“Not really.”
“What does that mean?”
“At least two, but probably three.”
“Could it be more?”
“It… could.”
His hands tightened on my hips.
“Elliot—”
“It’s okay,” he said stepping back, the smile on his face a little weak. “It’s nothing I didn’t consider.”
It was my turn to frown at him. “What do you mean,nothing you didn’t consider?”
He went back to the groceries, and I felt a little chilled and a lot bereft. “When I moved back here. To Dad’s house. By myself.”
“Elliot, you should have?—”
“What?” he asked me, pausing with a box of Honey-Nut Cheerios in his hand. “Begged the police to protect me? Whenone of the men who tried to fucking kill me was a cop?” His voice rose as he spoke, and the box of Cheerios shook a little in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately, knowing my eyes were wide. I had known that—I’d thought it. But what I hadn’t thought about was the fact that he’d been thinking about this since he’d been attacked. “I—” I swallowed. “Then why did you move here?”
He put the Cheerios into the cabinet. “Was I going to let these fucking assholes take away the house I grew up in?” he asked me. “Let them tell me where I’m allowed to live? What I can do with my life? Fuck that.”
I saw his point, but at the same time—I didn’t know ifIwould be able to make that choice. To live knowing that someone might try to kill me because their friends had failed to do so.
When I looked up from studying the floor, trying to figure out what to say, I found him looking at me, something that might almost have been a smile on his lips.
“What?” I asked.
“You did the same thing, you know,” he said.
I frowned again. “What? No, I didn’t. When did I do anything even remotely like that?”
“When you kept going to work even though you knew someone was trying to infect people with Arcana,” he replied.
“That’s not even remotely the same thing,” I objected.
“No?” He leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “Continuing to live your life in spite of the potential threat against it?”
I gaped at him.
“It’s exactly the same thing.”
“But—”
His expression softened. “And I would have tried to stop you from going if I’d known about it before you got sick,” he said quietly.
“Wait, what?”
He shrugged, his cheeks darkening. “Seth, I… started caring about you a while ago. I just—I’m not a very good friend. Or boyfriend.” He rolled his eyes. “Clearly.”
“El—”
He stepped forward and kissed me. I kissed him back, my hands sliding around his back, pulling him as close as I could get him. Then I broke the kiss, but still held him close. “I’m scared, Elliot,” I whispered.
