Chapter Eight #3
“No!” Alistair waves his hands. “I have a better idea.” He grabs Caolan’s phone and gets off the couch. “Snuggle up, you two. Put that popcorn bucket back in your lap, David. Now smile.” He snaps a few shots. “Okay, now feed Caolan some popcorn. Let’s get a playful romantic vibe.”
“Or I could feed you your teeth,” I suggest. “I know a weave that will yank them right out of your gums.”
“Oooh, touchy,” Noah taunts. “C’mon, David. Alistair’s right. People will love it.”
I glare at him, and he laughs and goes to take the phone from Alistair.
“Who even are you?” Sam asks him. “Since when are you a social media expert? You don’t like people.”
“I like people more when they’re on a screen and not in my face,” Noah replies absently as he flips through the photos.
“Okay, I’ve deleted the crap ones. Pick one you like, Caolan, and we’ll post it.
” They bend their heads together over the phone, Dustin putting in his two cents, while I finish the popcorn and get up to help with the clearing up.
Sure, Alistair said he’d do it, but since he arranged all of this as a favor to me, the least I can do is throw away a few empty pizza boxes.
“What exactly do these hashtags do?” I hear Caolan asking as I come back from the kitchen.
“They help other people find your pictures,” Dustin explains importantly. “See, Noah put #MovieNight and #DateNight. So all the people looking at those hashtags will find your photo.”
“And they are,” Noah says, frowning at the screen. “I guess Rabhya was right about you being popular, because you’re already getting likes and follows.”
“Let me see.” Caolan takes the device. “These people will see my pictures?”
“Yep.”
“How extraordinary!”
“David! David!”
Fuck. I abandon the oatmeal I’m pouring from a sachet into a bowl and race into the bedroom. Has he hurt himself? I didn’t hear a thud or anything.
He’s sitting up in bed, all tousled and sexy, just like I left him, but now there’s an excited grin on his face as he studies his phone.
“Come and see!” he demands. “This photo I posted last night has thousands of likes!”
Thousands? I don’t know much—or anything—about social media, but thousands of likes on a profile that’s less than twelve hours old seems weird.
“The photo of us with the popcorn?” I ask, sitting on the bed beside him. He kisses my bare shoulder.
“No, the one I posted when we got home.” He tips the phone so I can see, and I freeze.
Fuck my life.
I clear my throat. “You posted a picture of me without my shirt on? When did you even take this?” And oh crap, does that first comment really say what I think it says?
“When you were getting ready for bed.” He must pick up on my lack of enthusiasm. “Should I not have?”
“It would have been nice if you’d asked me,” I say honestly.
“I’m not sure I love the idea of thousands of strangers seeing my naked torso.
” The picture shows my body in quarter-profile and my face in profile and has been carefully cropped so not much of the bedroom can be seen.
I figure he took it right after I took my shirt off but before I went to the bathroom and took off my pants.
I take the phone and look at the full post, which includes Caolan’s comment about how beautiful I am and how lucky he is and about a dozen hashtags…
and then more comments than I want to think about.
Some of them are actually nice, saying how sweet his feelings are and how cute we are together.
Some of them… well, let’s just say they’re not sweet.
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I wanted to show everyone how beautiful you are. I should have asked you first. I’ll delete it—Noah showed me how.” He takes the phone back, contrition written all over his face.
“Leave it,” I tell him. “Deleting it now would be pretty pointless. And hey, it got a lot of attention, right? People are finding us. That’s what we wanted.” Although I really have to remind myself why.
Caolan’s frowning, and boy, is he hot when he frowns. All broody-looking. “I don’t like some of these comments,” he says. “This one is very mean. How do I get rid of it?”
I shrug and get off the bed. “You’re asking the wrong person. Noah will know, or Dustin. Do you want oatmeal for breakfast or eggs?”
“Oatmeal,” he says absently, still scowling at the comments. “With fruit and maple syrup, please.” My elf boyfriend has a sweet tooth. “If these people can’t be properly appreciative, I won’t show them any more pictures of you.” He looks up. “But no more with your shirt off, no matter what.”
How could I have ever thought he wasn’t right for me?
“I love you,” I blurt, then slap my hand over my mouth. Fuck. I didn’t plan…
His whole face lights up.
…but I can’t regret it.
