This makes me laugh softly as I put my own jacket on, following him to the door.“Yeah, it takes a lot more than—”
“Eli!”
Just as I’m opening the door of the bar, a man sitting at one of the close-by booths calls for Elijah, who stops short.
He peers over at the man, and those soft hazel eyes seem to harden.“Hello, do I know you?”
The man smiles, standing to extend a hand to Elijah.
“I’m James Hendrick. I own Tabitha’s Place,” the man says, and Elijah seems to perk up at that.
“Ah! Nice to meet you, sir. Your chicken salad is very good.”
James laughs, waving a dismissive hand. “Oh, please, it’s nothing special. Would you like to sit and have a drink? Bennett is on his way from closing the diner, and he’d love to see you.”
Bennett? As in Bennett from high school? Are he and Elijah friends?
“Sorry,” Elijah starts, dipping his head politely, “but I’m currently on my way out. I’d love to catch up next time!”
James looks over Elijah’s shoulder to where I stand in front of the exit, his eyes narrowing slightly. As they move back to where Elijah stands, he smiles once again.
“Aw, come on! I’m sure your friend doesn’t mind if you meet him later. Bennett will be—”
“I just said,” Elijah interrupts, an edge to his voice that I’ve never heard before. His eyes have lost their warmth, his lips set in a thin line. “That I’m very busy. Next time, though. Good night.”
He turns on his heel then, those dead eyes igniting once again as they fall upon me.
“Everything okay?” I ask him, and he nods vigorously.
“Lead the way, big guy.”
“Big guy?” I laugh, following him into the cold night air. “Is that a jab, Eli?” The light, joking tilt of my tone seems to catch both of us off guard, and as he grins up at me, I can feel a twist of something hot and painful in my heart.
I want to feel it again.
I want to suffocate under it.
“No, no. But you must admit—you are built ridiculously big,” Elijah jokes right back, and his slender fingers wrap themselvesaround my bicep and squeeze. I have no time to think before I’m ripping myself out of his grip.
My skin where he touched feels hot, so fucking lit up. As if he’s burned me. As if that one press of his skin against mine through two layers of fabric was enough to scar me.
And Elijah doesn’t look much better, staring in shock at the palm of his hand. Those wide eyes find mine, and they’re asking me a question I cannot answer.
I have no idea what that was, Eli, I tell him without ever opening my mouth.
I think about this touch the whole twenty minutes it takes to drive to my house. And as I’m hopping out of my truck, watching Elijah shut the door of his car, I decide to shove it away and brush it under the rug. I can’t do anything about it now, and I don’t want to be weird the first time I have a guest other than Marissa at my house.
“Well,” I start awkwardly, unlocking the front door, “come in.”
I’m glad at this moment that I’m an organized guy. That I keep things clean and tidy. Otherwise, I’d be leading this hot Benjamin look-alike into total disaster.
“Thanks.”
I flip the lights on in the living room and the connecting kitchen—the only thing separating the two is an open bar with two stools for when you want to sit and eat somewhere other than on the couch.
The hallway directly ahead of us has the bathroom on the left and my darkroom on the right, with my bedroom at the very end. The back door sits on the far right side of the living room.
The wood accents and simple furnishings really give it a cabin feel, and I pride myself on the hanging frames. All of my own work is hung—different landscapes and animal shots.
