I frowned down at him. “That makes no sense.”
“Are you sick of me?” he asked.
“Of course not!”
“Then why would I be sick of you?” I stared at him.
“You’re the one who didn’t even want a relationship to begin with,” I pointed out.
“No,” he said gently, his hands working around behind my back. “I’m the one whopretendedhe didn’t want a relationship to begin with.”
I glared at him, although my heart wasn’t in it.
“I am sorry about that,” he said, tilting his head up, lower lip protruding just a little bit. I knew exactly what he was doing—trying to distract me by getting me to kiss him. He knew it would work.
I wasn’t interested in resisting, so I bent and pulled at that pouting lower lip with my teeth, sucking and nipping until I felt Elliot’s fingers tighten against my sides and heard a soft rumble in the back of his throat. I deepened the kiss, chasing his tongue with mine, drawing a deeper moan from him until he pulled away.
“God, fuck, Seth.”
I couldn’t help the soft laugh. “I’m not sure how to interpret that,” I told him.
“Shut up,” came the answer, just before he reached up and took my face in both hands, pulling me back into a searing kiss.I let him, perhaps too far—I put weight on my left leg, then staggered into him.
Elliot’s arms wrapped around me. “Shit—sorry, baby. You okay?”
I grimaced. “Stupid knee.”
“We could take this out of the bathroom,” he suggested.
I sighed. “I—I want you to come back with me,” I whispered. “To the hotel. Back home.” I leaned into his strength, feeling his strong arms wrapping around me.
“Me, too, baby,” he breathed against my cheek. “Me, too.”
Hart and Rajwere somewhere else—Raj’s room, maybe—leaving Sassafras and I alone in our new hotel room. Sassafras was sitting and watching me attempt to do about a dozen different things and fail to do all of them. Watching TV turned into channel surfing for about ten minutes before I shut it off. Trying to go through emails lasted only twice as long before I gave up on that, too. Checking social media bored me in five, and trying to focus on the readings for my CFI—Certified Fire Investigation—training was quite possibly counter-productive.
I sat on the edge of the bed, searching the room for something, anything, to distract myself.
I supposed I could inventory the tools in my grandfather’s tool box. A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to get much more complicated than identifying a hammer or a crowbar. Now I knew a lot more. And it would give me an excuse to send Elliot pictures of tools.
I hobbled over to where the tool box was sitting on the floor and picked it up, then set it down again. It was filthy, which wasn’t surprising given that it had been in storage in a barn fullof goats. I grabbed one of the extra towels from the bathroom, making a mental note to leave a nice tip for the cleaners when I finally managed to check out of this stupid hotel.
That wasn’t fair. The hotel itself wasn’t stupid. I just hated everything associated with this whole shitty trip, including the hotel, the actually-really-good-coffee place, and every single place we’d eaten, even though most of those were good, too.
I set the towel on the bed, then went back and retrieved the tool box, setting it on top of the towel. I opened up the top, starting with the little tray at the top. Awls, chisels, a couple of screwdrivers—both philips and flathead. A rasp, what looked like tin snips.
Underneath, there was a small hacksaw, a hand drill—the kind with a crank handle—and some larger chisels that wouldn’t have fit in the little trays on the top. A hammer, a ball peen hammer, a piece of oil cloth that looked like it had a piece of paper behind or inside it.
A piece of paper that looked a lot newer than the oilcloth or any of the dusty, dirty tools.
I reached into the box and pulled out the folded cloth, unwrapping it to find a folded piece of lined paper, yellow, like the kind you’d pull off a legal pad.
I immediately recognized my mother’s handwriting, my heart in my throat.
What did I want it to say? Did I want it to be a letter telling me she’d always loved me? An apology for what Noah and I had been through? Some sort of explanation about why she’d decided to marry our father and join the Community?
It wasn’t any of those.
Seth,it began.
