17. Elara
Elara
I wait.
I give them every opportunity. A nice long pause, the kind where a normal person says just kidding and everybody laughs and we move on with our lives.
Still nobody answers.
I look at Erik.
Erik looks at the window. The floor. The mug in his hand. At literally anywhere that isn’t my face.
Which is how I know it’s bad. Erik looks at me. It’s the one reliable thing about him — three years of hallway nods and he has never once had trouble finding my face. Now he can’t locate it with a map and a guide.
“Okay,” I say. “Great. Love that. Super normal number. Really cleared things up.”
Erik sets the mug down and drags a hand down his face. “Right. Introductions. Should’ve led with that.”
“You think?”
He points. The one with curly hair, by the window. “Brock.”
The trap has a name now. It sounds way too trustworthy for that look in his eyes.
“Gunnar.”
Trouble lifts his mug an inch. A little toast. Like we’re old friends and he didn’t just watch me nearly combust in my own home.
“Rayner.”
The problem doesn’t say anything. He just keeps looking at me, and I don’t want to feel like his name sounds familiar. So I’m not going to go there right now.
And now they have names.
This is worse. Categories I could manage.
A trap is a thing you avoid. Trouble is a thing you don’t make eye contact with.
A problem is a thing you solve later, or ideally never.
But Brock and Gunnar and Rayner are people, and people you have to be normal around, and these particular people are apparently going to be in my living room for the—
“Where the fuck is Leif?”
Gunnar. Out of nowhere. Already scanning the room like there’s a fourth man folded up behind my bookshelf.
Erik blinks. “Leif?”
“Yeah. Leif.” Gunnar says it slower the second time, like Erik’s the one being weird.
Four.
There were four.
I fucking knew it. Dammit.
His name is Leif, and he was here, and now he isn’t. And I am officially not going crazy. At least about that.
The rest of this hot mess in my living room? Jury is still out.
“He’s probably gathering intel,” Brock says.
He says it way too casually. It’s entirely unhelpful.
“…Gathering what,” I say.
“Intel.”
“On what?”
“New place.” Brock shrugs one shoulder. “New city.”
“New environment,” Erik adds. Like that was the missing piece. Like environment was the word that was finally going to make this land.
Gunnar groans into his coffee. “Of course he is.”
So that’s settled, then. They are a group project. Every single one of them got the assignment sheet and the rubric and the meeting times, and I’m the one who wandered in on presentation day very unprepared.
“What intel,” I try.
“About the area.”
“What about the area?”
“It’s new to us.”
Erik clears his throat.
“It’s late,” he says. “You can all stay at my place.”
And just like that I relax. I was prepared for Erik. The pull-out speaks for itself. I am not, however, prepared for fantasy land all night.
I feel my shoulders actually come down. Across the hall. A whole separate door. Just one. Wonderful. Excellent plan, full marks, finally a man with a functioning—
“Don’t worry, Elara. I’m still staying here.”
The shoulders go right back up and I stare at Erik.
“What?”
“So that’s her name.” Gunnar. Not to me — to Erik, like Erik’s been caught holding evidence. Behind him, the measuring cup pauses halfway up and comes back down.
And — hold on.
That’s her name? They’ve been in my apartment for an hour.
They broke my door. They drank my coffee.
They received individual nicknames. And at no point did anyone ask my name, and at no point did I give it, which means I ran a full interrogation on three strangers and skipped the only part that comes with a handshake.
“Elara,” I say, to the room, pointing at myself. Since apparently we’re doing this by committee. “Hi.”
“Pleasure,” Brock says, warm, like we’re at a dinner party and not standing over the wreckage of my life at the moment.
“And why,” Gunnar says, back on Erik, delighted, sitting forward, “can’t we stay here?”
“Because,” Erik says.
We wait.
That’s it. That’s the sentence. Because. Erik — who has had an answer for everything tonight, who handed out introductions like a man reading names off a bus schedule — has hit the word because and run completely out of road.
