Chapter 10 #4
“The guy who fainted at the sight of his own blood and worries his house will self destruct if he leaves it?” Steven pushed aside books and the computer to sit on the edge of the coffee table.
“He’s in here.” He touched his chest, and even that gesture had Myles’s heart thundering, not like a jackhammer so much as a mustang kicking up a whirlwind of gritty panic in its wake.
He propped both fists on his hips, then scratched at the top of his head, paced across the room and back. “How do you turn him off like that?” he asked finally.
“Myles.” Steven reached for him, but Myles quick-stepped away from the touch. “Hey.” Steven stood, advancing, both hands up.
“Don’t touch.” If he touched, Myles would lose his balance again.
“I’m not going to stop you leaving. Just stay still for one second.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re freaking out, and I can help.”
“I am not freaking out.”
“You are. You expected me to turn into a puddle of goo the minute we connected. How could you know it would go the other way?”
“It’s never gone the other way.” And he hadn’t meant to admit that it had even happened this time, never mind that it had never happened before.
Steven’s smile was all calm, knowing assurance. Still crooked, but oh so gentle. “You know it’s okay that it did.”
“It’s weird.”
“Maybe. Bad weird?” For the first time, Steven looked worried.
“No!”
The momentary pinch left his features, and he smiled broader. “Well, that’s a relief, then. Come here.”
Myles realized he’d backed clear across the room, fetching up against one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf units. “I—”
“Trust me.”
Yeah. And there it was. Myles shook his head. “I barely know you.”
“I know. I’m not talking about life and death here. Just five minutes. Hold my hand.”
Simple enough. That couldn’t hurt. Much. Myles took his hand, because it was ridiculous not to.
Steven’s fingers, long, dry, stronger than they looked, wrapped around Myles’s. “You see?” he asked. “I don’t bite.”
From somewhere, Myles found a scrap of bravado and raised his eyebrows. “Oh no?”
“I mean…” Steven grinned, wicked. Delighted. “Not without asking first.”
“Jesus.” A shudder rattled Myles’s bones.
“Maybe not on a first date,” Steven assured him.
“That what this is?”
“Maybe? Do you want it to be?”
“Do you?”
“If I confess to hoping for a date since I saw you step out of that monstrosity of a car the day you arrived, will you come back for another?”
Myles tilted his head, as if that would give him a better view, more information about the man he couldn’t take his eyes off of or pull away from. “Where did you come from?” he asked again.
Steven shrugged as he stepped closer. “Been here my whole life.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Rising on his toes, Steven pecked his cheek. Safe enough, even if it still caused a mild heart blip on Myles’s part. “Come back tomorrow and we can finish the inventory.”
“Sure.”
“Good.”
“Wait. Did you just recruit me for free labour?”
“I think I did.”
A tight knot released in Myles’s chest, and a chuckle wriggled free. “Okay.”
Steven’s grin radiated triumph. “Okay.” He dropped Myles’s hand and took a generous step back. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Letting me have that.”
“What?” He tried not to imagine Steven was thanking him for turning to, as he’d put it, goo.
Steven just smiled, as though he knew not to put words to it. “Just thank you.”
Myles nodded. “Sure. Okay.”
“Okay.”
“I’m gonna—” He pointed both thumbs over his shoulder at the front foyer.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”
He was on the front porch when Steven called after him. “Bring coffee!”
Myles waved without looking back. If he did, he might puddle in the middle of the street, block traffic, and that wasn’t on. He hurried across and up the steps of the B and B. When he looked back, it was in time to see the porch light blink off.
“Coffee,” he whispered. “See you tomorrow.”
The front door of the Oaks creaked slowly open, an invitation, though no one was there to open it for him.
“Right. You waited up.” He patted the door frame as he walked through, and the invisible bells tinkled softly. He didn’t see the point of arguing with the buildings’ residents that she had her own opinions and acted on them.
Did Steven’s shop have the same quirks? And if so, was Steven right to be worried about it? The place seemed normal to Myles, without the kinetic energy Mildred always exuded even when she was quiet.
Then again, what was normal? Because Natalie’s house had been normal once, too. Then she’d gotten sick, and everything had changed. Not just the fact she’d been gone and her kids had turned sad. The whole house had sunk into a kind of never-ending, oppressive gloom he’d had to escape.
Steven’s shop didn’t have Mildred’s cheerful vibe, or the debilitating sense of doom the house in Calgary had developed. It was like the place had settled into stasis. Neither alive nor—quite—normal. Like it had paused in the middle of an unsettling mood and never roused itself.
Frowning, because his analysis of buildings as though they had feelings was a little out there—and because thinking about the bookshop inevitably brought Steven to mind as well—he dismissed the topic.
Thinking about Steven, even tangentially, would keep him up all night re-examining every detail of their interaction until he’d talked himself out of going back.
And he very much wanted to go back.