“Here,” came Elliot’s voice, and I opened my eyes to find him offering me a mug on a plate, a couple cookies that looked like Oreos next to the mug.
I tried to push myself into more of a sitting position and failed. Elliot set the plate down on the end table, then helped, trying to gently lift me as I pushed. I got far enough that I wasn’t going to choke and gave up.
“That’s fine.” I swallowed around the ache in my throat. “Thanks.”
Elliot’s brow was furrowed, but all he did was hand me the plate and mug.
Except that my hands shook too badly for me to take it.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“I’ve got it,” he told me, then carefully sat next to me. He left the plate on his thigh, and held my hands with his to help me sip at the hot tea.
It was… weird. Spicy, and a little bitter, although it smelled a little like ginger snap cookies. It also tasted like Elliot had tried to put honey in it to cut the bitter. It needed more, not that I was going to complain.
“Here, have some sugar,” he told me, taking the mug back and offering me a cookie.
“I can’t eat Oreos,” I told him. “They process dairy in the same factory.”
“They’re Newman Os,” he replied. “Certified vegan.”
I accepted the cookie, although chewing and swallowing it had just gotten a lot harder around the ball of emotion in the back of my throat. He was right. After the second cookie, the shaking in my hands had calmed a little. I held out a fairly steady hand, and he passed me the tea. I took another sip. It didn’t really improve much the more you drank it.
I knew it was the willow bark that made it so very bitter.
I wondered if adding cinnamon and almond milk would help. Ideally something like cream would help, but plant-based creams tended to get… gloopy in an acidic environment. Salt would also cut bitterness, but the idea of putting salt in tea was disgusting. And there was only so much honey or sugar you could add before that got gross, too.
Or maybe I could stop thinking about it because I didn’t live here and I wasn’t really a part of Elliot’s life any more. I was here because he’d been threatened, and I worked for the Sheriff’s Department. He might trust me more than he did a random cop, but that was it. I was here because I was more trustworthy than someone who might very well harbor anti-shifter beliefs. Someone who might very well be responsible for the dead, skinned badger left outside his garage.
Not because he cared about me.
I was just the best option he had.
21
Elliot Crane
Are you awake?
Seth Mays
Yeah. Why?
Sometime around eleven,I’d managed to get off the couch and make my way to Elliot’s guest room, where he’d already unfolded the futon and put clean sheets on it. My back was gradually getting better, thanks to the heating pad, time, and maybe a little bit Elliot’s tea, although I was retaining skepticism on that one. Maybe I was being stubborn, or maybe I was being a scientist.
Yet despite the easing of the pain, it was still strong enough that it was keeping me from sleep, so I’d been reading on my phone, a spy novel that Noah had recommended because he thought I needed to read less adult content. Not that kind. I like non-fiction—esoteric stuff, like Mary Roach and food histories and books about random weird things like the history of socks. As long as it isn’t about forensic science procedure, it doesn’t feel like work, and I like learning new things, especially if they’rethings I am likely to never, ever need to know. But Noah liked spy novels and thrillers, and he also liked to get them for me, with the theory that we could then talk about them, although we rarely did.
I read a lot at night because I don’t really sleep well anyway, thanks to Lyme disease. So I was still awake when Elliot texted me, presumably from somewhere else in the house. He didn’t answer my question, and I was wondering if maybe he’d sent the message to the wrong person—although that made me feel a little unsettled, which was stupid, since he’d made it very clear that we weren’t dating and we weren’t going to be. I was just here because he might be in danger, and Smith wanted a pair of eyes and ears here to make sure no one broke in or left another skinned animal in his driveway.
Which was the main part of the reason I hadn’t been sleeping very well, in addition to the Lyme and the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the absolute shitshow that was our terrible single date.
A soft knock on my door interrupted my thoughts. I put my phone down and pulled on my glasses. “Come in.”
Elliot opened the door—it was dark, but my eyesight was a lot sharper in low light than it used to be, so I could see that he wasn’t wearing anything—but his expression told me that this wasn’t a sexy visit, not that I’d expected it to be.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, my stomach clenching. There were so many possible answers. Me being here. The dead badger outside. The fact that he was being threatened. The fact that someone might want to murder him—just like his father had killed been last year.
Elliot shook his head, his hair hanging loose around his shoulders.
