“Sethy, what have you been doing? I haven’t heard from you in a week!”
I sighed. “It’s… been a lot, Nono.”
“Did you and Elliot have a fight?” Of course I’d told my brother about Elliot and the fact that we were in fact now in a relationship. I may have skipped over the disastrous date we went on back in September. That had just been too humiliating, even to share with Noah.
“No.” I sighed. “He just had surgery.”
“Oh, shit,” Noah breathed. “What for?”
“He was hit in badger form by an ATV.”
“He waswhat?!”
I sighed heavily. I hadn’t wanted to get into the literally gory details about what had been happening. I’d told him that Elliot was being harassed—I hadn’t mentioned thatharassedmeanthas had skinned dead animals left on his doorstep. But that now seemed more necessary to explain the escalation to opportunistic attempted homicide.
I’d expected pouting and horror, but Noah wasfurious.
“Seth Ezekiel Mays, what thefuckwere you thinking?!”
“What do you mean, what wasIthinking? I’m not the one doing it!”
“You’re staying with a man who is being threatened withdead animals?”
“Yes, Noah. Because I don’t want him todie.” Now I was getting annoyed.
“Seth, if they try to kill him, they could killyou.”
I involuntarily let out a low growl. “So you think I should just let them do it?”
“No, of course not. But why does it have to be you? A cop should be the one staying with him!”
“Except a cop was one of the men who killed his father last year!”
Noah sucked in a sharp breath, but said nothing.
“So, no, he doesn’t want cops anywhere near his property, and I’m not leaving him alone.”
“I…” He sighed. “I don’t want to worry about you, Sethy.”
It was my turn to sigh. “Yeah, well, I’d really rather not have to worry about me, either, but here we are.”
Noah was quiet again. “Does this mean you’re not coming back for Christmas?” His voice was plaintive.
The question hit me right in the gut. I’d barely even thought about Christmas, and, given that it was a week away, there was essentially no chance I was going to do so now. So now in addition to being a little annoyed about Noah being mad at me, I now felt guilty for not thinking about the fact that he’d want to spend Christmas together.Andnow that he’d reminded me, Ialsofelt bad about the fact that I wanted to spend Christmas with my twin, who was halfway across the country.
“I—I can’t leave him, Noah,” I half-whispered. “Not now.” It was probably only partially true—I probablycould. If I told Judy and Marsh that I was worried, they would absolutely bully Elliot into staying with them, he would have his almost-family for the holidays, and I could go back to see Noah.
I tried to do the math on how many days I could take off work on top of what I’d already requested to take care of Elliot. It would take me two to drive back to Richmond, another two to get back to Shawano… because I couldn’t afford what it would cost to get a ticket back this close to the actual holiday.
“Iwantto spend the holiday with you, Nono,” I said, needing to convince him. “But I don’t know if Ican. It’s at least five or six days off, and I don’t know if I can take that much—I can ask—but?—”
“You don’t want to come back,” he accused, hurt.
“Ido,” I insisted. “I just—” Then something occurred to me. “You could comehere,” I countered. “You and Lulu.”
I heard Noah suck in a breath. “Come there?” he repeated.
“You want a traditional Christmas? Snow? Cold? We have that here.” In fact, it was supposed to snow again tomorrow. Now that I’d brought up the idea, I really wanted it to happen.
