“Who are you, then?”
He smiled at the sunrise but turned to me, finally looking at me without losing the welcoming smile. His eyes had changed; the sadness had dimmed. “A friend.”
“What are you doing on my porch?”
“Trying to help you.”
I wasn’t sure how any of it was supposed to help, and I was growing frustrated. “Well, someone else told me I couldn’t be helped. That there was no hope. So which is it? What’s going on?”
He looked out at the sunrise again, the smile fading slightly. “You’re right. The ending is unavoidable. But other things can be stopped.”
I glanced at my house, pretty sure I knew where he was going with it. “You mean other people can be helped.”
He looked back at me. “Everyone is important when it comes to fate.Your own is set, but it can affect others.”Fucking riddles. They all had them.
“Elijah? Hey! Elijah!” I opened my eyes in my own bed. Mason was hovering over me, shaking me gently.
I rubbed my eyes and looked around. The sun was up and my room was bright, my alarm going off beside me. “You were sleeping through your alarm,” he said. “I didn’t want you to be late.”
I groaned and stretched, grabbing my phone and turning off the alarm. “Yeah, thanks. That’s weird, it usually wakes me right away.” So I’d been dreaming, then. But it had seemed real enough that it unnerved me. I wasn’t sure if any part of it had been real, but if it wasn’t just made up in my mind, what would he have been trying to say? Was he saying that Mason could die trying to save me? Everyone had told me he couldn’t stop my fate, but would his protectiveness cause his own end too? Is that what could be stopped? The thought that his path crossing mineright now could cause his death was too much for me. I could not let him die for me. There was no reason for him to die too, and I wouldn’t allow it.
Mason was looking at me with his brow furrowed. “You okay?” I just nodded. He relaxed and kissed my forehead with a smile. “I’ll go start some breakfast while you get ready, okay?” God, he was spoiling me.
I got up to get my clothes and he headed to the kitchen. On his way out he said, “Weird. The shade is up. It was down last night, wasn’t it?”
I hesitated, but just said, “Yeah, I thought so.” I headed into the bathroom to get ready.
???
Mason drove me to work that day. He said he had to go to his parents’ house, and he wanted to pick me up. The shade in the living room was still up when we left, and Enyo watched us out the window.
Work went by normally. I had to go to the basement, which unnerved me, but there were no electricity issues or my world disappearing around me, so I called it a win, and Mason was waiting for me when I stepped outside in the afternoon. Rory smiled and waved as she got in her car, giving me a wink.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a kiss right in the parking lot like he didn’t care who saw. “I want to take you out tonight, alright?” I just looked at him. I was sure people were already starting to talk, because there was no way no one had noticed, especially with his scene in the police station, but I still wasn’t sure how he felt about being all the way out of the closet. Rory was grinning at us as she pulled away.
I was still a little flustered at the public kiss. “What do you mean?” It was a stupid question, but it came right out of my mouth anyway.
He chuckled. “It’s Friday night. You’re off work tomorrow. I know I’m practically living with you right now because ofeverything, and we’re doing this ass-backwards, but I’d like to take you out on a proper date. Can I take you out?”
“Uh...” I glanced down at my scrubs, covered in god knew what. I was pretty sure I saw a streak of anal gland material, and there was a smudge of earwax on my pocket. Definitely a splatter of blood near my shoulder. “Yeah, sure, okay. Can I go get cleaned up first?”
He grinned and opened the passenger door for me, which felt weird, but I allowed it. “Of course.”
???
Enyo ran to greet me when I walked in the door, rubbing up against my legs. When Mason followed me in, she ran over to him too, as though to her, he belonged here. I really hoped she’d be okay when everything went down. She loved Mason so much, and I could tell he liked her by the way he scratched behind her ears as he shut the door, so maybe he’d take her. Maybe having her there would help him through it all. If he couldn’t take her, I knew Rory would. Enyo would be okay.
I opened a can of cat food and put it down for her, and she abandoned her affection session and ran to eat. I headed to my room to find some clothes so I could take a shower. “What do you want to do?” I called out to him.
He followed me in and started rummaging in his bag. “The only thing there is to do around here, I guess,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s go out to dinner then see a movie and go to the bar.” He put a hand over his mouth with a dramatic gasp. “I heard the movie playing is rated R.”
I laughed, because I’d heard a few complaints about this week’s choice at the single-screen theater downtown as well. But I looked at him. “Really? You’re settling for what the town has to offer at face value? No sense of adventure?”
“Excuse me, I have plenty of adventure in me,” he said indignantly. “Fine. Let’s break into your ex-hookup’s mansion and search for clues. After we’re done, we can raid his fridge andNetflix and chill in one of his guest rooms.” He waggled his eyebrows for effect, eyeing me in challenge.
Fuck every single bit of that.I wasn’t about to have another vengeful asshole watching me in his house like at Brandon’s place. “Dinner and a movie sound pretty good,” I sighed. I found some clothes that looked decent, then turned to him. “Are you sure you want to go out in public, Mason?” There were a few reasons I was uncertain about it. “We don’t have to be so open if you aren’t ready for it, especially here. People are sometimes... not nice about it. I’m good with dinner and a movie right here.” And somechill, of course.
“Fuck all of them,” he said quickly. “I don’t care, Elijah. I told you that. My parents know, and so do my friends, and I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks. And I wouldn’t have cared what they thought either, for that matter.”