Leaping out of bed, phone abandoned, he grabs me in a hug so tight, I can’t breathe. That’s okay. I don’t need to breathe when I can be wrapped up in him.
“I love you,” he declares, pulling back to look at me. “I love you.”
I yank his face down to mine and kiss him. Neither of us has brushed our teeth yet, but I don’t care. Right now, there’s nothing I want more than this kiss, this moment, with him.
Of course, when two mostly naked men in love are kissing, things don’t stay innocent. I’m backing him toward the bed, his hands cupping my ass inside my underwear, when my phone rings.
Caolan groans, and I make a split-second decision.
“Ignore it,” I whisper, and the illicit thrill of ignoring a phone call that might be important shivers through me. Whoever it is can leave a message. Based on how I’m feeling, we’re probably not going to be long anyway.
Caolan kisses me harder, seemingly as turned on as I am by the idea of playing hooky for a few minutes, and the ringing stops.
Then immediately starts again.
This time, I’m the one who groans as I break our kiss. “I’m sorry,” I say. “So, so sorry.”
He drops a kiss on my nose. “It’s probably urgent. You should get it.” He smiles. “We have time.”
It’s a lovely thought that warms my heart as I grab my phone and answer it. My cock, on the other hand, is not impressed.
I keep an eye and an ear on Caolan where Noah’s showing him how to delete comments as I confer with Percy and King Raeulfr.
We’re in Percy’s office, and in just a few moments, the king—with the help of the magic—is going to seal off dimensional travel once and for all.
He looks incredibly haggard. So does Brandt.
I imagine thoughts of today kept them from getting any sleep last night, and I thank all the forces that created the universe for Alistair’s movie night and Rabhya’s social media demands.
Caolan didn’t sleep amazingly, but at least he got some sleep…
and his mind hasn’t been focused solely on what’s about to happen.
“Please forgive me for asking,” I say to the king, “but just so I can officially record it, you’re absolutely certain that nobody opened a portal back to your world since the soldiers returned yesterday?
” He and Caolan explained to me that it would be impossible for that to have happened without his knowledge.
éibhear might have found a way to circumvent the travel ban, but the whole reason King Raeulfr discovered what éibhear was planning for Earth was because he could feel it when the interdimensional portals were opened.
Knowing that most elves didn’t have the knowledge or power to get around the ban, he narrowed down the possible culprit and sent out agents like Caolan to gather intelligence.
“Absolutely certain,” the king affirms. “Nobody has opened an interdimensional portal since the soldiers returned. In the past five days, the only portals opened have been the ones the soldiers used.”
“Thank you.” I nod to Percy. He turns to the king.
“Do you need anything from us? Can we assist you in any way?” he asks solemnly.
The king sighs, his usually ageless face suddenly seeming older.
“I’m not entirely certain. The travel ban itself was a highly complex spell and required a great deal of energy.
To make it permanent and unbreachable by even me will require the aid of the life force.
” He grimaces. “I’ve been somewhat remiss in my duties by not investigating what’s required before this. ”
“Of course you haven’t,” Percy says, the warmth of his personality a soothing balm. “This is a difficult time, and you’ve been busy with so many other duties.”
I step back and leave them to it. Percy will sort this out and let me know if I’m needed.
Someone knocks on the door, causing a momentary surprised silence.
All of us who should be here are here, and enough of the senior staff knows what’s happening this morning that they’d ensure we wouldn’t be disturbed.
I like to think we’ve managed to keep the information from the community at large but highly doubt it.
Waving everyone back to what they’re doing, I head for the door.
I’m the only one who can open it right now anyway, due to the heavy-duty wards I’ve woven.
We didn’t want to chance interruptions at an inopportune moment.
Those same wards are advising me that whoever’s on the other side of the door has good intentions.
Although, if someone with bad intentions had gotten this far into CSG headquarters, I’d expect to have received a warning phone call, for the outer wards to have alerted Percy, and/or for everyone else in the building to be dead.
There’s a cheery thought.
As if reading my mind, Gideon detaches himself from his conversation with Garin and Andrew and joins me on the way to the door.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. He just shrugs.
Overprotective demon. I don’t know how Sam tolerates it.
I unweave a gap in the ward and then flip the lock and open the door. Kirsch, our head of Security, is on the other side, and I don’t like the expression on his face. Without having to confer, Gideon and I slip out and close the office door behind us.