.
I frowned. “For what?”
“This.”
“Lunch?” I asked, confused.
“That, too.”
I was about to ask another question when a nurse came in, his scrubs a bright pink. “Are you the legendary Seth?” he asked me, his eyes crinkling up over his mask.
I felt my neck flush darker. “I’m not sure how legendary I am,” I mumbled, embarrassed. I didn’t know what Elliot had said—or maybe it was Judy or Marsh. Or Nurse Anna.
This nurse just smiled, then turned to Elliot. “Ready to go?”
“Absolutely,” he replied.
The nurse returned his attention to me, then offered a tablet. My eyes skimmed over the discharge paperwork, finding the line where I agreed to take responsibility for Elliot for the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours and scribbling an awkward signature with my finger.
The nurse—whose name was Jeff—sent me out to get the car, so I moved at a pretty quick pace in order to make sure Elliot wouldn’t have to wait for long under the overhang because it was absolutely freezing outside.
I kept insisting to Elliot that it was inhumane for people to live places where it was regularly below freezing, but he just laughed and teased me for being a Southerner.
I’d been wearing my parka regularly for about a month. Most of the people I worked with had switched over, as well, in the last week or so, but Elliot was still wearing a heavy fleece as his coat, although he had actually gotten his parka out a few days ago and put it on the coat rack by the door.
I blew on my hands as I climbed into the Cruiser, then started it back up. With a sigh for my rapidly cooling lunch, I put the bag in the back, determining that I’d heat it up in the oven when we got back to Elliot’s place, then drove over to the patient pick-up area, glad I hadn’t been inside long enough for the interior of the car to cool down too much.
Fortunately, I beat Elliot and Nurse Jeff to the front—by about a minute and a half—and I’d been able to get myself around to the passenger side to help Elliot in, allowing a clearly-cold Jeff to head back inside.
Elliot had clung to his Culver’s bag, and immediately went back to eating cheese curds the second he was in the seat and I’d closed the door.
I got back inside and turned us toward the exit from the hospital complex.
“Can—” Elliot hesitated.
“Can what?” I asked him.
“Can we go to your apartment, instead of the house? Just for a few days?”
I glanced over in surprise. “Yeah, of course.” I hadn’t cleaned, and wondered how much food I had in the fridge, but I didn’t mind. “You don’t want to go back to the house?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual.
“I just…” He trailed off, then sighed. “I don’t want to have to worry about some asshat leaving me anything. Or running me over. Or doing something worse.”
I didn’t point out the fact that everyone in Shawano knew we were dating, although I didn’t know whether Ronda or Judy Hart was more likely to be the reason that the whole town was aware of our relationship status. I knew they were, though, because people would ask me how Elliot was or mention they hadn’t seen him in a while when I went literally anywhere—work, a hardware store, grocery shopping, the gas station…
I still hadn’t completely adjusted to the fact that the whole town knew my business—not because I cared that they knew I was dating Elliot, but because it reminded me unpleasantly of the tiny town I’d grown up in. One of the best parts about moving to Richmond had been my ability to be anonymous if I wanted to. I’d given that up when I moved to Shawano—but, I reminded myself, it wasn’t the same as the tiny community I’d grown up in outside Swoope, Virginia. Most notably, everyone who had asked about Elliot had seemed genuinely friendly.
“You okay?” Elliot’s voice interrupted my not-so-pleasant thoughts.
“What? Yeah, of course.” I felt my neck heating a little. “Just preoccupied.”
“We don’t have to go to your apartment,” he said softly. “I just?—”
“No, no, that’s fine. I’ll need to grab some groceries, but I think we’d probably need to do that anyway,” I cut him off. “I think I’m just…” I shrugged. “Off.”
I heard the bag rustle as he presumably fished out more curds. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice even softer.
“It’s not your fault, El,” I told him, trying to make my voice convincing. “I haven’t really gotten enough sleep or enough food, and that means I’m just kind of being a bitch.”
He snorted softly. “Whose fault is that?” he asked, and although there was a thread of teasing, I could tell there was also guilt.
“Well, you didn’t set the cabin in Aniwa on fire, so not yours.”
“Just a fire?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Murder-suicide, actually,” I answered. “With the killer probably also being the one who set the fire.”
“Ugh.”
“Pretty much.”
We were silent the last few minutes before I pulled into my parking lot, and then I limped my way around the car to take the Culver’s bag, then help Elliot out. He hesitated, looking up at me, his good hand gripping my forearm. “Seth?—”
I brushed a stray bit of white hair out of his face. “Yeah?”
“I don’t want to die,” he whispered.
I pulled him towards me, pressing a kiss to his forehead, my hand resting on the back of his neck. “Not on my watch,” I whispered into his slightly-too-warm skin. I needed to get some Tylenol into him.
His grip tightened on my arm. “I’m sorry I was stupid,” he said, and his voice was thick.