I have never once seen him do that. Not that I’ve been around him all that much to know… but still.
Looks like I’m not the only one. Gunnar sees it too. Something lights up behind his eyes, and there’s no way this ends well.
“Noted,” Gunnar says.
“Gunnar.”
“I’m just saying.” He looks around the apartment. His eyes stop on Gerald and keep going. “Seems fine in here. Cozy. Plenty of”—he gestures vaguely at the air—“room.”
“There is not plenty of room. There is a pull-out and a plant.”
“She’s got a blanket fort,” Gunnar corrects Erik. Like I’ve just made his argument for him.
“That’s one person—”
“It’s warm, though.” He’s not even looking at me now. He’s watching Erik. “You’d hate for us to cross a strange new city this late. We’re tired and there’s so many unfamiliar roads.”
“You walked here.”
“Even worse. Picture the walk.”
“Gunnar—”
“Hotels are expensive.”
“Very,” Brock agrees, from my bookshelf, not looking up.
“I said you can go right across the hall.” Erik’s jaw clenches like he’s had this argument before.
“Nonsense. Besides, you said yourself beautiful here needs protection… From an ex, was it?”
Gunnar says it innocently, like he’s making sure he’s got his information right.
There is nothing innocent about that man.
Beautiful. He said beautiful. I’m choosing to believe he meant the apartment.
I watch Erik turn red.
I didn’t even know he could do that.
Gunnar is grinning and I’m not going to have an apartment left at this rate.
“It’s just one night,” I hear myself say.
In their defense.
Out loud.
Because I’m trying to save my things… That’s it.
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. He just got me to do it for him.
Fucker.
Brock, who could help, is admiring my bookshelf. He has one of my books in his hand now. I can’t see which one from here.
Please be Sarah J. Maas.
It’s not going to be Sarah J. Maas.
“Okay. Nope.” Both hands up. I’m out. “You know what? I don’t care. Stay. Go. Do both. Pick one and then do the other one, I genuinely could not care less. Sleep here. Sleep at Erik’s. Sleep upside down off the ceiling like a colony of bats. I’m going to bed.”
It is, I am fairly certain, the only sane decision I have made all night.
I turn for the hall.
“Sweet dreams.”
Rayner.
The first thing he’s said to me. The only thing. All night.
Two words and everything in me stops at once.
Because it isn’t the words. People say the words. It’s that he says them like he knows exactly where I’m going. Like he knows what’s waiting in there. Like he’s already been, going soft at the edges, telling me to stay—
I don’t turn around. If I turn around I have to look at those eyes, and I am not ready. I am nowhere near ready for that.
Behind me it’s so quiet I can’t even hear them breathing. Even Gunnar managed to shut up.
I make myself walk.
I don’t answer him.
I don’t look back.
I close my bedroom door with the extreme care of a person holding herself together with both hands and a roll of tape.
I last about three seconds.
Then I’ve got my phone.
I open Ashley and type—
ASHLEY
The reply is instant. Ashley’s phone is functionally a part of her.
what
THE MEN ARE REAL
what men
THE BOOK MEN. THE ONES FROM THE COVERS. THEY ARE IN MY APARTMENT.
elara have you been drinking again
I HAVE NOT BEEN DRINKING
THERE ARE THREE OF THEM
three of what
I DON’T KNOW
okay that feels important
ONE OF THEM HAS A TONGUE RING
okay now you’re definitely drunk
WHY DOES EVERYONE DECIDE THE TONGUE RING IS THE DRUNK PART
why are you yelling
THEY brOKE MY DOOR
The typing dots appear. Vanish. Appear again.
WHAT
I watch the dots pulse and try to work out how a person types four hundred what into a phone.
Out in the living room I hear them talking low.
It’s about me. I can feel it. I have zero evidence and I can feel it.
I lock the phone and put it face-down on my side table like that will help.
I am not okay.
I can’t go out there.
If I stay in here, I’ll fall asleep.
I yawn.
I am going to need significantly more coffee and possibly a priest.