Chapter Eleven
All of Eliot’s Monday morning so far had been taken up by torturing himself over his relationship with Danny. A lot had happened over the previous forty-eight hours, and he was still unpacking all of it.
Firstly, there was The Kiss. Practical as it had been, Eliot couldn’t help but make it into an important event in his mind. He wasn’t accustomed to kissing just anyone. His choices had either been let Danny’s secret—which he hadn’t been sure of until that moment—get out, or kiss him. It had been a split-second reaction, and he was fairly sure it was the right one.
Which led him to the second point: Danny’s attitude had instantly changed. They’d gone from awkward acquaintances to close friends in the space of a few hours. It made sense—up until that point, neither of them had been sure how far Eliot was willing to go.
Now that Danny knew unequivocally that Eliot was on his side, of course he’d warmed up to him. Danny had more or less said outright that there were very few people he could trust. Clinging to the ones he could only made sense.
The third thing Eliot was struggling with was that Danny had trusted him. He knew all of the relevant secrets now. He was part of a distressingly small inner circle that seemed to include Danny, himself, and Danny’s manager.
That was a lot of responsibility for what had initially been a very vague arrangement.
And then he’d had a really nice, calm morning with Danny afterward, as though they were old friends.
Or lovers.
That was maybe the most confusing thing of all. It was so easy to imagine them together.
A silly crush was one thing, but this was something different. It had been comfortable to curl up next to Danny to sleep, to wake up beside him, to have a peaceful breakfast with him and talk about nothing in particular for hours.
Danny had tried to explain the finer points of hockey, and Eliot had listened without really understanding. Then Eliot had explained some of the finer points of journalism, and Danny had done more or less the same. It had been nice. Simple. Comfortable.
Feelings were awful at the best of times, but not knowing what they were, exactly, was even worse. Eliot definitely feltsomething, but whether it was the simple affection he’d feel toward a friend or something bigger and scarier, he had no idea.
It made focusing on anything else practically impossible.
When Ben messaged him to ask him to come into his office, it was a relief. Even if he was about to be told he’d screwed something up, that was better than agonizing over his weekend.
The moment Eliot poked his head into Ben’s office, the other man straightened up immediately and smiled warmly at him.
“Congratulations on the Harper piece,” he said. “Your head must’ve spun when you saw the online bonus.”
Eliot blushed. His headhadspun, and he was grateful that he’d been given the opportunity. In the year he’d been working at Cocky, he’d never really felt like he had a good read on Ben—he was a man who played his hand close to his chest, so it was hard to tell what his motivations were.
In this case, though, Eliot was willing to believe that Ben wanted to help him.
“It did,” Eliot admitted. “Thank you for trusting me with it.”
“No problem.” Ben clicked on the pen he was holding. “You do good work. I’d like to offer you something else outside of your normal wheelhouse, if you’re up for it?”
Considering the success of the last assignment Ben had offered him, Eliot didn’t have to hesitate this time. “Absolutely.”
“I want a piece about what it’s like moving to LA from an outsider’s perspective. I know, I know, it’s fluff, but it’ll open up opportunities for you to cover culture and stuff. I want to give you opportunities to do less fluff, more stuff that means something. But the fluff is always going to be what pays the bills.”
“I understand,” Eliot said. If he hadn’t been given the other assignment first, he might not have understood, but now he could see what was going on. For whatever reason, Ben genuinely seemed to be trying to help him.
He’d take any help he was being offered. If the last few weeks had taught Eliot anything, it was that everyone needed a little help sometimes.
Ben smiled a gentle, warm smile at him. Eliot had never really thought about it before, but Ben was an attractive man. The kind of older mentor figure he might have fantasized about if he hadn’t been so afraid of him up until now.
“I knew you would,” Ben said. “I want a pitch by the end of the day. We can go over it tomorrow morning.”
Eliot wasn’t used to people taking him seriously, so this was a nice change.
“Sure. I’ll have it to you as soon as possible.”
“Good.” Ben nodded. “Then I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Eliot nodded, making a half-turn to leave before pausing and turning back to Ben. “Thank you,” he said. “For having faith in me. It means a lot.”
“Anytime,” Ben assured him, looking away as a faint blush colored his cheeks.
People didn’t give Ben enough credit. He was a hardass when he needed to be, and a seasoned journalist, but he was perfectly capable of being both supportive and kind of sweet.
Eliot was grateful for the opportunity, and he intended to make the most of it. That had been working out really well for him so far.
