About the previous medical examiner, and how he’d helped a group of anti-Nid radicals kill shifters, and how some of them were cops. I’d known a lot of this, but not some of the details. And not how long he’d been doing it. Hart told me about what he’d seen and heard as a normie human growing up in Shawano, even though his best friend had been a shifter.
I wasn’t shocked. Maybe a little disappointed, but Shawano was a small town in a mostly-conservative state. I was from one of those. I knew what it was like. And, honestly, what I’d encountered in Shawano had actually seemed pretty tolerant, although I was mostly keeping my status as a shifter to myself. Except for Elliot.
But talking to Hart was actually nice. A lot of it I’d already heard from Elliot, but another perspective was also useful, so I thanked him. “I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” came the typical response. But then things took a bit of a turn. “And… Seth?” Hart never called me Seth. It made me suddenly nervous.
“Yeah?”
“I have a piece of advice.”
“You do?” I don’t think Hart had ever given me advice. Sure, he’d just dropped a lot of information, but none of it had been a recommendation about what to do or not do.
“Yeah. About El.”
Uh oh.
“Look, Hart, I know?—”
“He probably babbled some shit at some point about not wanting a relationship blah blah fucking blah, right?”
“Uh. Yes?” This was weird. Hart and I were not this close. I knew Hart and Elliot were, but I was not included as a part of that. Or maybe now I was? It was weird.
“Let me tell you something about Elliot fucking Crane. He’s a stubborn bastard, he bites when he’s upset, and it’ll take the goddamn Huns to knock down the emotional walls that asshole has built up.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
“He’s had one, I repeat,oneserious romantic relationship, and that ended in a shitstorm so bad we burned everything it touched. I’m not going to give you details, but it’s been one fuckboy after another since. Or none at all, sometimes.”
I swallowed. “O-kay.”
“The point is that the stripey dick doesn’t know what’s good for him—I ought to know, I’m almost as fucking bad—and he’s not going to do anything about the feelings that he clearly has and has buried in a hole somewhere in the goddamn yard.”
“Feelings?” This conversation was just getting weirder, but it was also going in a direction that had my pulse racing for a different reason. Because if Elliot had feelings for me… But I couldn’t let myself hope too much. I was already in for serious heartbreak as it was.
“Yeah, fucking feelings,” Hart repeated, and he sounded about as uncomfortable as I felt. So at least we were in it together. “That shithead cares about you, why, I don’t know—no offense—but the stupider thing is that he’s not going to say anything about it because of where it might land him.”
“Where might it land him?” I asked.
“Somewhere squishy where he might have to admit he’s not as much of a big, tough badger badass as he’d like to think.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help it.
“Laugh all you want, Mays, but do you know what he told me?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“He let you touch his wood, dumbass.”
Okay, that was a fast jump. “Not that it’s any of your business,” I pointed out. I had just been getting used to talking about feelings with Hart, and now he wanted to talk about my sex life? Nope. Just nope.
“Jesus fuck, Mays. Wood. Boards. Pine, oak, whatever fucking tree shat it out doesn’t matter. I don’t ask and I don’t want to know about his dick. Fuck.”
At least Hart sounded about as embarrassed as I was. “Yes, Hart, I helped him get some work done. It was the least I could do.” We were not going to talk about what other kinds of wood I helped with.
“He let you help him build his little outdoor shower thing.”
“Uh… yeah?” That didn’t seem particularly remarkable to me. Elliot had a project, I helped. I was living rent-free in the house, so helping with things like garden boxes and outdoor cedar showers was literally just me not being a total waste of space.
