“I mean it,” he said. “Thank you for telling me. I’d rather know what’s going on, even if it’s bad news, and this isn’t bad. Okay?”
I nodded, but I still felt like shit.
Elliot fellasleep during the second quarter, and I went into the kitchen to make something sweet to soothe myself. I was still feeling bad about the fact that what had been exciting to me had just caused Elliot more anxiety, even though he’d told me repeatedly that he wanted to know everything I knew about the case, even if it was bad.
Elliot was the better baker, but I would do in a pinch. I mixed together the flour, vegan butter, sugar, some oats, baking powder and soda, raisins, vanilla, an egg. While the oven heated, I mixed it all together, worried about Elliot, worried about what would happen when Noah and Lulu came out for Christmas.
I sighed, scooped the cookie dough onto two sheet pans, and stuck them in the oven before washing up the bowl and measuring cups.
Elliot’s fractured hazel eyes were slitted open when I walked back into the living room, a timer set on my watch.
“Did you make me dessert?” he mumbled.
“Cookies, yeah.”
“Christmas cookies?”
I snorted. “We don’t have Christmas cookie decorations,” I told him. “So no. Just oatmeal raisin.”
“I like oatmeal raisin.”
“Give it ten or so minutes,” I told him.
He held out his good hand, and I walked over and took it with one of mine. He brought my fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “One of the things I love about you is the fact that you tell me what’s going on, you know,” he said, his voice serious and soft.
I felt emotion pushing against the back of my throat. “El?—”
“I mean it. Even when I don’t want to hear it.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
He kissed my fingers again. “Like when you told me you cared about me—and I didn’t want to hear it.”
“Oh,” I said softly.
“When you told me I had to be more careful, after the badger.”
I swallowed, but didn’t know what to say.
“When you told me to not to mix up the foxglove for Lonnie.”
He kissed my fingers again.
“And when you refused to leave me on my own.”
I winced. Because Ihadleft him on his own.
“Not what I meant, Seth,” he chided, although gently. “You stayed with me when I needed you, even though I was being a total dick.”
I shrugged, my neck flushing. “You weren’t being?—”
He interrupted me with a snort. “I absolutely was. One with my head so far up my ass I should have been able to see out my own nostrils.”
I blinked, startled. “That’s a horrifying image,” I told him.
“Seth,” he said, sounding a little stern. “I started falling in love with you when you first smiled at me.” He squeezed my fingers. “I was just being a stupid dickhead who thought he knew better.”
I stared at him. Had he really been falling in love with me the whole time I’d been falling in love with him? “Then why…?”