“We all make mistakes,” I replied, trying to be diplomatic.
“I’d honestly feel better if you yelled at me,” he told me. “Val did.”
I held him a few more moments, his head bowed against my shoulder, my cheek against his hair. “I lack the creativity to add anything to whatever he had to say,” I told Elliot, trying to make my tone light. I was pretty sure that whatever Hart had said, it was both completely accurate and far more effective at producing shame than anything I would ever be able to come up with.
Elliot chuckled softly. “You’re probably right,” he said, his voice low and a little sad. “You’re too nice to say half the shit he said.”
That made me laugh. “Come on. Let’s get you somewhere cozy with some Tylenol.”
“I’d actually really like a shower,” he said hopefully.
“Shower it is, then.”
I should have known better than to agree to a shower—for one thing, keeping him on his feet with the slight fever and a swollen and sprained knee long enough for him to even take his pants off made him break out in a sweat. I’d left him sitting on the toilet seat while I rooted through my meager belongings to find anything that could act as a shower seat, finally giving up before putting a big black garbage bag over the step-stool I used to change light bulbs. It was almost certainly a terrible idea and was definitely not going to be comfortable, but I didn’t think I could both help him wash his hair and hold him upright at the same time.
By the time I got him clean, I was sweating—and so was he—and we were both exhausted. I got him settled on my mattress, propped up by a pile made of every pillow I owned, and then dragged myself into the kitchen to put our food into the oven to re-heat up. I’d put Elliot’s shake in the freezer, and I took that out and brought it to him, along with a spoon.
I leaned heavily on the counter as I made a list of groceries, since while I could make red beans and rice with sweet potatoes and chicken sausage for dinner, since the rice, beans, and potatoes were functionally shelf-stable, and I always had a package or two of sausage in the freezer in case I ended up needing to make dinner for myself. But once I did that, I didn’t really have much of anything else that could be used to make future meals. So I started a list, trying to think of the sorts of things you wanted when you were in pain or didn’t feel well.
Personally, I was a fan of ice cream (cashew milk, of course), chicken fingers, french fries, anything with chocolate and peanut butter (even if it did have to be vegan), and BLTs. If I was really sick, chicken soup was always nice, or tomato if I could have good garlic bread with it.
I went back into the bedroom to ask Elliot what he wanted, but found him asleep. I leaned against the door frame, bone-tired and aching. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to sink down beside him, hold him against me, and let both of us crash into oblivion.
My stomach growled. I also needed to eat. We probably both did. But I was going to let him sleep for at least a couple hours. I picked up the three-quarters of a shake he hadn’t drunk yet and took it into the kitchen, putting it in the freezer. I took my lunch out of the oven, then turned down the heat to keep Elliot’s food warm without completely overcooking it, although there was probably a limit to how long that would work.
I started a pot of coffee, then sat down and ate at the kitchen table, occasionally thinking of something else to add to the grocery list. I wondered if I had the ingredients for any sort of dessert—cookies or brownies or something like that. I tended to crave sugar when I was in pain, so I was going on the assumption that Elliot would, too.
And if he didn’t, then I would eat it, since my knee, my back, and my elbow were all currently sending far more pain signals to my brain than was normal, which meant I was also craving a lot of sugar.
I had a little flour, salt, peanut butter, cocoa powder, and… sweet potatoes.
If you grow up in the South, you can make almost anything out of sweet potatoes. Pie, fries, mash, biscuits, and brownies. The best thing about sweet potato brownies was that the only thing I had to change in the recipe was getting vegan chocolate chips—and one thing that Noah and I always made sure of was that we had chocolate chips in the house. Mine were a little pricier now, since they were vegan, but I did have them.
I began pulling the ingredients out to set them on the counter, but I’d wait until Elliot ate the rest of his lunch before I could roast the sweet potato I needed for the brownies.
As though thinking of him had summoned him, I heard the sound of a limping shuffle behind me, and I turned, suppressing a wince as I twisted my knee.
“What are you doing out of bed?” I asked him.
“Hungry,” he grumbled. “And I smelled coffee.”
“I can bring you the rest of your lunch. And some coffee,” I told him.
But he shook his head, sitting heavily in the other kitchen chair. “Here’s good.”
I took his food out of the oven and set it in front of him, then turned up the temperature. “You need rest, El.”
“I need food,” he retorted. “And you.”
I couldn’t help the slight smile that tugged at my lips. “You have me, whether you stay in bed or not.”
“And food and coffee are in here.” He picked up his burger and bit into it with a soft sound of pleasure.
I poured him a cup of coffee, black, and set it beside him. “You need to take care of yourself,” I chided, gently.
“I am,” he informed me around a mouthful, waving the burger in his good hand. “I’m eating.”
I wanted to touch him, to run my hands through his still-damp hair, to rub his shoulders, to hold him tightly. But I was too afraid of hurting him to try. “Okay,” I said, instead. “What do you want to eat for the next couple days? I can make dinner, but that’s about it. Unless you think you’ll want to go back to the house tomorrow morning.”
