The expression on his face when I opened the door told me he wasn’thappy, exactly, but he also didn’t look angry, which was better than I was expecting.
“Hi,” was all I managed to actually say, since I couldn’t come up with anything either pithy or romantic, and I also didn’t want to make anything worse. I followed that eloquence with a wince at my own inanity.
Elliot frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Fine!” It came out way too forced and cheerful, and I winced again.
Elliot sighed, his expression shifting into something I couldn’t quite read. “Seth, I’m not mad,” he said, which I guess meant that he could readmyface just fine.
“No?” I stepped out of the way to let him come inside.
“Nope,” he replied, pausing just inside the door to kick off his shoes. His lips twisted wryly. “Val says I’m notallowedto be mad at you, anyway.”
“Does that usually stop you?” I asked, still a little wary.
He barked out a laugh as he padded into the kitchen in a thick pair of wool socks the color of lemons so that he could set down the six tote bags of groceries he’d somehow managed to carry all at once. “Of course not,” came his response. “But Ishouldhave told him and was avoiding it.”
I helped him take off his parka, which he’d been wearing unzipped. Underneath, he had on a thick flannel in brown, red, and orange, with a yellow t-shirt underneath that matched his socks. Today’s earrings were beaded—red, yellow, white, and black. I took the coat back out to the rack by the door and hung it up while Elliot began unpacking the groceries.
“You didn’t need to buy this much food,” I told him.
“I wanted to,” came the reply.
“How much do I owe you?”
He paused, then looked over at me, and I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t going to let me pay him back.
“Elliot.”
“Seth,” he replied, going back to unpacking.
I sighed. “I already basically owe you half a year’s salary or something,” I muttered.
“How about a kiss?” he suggested.
I raised my eyebrows. “So you’re saying you want me to be a food whore?”
“Don’t disparage sex work,” he told me, coming over and putting his hands on my hips.
“Just clarifying my role here,” I replied mildly. “But that doesn’t work if Rule One is in play.”
He blinked, frowned, then laughed.You can kiss me any time you want to.The new Rule One. “Okay, fine. How about your first-born, then?”
“I wasn’t planning on personally birthing anything,” I told him.
“And I wasn’t planning on taking up kidnapping,” came the reply as he cozied up closer. I brushed my hands over his hair, held back in a short braid.
“That’s probably good, given the fact that the police are currently paying extra attention to you.”
Elliot grimaced. “He has them patrolling by the house, doesn’t he?”
“Of course he does,” I replied. “He wants to catch this guy.”
Elliot sighed, then leaned out of my hands and into my chest, and I held him against me, his face tucked into the side of my neck. “You know it’s probably more than one, right?”
I echoed his sigh. “Yes.”
“Do you know how many?” he asked me, and his voice was more vulnerable than I’d heard him.
