Is he more affected than my other matches—maybe because of how long he’s gone without a match, or his deeper sensitivity to the supernatural energies between us?
Some of my own urges are clamoring for me to melt into his arms. As if he’d welcome my embrace.
As if that wouldn’t send this whole situation straight to hell.
I summon the words to outright shout at him—and he heaves himself backward. The sudden distance between us feels like a vacuum.
And maybe not just to me. A trace of bewilderment crosses Cole’s face before he tightens it back into its harsh mask.
“Your family name won’t give you a free pass every time,” he growls, but his voice doesn’t sound quite as steady as before. He whirls with a flap of his suit jacket and stalks away.
I ease off the bookcase, my hands clenched at my sides. My heart is thudding twice as fast.
And part of me is still aching… for him to come back.
Fuck my life—and Other Elodie’s too.
Twenty-Four
Elodie
The men filling the main lounge room of The Eclipse are giving it very bad feng shui. They’re all over the place, sprawled in the seats or sauntering around them.
The dryly confident voices of people who’ve rarely faced a real challenge and their bursts of calculated laughter reverberate through my skull. The clashing notes of a dozen cloying colognes assault my nose.
One of the older men calls to me, snapping his fingers. “Hey, boy! Another old fashioned.”
I dip my head and trot off to the bar. When I deposit the glass on the side table next to him, the patron scowls.
“Pick up the pace next time,” he mutters, as if I had anything to do with the speed of the drink-making, and falls back into his conversation with the gentleman in the next chair over.
May the fair folk curdle his milk and hide all his keys.
At least no one’s taken issue with “Chuck” showing up for work this afternoon. I’m not sure how many more times I can get away with my subterfuge. Eventually Chuck’s boss is going to notice he’s not arriving for his shifts quite the same way he used to.
I’d better make the most of the time I have.
Thank all that’s bright, Grady showed up again with a couple of his classmates—and they’ve stuck to the lounge so far. I was less pleased to see Byron’s imposing presence poised by the dancing flames of the room’s gas fireplace.
The Worth heir hasn’t interacted with Grady other than a brief greeting, but my palm twinges with my awareness of him even when I’m not looking at him. His expression is graver than usual today, his movements tense.
I’m not sure how much anyone else here would notice, but something’s bothering him.
Something that’s absolutely none of my business.
I plant myself near Grady’s group, ears pricked even though they’re only discussing a sports trading thing I can’t fully follow. One of the trio, a guy I don’t remember from my reality who speaks with a French accent softening the edges of his words, asks me to bring him a “Picon bière.”
I have no idea what that is, but thankfully the bartender seems to comprehend the order. I return with the cocktail to find they’ve moved on to discussing possible graduate study options with a couple of recent Luminary grads who’ve joined them.
The bunch of them sound very assured that great opportunities will come their way. None of those opportunities sound like anything my doppelganger might have gotten killed over, so they’re not much help to me.
Maybe it’s my fault for getting bored. Because it feels an awful lot like fate trying to teach me a lesson when, just a few minutes after I start mentally rolling my eyes and wishing thepompous dicks would do more than shoot their mouths off, one of the grad students twitches his fingers in a beckoning gesture to another staff person who was just passing by.
“Hey, you, come settle an argument for me.”
As the employee, a guy who looks to be in his early thirties, comes to a stop with a smile I can tell is forced, I resist the urge to fade into the background. I don’t know what’s about to happen, which means I should pay attention.
“How can I help, sir?” the attendant asks.
