“Can you please stop with the ninja-stealth steps? You will give me a heart attack,” he shouted. “Then the Path to Unity won’t have to worry about killing me off.”
“Makes my job easier either way,” Elijah responded as he shrugged his shoulder and sat on the sofa next to Camden. “If you’re bored, why don’t you come downstairs and work out with me?”
“We just had breakfast for dinner,” Camden whined as he plopped his feet on top of the coffee table, cringing from the annoying sound of his own voice. He wasn’t usually this high-maintenance, but even he had his limits. He was going stir-crazy. “Can’t we relax?”
Elijah leaned forward, pushing Camden’s feet off the coffee table as he stood up. “Suit yourself. I’ll be in the basement working off some of the tightness in my leg if you need me.”
Camden watched Elijah amble out of the room with an almost unnoticeable limp, and his inner toddler regretted the tantrum he’d just thrown. Elijah was working through pain to keep his body ready to protect Camden’s life. And while he did that, Camden was behaving like a child who needed to be entertained every second of the day. It was petty and beneath a man of his import.
Camden could hear his mother admonishing him.“Camden Nicholas Warren,”she’d huff.“Where are your manners? We must always be gracious to our hosts.”She’d be disappointed in his behavior, at least until she found out Elijah was a cop from a middle-class family with no legacy that the Warren pedigree would speak of. Then, her tune would probably change. Then she’d curl up her lip the way she did when she encountered something unsavory and say,“Camden, please stop dallying with someone so obviously beneath our station. It reflects poorly on us, dear.”
As did most things that veered from the approved list of things Camden could do with his life as far as it concerned his parents.
Too bored to remain where he was and too frightened to venture beyond Elijah’s home, Camden chose the only option left to him: working out in the basement with Elijah.
Camden expected to see Elijah lifting weights when he reached the bottom of the landing. Instead he found him sitting on the floor, leaning over the leg he’d been favoring upstairs, with his body almost flattened against the length. Camden would’ve stopped to enjoy the picture if he hadn’t seen the wince of pain in the reflective surface of the mirror Elijah was sitting in front of.
“Hey.” Camden spoke carefully as he stepped closer to Elijah’s position inside the room. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I forgot to do my PT stretches for my leg this morning. It gets a little stiff if I don’t stretch at least once a day since….”
“Since the attack?”
Elijah stopped stretching to look at Camden, his face colored with disbelief and a healthy dose of suspicion. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me about something you either shouldn’t care about or shouldn’t have known about since we haven’t spoken in the last five years. You keeping tabs? Or did you dismiss my order to stay off electronics, and google me?”
Camden didn’t answer at first. Instead, he sat down on the floor opposite Elijah, and stretched his legs as far open as he could without dislocating his hips. He motioned for Elijah to do the same. When they each secured their hands to the other’s forearms, Camden leaned back, pulling Elijah into a deep partner stretch for as long as Elijah could tolerate it.
“You gonna answer my question, Counselor?”
“Elijah, I work for the Brooklyn DA’s office. I don’t think it would be that farfetched I’d know about your attack. My office prosecuted the people responsible.”
It was true, Camden’s office had prosecuted and convicted the two lowlives responsible for almost killing Elijah. The case had come across Camden’s desk. But when he recognized the name of the victim, he passed it off to another prosecutor. His father had been furious. It was a high-profile case guaranteed to garner media attention and raise his professional profile, if successfully prosecuted. But Camden knew he was too close to the case. He didn’t want to risk the assailants beating the charge on a technicality. Instead, he flexed his muscles as the executive assistant district attorney and assigned it to one of his subordinates while closely supervising from behind the scenes.
“I was sorry to hear what happened to you, Elijah.”
It was the truth. A milder version of the panic that flooded him upon learning of the attack. He’d even followed Lindsey to the hospital, pretending it was in an official capacity, even when he’d known Lindsey was there as Elijah’s friend.
Camden took a breath, his frustration over his inability to be truthful with Elijah—and himself—weighing against his shoulders and chest. He stood up, walking to the massage table, or the hard slab of elevated wood with a body pillow atop it that doubled as a massage table, and motioned for Elijah to follow him.
“When my mom broke her leg a few years ago, her physical therapist would always rub her down after her workouts. Maybe a massage would help with your stiffness.”
Elijah, still sitting on the floor, turned his head in Camden’s direction, his mouth slightly agape as he prepared to speak.
Camden raised his hand, shaking an accusing finger at Elijah. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Lieutenant. I’m offering a therapeutic massage only.”
“And the other kind isn’t therapeutic?” Elijah’s feigned innocence made Camden’s pulse jump. This lighthearted side to the serious police officer was familiar, drawing Camden in so completely.
Elijah maneuvered himself off of the floor and ambled the few steps to the table. He sat down, lowering himself to the table, never taking his eyes off Camden as he did.
Even in jest, there was something so intense about those deep brown eyes. Then and now, Camden found it impossible to turn away from them whenever Elijah had his gaze leveled at him.
Camden was about to lay his hand flat against Elijah’s clothed thigh, but then he caught what appeared to be apprehension in Elijah’s eyes. “I will not hurt you, Elijah.” The tenderness in his voice surprised Camden. Not one to play nursemaid to anyone, he couldn’t figure out the reason he was being so gentle with the strong man before him.
Maybe it was because he’d been such a jackass upstairs, or maybe it was because he didn’t think it was smart to piss off the person charged with protecting you. Whatever it was, Camden needed to reassure Elijah of his motives.
“You can’t hurt me, Camden,” Elijah whispered before he closed his eyes and settled into Camden’s touch. “You never could.”
Elijah’s Adam’s apple bobbed as the man swallowed, and Camden wondered if it was a sign of nervousness. Was Elijah lying, or was he simply in pain from overworking the muscles in his leg?Why would he lie? What could you have meant to him after one night?