“No.” The answer was immediate and emphatic.
“Okay,” I agreed, mildly. “So what would you like?”
He ate a few more bites of his burger, his brow furrowed. “Sweet and sour chicken. Fried rice.”
“Anything that doesn’t come from a Chinese restaurant?” I was suspicious that he was giving me answers that wouldn’t require me to do extra work.
“Ma’s honey mustard chicken,” he said then, looking a little plaintive.
“I’m sure she’ll be happy to make some for you,” I told his back, shooting off a text to Judy Hart.
“That biscuit pie stuff you made once,” he said.
“Seriously?”
He turned, then winced, and I felt bad. “I liked it,” he mumbled, then took another bite of burger.
“Then I’ll make it,” I told him, writing down a variety of vegetables and the baking ingredients I’d need for the biscuit crust.
“Pie and ice cream?”
“Can do.” I added another message to Judy—I knew how much he loved her apple pie. The ice cream I could manage. And the block of cheddar cheese that everyone else would forget that I didn’t just have lying around my fridge, unlike every other kitchen in the state of Wisconsin, apparently.
“Cocoa?” he asked. “It doesn’t have to be whatever crack Taavi makes, either. The regular powdered stuff is good.”
I smiled a little, even though he couldn’t see me. “I can do that, too.” I had vegan hot cocoa, but I knew he liked the regular kind better from the tenseness around his lips every time he had mine. He’d never said a word—he never complained about the dairy-free versions of anything that I inflicted on him—but I could tell. “Anything else?”
He was quiet a moment, chewing the last bite of his burger. “Just you,” he answered.
“You don’t have to request me,” I told him, typing out a couple more things that had occurred to me to add to the list—bread, sandwich fixings, cereal and eggs and bacon.
“Seth?”
I looked up, finding him having turned to look at me, his expression clouded. I immediately put the phone down on the counter, going over to him. He looked up at me, hazel eyes wide and deep with pain and something else I couldn’t identify.
“What is it?” I asked him, reaching out and gently brushing my fingers against an unbruised part of his cheek.
“I—”
I crouched down, one hand on the top of the table, still afraid of hurting him. “Tell me,” I pressed, gently.
“You don’t want to touch me,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I replied, surprised at the intensity in my own voice. “The last thing I ever want is to hurt you.”
“Please,” he whispered, and I pushed myself standing, ignoring the pain in my knee, and gently pulled him against my stomach. His one good arm came around me, the fingers gripping the fabric of my sweatshirt. I ran my fingers gently through his hair, my other hand resting on his less-injured shoulder.
“El, I love you,” I murmured to him. “I just don’t want to make it any worse.”
He tightened his grip. “I don’t want to hate my own house,” he rasped. “I don’t want to be afraid of it.”
“And you won’t have to be,” I told him, hating myself a little because I didn’t fully believe it. “Smith will catch these assholes, and then it’ll be safe.”
“He came to see me,” Elliot mumbled.
“He?” My heart rate jumped.
“Smith.” Of course . I let out a breath, getting myself under control again. “To get my statement. A description of the ATV driver.” A shudder rolled through him, followed by a hiss of pain.
“El—”
“It’s fine,” he said shortly. “I couldn’t tell him anything,” he half-spat. “Other than the fact that the asshole was human-shaped. He had on full gear—mask, goggles, everything. I couldn’t even tell you skin tone.”
“You were run over by an ATV,” I said gently. “He couldn’t really expect you to have gotten good information.”
He sighed, his breath making a warm spot through my shirt against my belly. “I wanted to,” he replied.
I understood that. Wanting to be able to stop the people hunting him. Tormenting him. People who maybe sympathized with the men who had killed his father. Who had tried to kill him. “I know,” I murmured, stroking his hair. “I wish there was more we could do.”
“Stay with me,” he whispered.
“As long as you want.” If that meant moving in with him, then I would. Not because I felt like I had to, but because Elliot was inevitable. A tide that I could either resist or embrace—but it ultimately wouldn’t matter, because it would carry me out either way.
I don’t mean that in a bad way. Elliot wasn’t forcing me into anything. I didn’t feel like I had to behave in a particular way or had to agree with whatever he said, the way I’d felt about doing whatever Devin had wanted. I knew that if I told him I wanted to stay on my own, he’d agree for as long as I needed or wanted. He would be disappointed, but he would respect whatever I needed. I also knew that I would end up in his house, his bed, and his arms no matter what—whether in a day, a month, a year, or a decade.
Elliot was my future. In other circumstances—the kind where people weren’t trying to kill him or terrify him—the realization would have been filled with joy. But it’s hard to celebrate while under the threat of death, and it was hard for me to be excited given the reason I was staying with him—for now. When this passed, there would be time for more.
As far as I was concerned, we had the rest of our lives.