“You ever had a chronic disease?” I asked him.
“No.”
“Then trust me. Either they treat you like a hypochondriac, a mental patient, or you become a case study that they have to figure out, and they forget that you’re actually a person with feelings and nerve endings. The internet at least gives me a bunch of information I can think about, and, then, if there’s anything that can be done for something, decide whether or not to ask an actual doctor about it.”
I decided to try sitting up, and Elliot immediately changed position to help, one strong hand on my back and the other on an elbow. Moving hurt, but not nearly as much as it would have a few minutes ago, so things were looking up.
“Better?” he asked me.
“Getting there,” I replied, then realized that I was buck-ass naked and sitting in his back yard, giving a full view of my junk to his patio door.
Good thing nobody else lived there. And that Elliot didn’t like the idea of having those camera doorbells.
“You should take a hot shower,” he said.
“You telling me I stink?” I asked him, trying for levity.
“No, I’m telling you that a hot shower might help your pain,” he replied. “You smell like outdoors and sweat.”
“So I do stink.”
He made a grunting sound that I recognized as semi-amused. “You do not,” he retorted. “Come on. It’ll make you feel better.”
As usual,Elliot was right that a hot shower did make me feel better—physically, anyway. Emotionally, I was in crisis. Again.
About Elliot. Again.
My current problem was the same problem I’d been wrangling with since literally the first time he’d touched me in a way that was more than just friendly. The same old fucking Rule Two—no emotional entanglements or attachments.
Elliot trying to help me figure my shifter shit out was only going to make an already complicated and messed up situation even more complicated and messed up. Because he was being gentle, and kind, and pushing me when I needed to be pushed,and trying to help take care of me afterwards. And those things were only going to make me fall for him even harder.
And that was a potential problem, because I was already in trouble. More trouble only meant more pain on the other side of things.
I knew this was a bad situation—not because, as Noah had suggested, I was whoring myself out for room and board, but because it was going to hurt like hell when I finally gave up trying to pretend that I wasn’t falling in love with Elliot and just told him.
I was under no illusions that he was going to feel the same way. If I was lucky, he’d be willing to think about it. If I wasn’t, I was going to need somewhere else to sleep.
Which is why it was important that I actually work on the whole job thing—whether or not it was with the Shawano Sheriff’s Department. I didn’t particularly want to pack groceries or sit behind a gas station counter or clean toilets or serve drinks in a bar, but I wasn’t above doing any or all of them if that’s what I needed to do to be able to fend for myself. Or at least offer Elliot rent on the miraculous condition that he actually felt something for me in return.
But I needed that safety net first.
I’d been homeless before—with Noah, admittedly, and only for the few days it took us to make our way to Charlottesville and then to Richmond, where we were given shelter by Hands and Paws—and I didn’t want to go there again. Especially not until I felt like I really had my shifting under control.
Which, I had the feeling, was going to present a new challenge. Judging from the expression on Elliot’s face, he wasn’t going to want me to put myself through the pain of shifting and shifting back again—but the only way I was going to be able to get it under control (and find out whether the painwould work itself out) was by doing it over and over again. Just like anything.
The question was whether or not I felt confident enough to do it by myself without him there. Or whether I’d be able to convince him that it was worth it.
The other question, of course, was whether or not I could get a job at all, much less one that would make me able to rent my own apartment, undoubtedly shitty and small as I was sure it would have to be.
It was a lot.
With a sigh, I reached out and shut off the calming stream of hot water.
No time like the present.
4
Seth Mays
