“No,” Elethior says.
I blink at him.
“No,” he says again to Arasne. “I don’t need your involvement. I have it handled.”
Arasne’s anger vanishes. She’s suddenly compassionate, saccharinely so, one hand cupping Elethior’s shoulder. “You’re making things unnecessarily difficult. We have an image to maintain, and I’d hate to think what would happen if that image were sullied.”
There’s weight behind those words. Elethior looks sick, but his jaw firms.
“I have it under control,” he says. “I promise.”
Arasne sighs in a way that tells me they’ve had similar conversations before. “I’ll expect a better report at our next meeting.”
She flounces off, a potentor elsevibrating in her wake.
Elethior lets out a slow exhale, his eyes on the space where she’d been standing.
The very last thing I ever want to feel for him ispity.Or worse: empathy.
“So,” I start. “She’s a real treat.”
His eyes flick to mine.
And he laughs.
Well, more likesputters,a strangled snort that gets stuck in his nose.
My brows bend. “How much wine have you had?”
What was a mottled snort is now a full-on chortle and he mumbles, “You made a sex gesture at my cousin,” before he cracks up all over again.
A few people are looking over at us now. More donors we have to mingle with, more committee members we have to impress. And my esteemed lab partner is having a wine-fueled breakdown by the bar.
I put my arm around his shoulders. “Okay, buddy, let’s get some air, yeah?”
Elethior keeps one hand over his mouth but nods.
I weave us through the crowd, avoiding eye contact with everyone we pass so we don’t get pulled into any more sure-to-be-disastrous conversations, and we make it into the foyer unscathed.
The windows on the heavy front doors show that it’s lightly snowing now, and I wrestle my jacket off the coatrack. Elethior doesn’t; he’s in just his suit as he shoves open the door and jogs down the steps. I follow, only realizing once I come to a stop on the bottom stair that I could’venotfollowed him, I could’ve stayed in the warmth of the foyer and let him recover on his own.
Facing the building, and me, he shoves his hands into his pants pockets, tips his head back with his eyes shut, and lets the snowflakes pepper his face.
“I’m not going to apologize for mouthing off to her,” I say, establishing myself in this weird, amorphous pause.
I’m a step above where he’s on the walkway, and it puts meover him when he blinks his eyes open, snowflakes on his dark lashes.
I can feel kisses of cold on my cheeks and ears; I’m getting covered, too.
“I don’t expect you to,” he says.
“Well, good.”
“Good.”
I shiver and tuck my arms around myself and donotsaygoodagain. “Awesome.”
Elethior cracks a smile. It’s unsettling. He’s smiled more because of me tonight than in all our interactions combined, and not in his usual condescending way.
