9. Three Different Norths #2
"Client project. Logo redesign for a restaurant in Baton Rouge.
" I closed the laptop, giving him my full attention.
The screen had been open to the same file for twenty minutes anyway; I hadn't been able to focus since I felt him approaching.
"But I suspect you didn't come up here to discuss my freelance work. "
"No." A small smile, barely there but genuine. "Though I'm sure your freelance work is fascinating."
"It's really not."
"I doubt that's true." He shifted, angling his body toward me. In the fading light, his eyes looked silver, that particular shade I'd noticed before when the light hit them just right. "Everything you do is deliberate. Considered. I imagine your designs reflect that."
I felt seen in a way that was almost uncomfortable. Like he'd looked past the surface and found something underneath that I wasn't sure I wanted exposed.
"You've been paying attention."
"I have." No apology, no excuse. Just the simple truth, offered without embellishment. "You're worth paying attention to."
My breath caught. It wasn't a line. Eli didn't deal in lines. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the same calm precision he brought to everything.
"I wanted to ask you something," he said.
"Go ahead."
He was quiet for a moment, choosing his words with the care I was beginning to recognize as fundamental to who he was. The way he weighed each word before speaking, tested it for accuracy, considered how it would land. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost hesitant.
"How are you sleeping?"
The question caught me off guard. I'd expected something about the family, or the town, or any of the mysteries I hadn't solved yet. Not this. Not something so personal, so gentle.
"Why do you ask?"
"Jasper mentioned that something happened. A few days ago." His eyes searched my face, cataloguing details the way I catalogued design elements. "He didn't give specifics. He said that was your story to tell. But he was worried. And when Jasper's worried, it's usually for good reason."
I looked out at the preserve. The trees had gone dark, silhouettes against the deepening blue of the sky.
Spanish moss hung motionless in the still air, gray-green curtains that seemed to absorb sound.
The cicadas were singing now, that particular Louisiana evening chorus that I was learning to recognize, to find comfort in.
I could tell him to mind his own business. I could deflect, change the subject, retreat behind the walls I'd spent years building.
But Eli was looking at me like my answer mattered. Like I mattered. And I was so tired of carrying everything alone.
"Not great," I admitted. "Sleeping, I mean. There's someone. From my past. He keeps finding ways to contact me."
Eli's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture. A stillness that reminded me, suddenly, of Callum. Of energy being held in reserve.
"This is what Jasper was referring to."
"Yes."
"Is he dangerous?"
"I don't know." The honest answer, the one I hated admitting.
"He never hit me. He never technically did anything I could point to and say, that's abuse.
But he made me feel like I was losing my mind.
Like I couldn't trust my own perceptions.
And now..." I swallowed. "Now he won't let go.
And I don't know what he'll do if he finds me. Or if he’s already found me, and he’s just fucking with me. "
Eli was quiet for a long moment. The silence stretched between us, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It felt like he was absorbing what I'd said, turning it over, examining it from all angles before responding.
"You're not losing your mind," he said finally.
"Whatever he made you feel, that was him, not you.
Manipulation is designed to make you doubt yourself.
It's the primary tool of a certain brand of predator.
" His voice was precise, clinical almost, but underneath I heard something fierce.
"The fact that you recognize it now means you're clearer than you think. "
I blinked at him. It was so close to what Jasper had said, but different. More analytical. More precise. Where Jasper had offered warmth and protection, Eli offered clarity. Understanding. A framework for making sense of the senseless.
"How do you know so much about this?"
"I read." A hint of dry humor surfaced in his voice.
"About psychology, among other things. Predatory behavior patterns.
The way certain people operate." He paused, adjusted his glasses in that familiar thinking gesture.
"But also... the family has dealt with problematic individuals before.
People who don't respect boundaries. Who see what they want and try to take it regardless of consent. "
"What happened to them? The problematic individuals?"
His pupils dilated. His jaw tightened slightly. Something that made me think of old stories, of justice served outside courtrooms, of the kind of protection that didn't involve lawyers or police reports or waiting for a system that moved too slowly.
"They stopped being a problem," he said.