Page 57 of Fangs with Benefits

‘I met Matt today,’ Elijah says and I think for a moment that I couldn’t have heard him properly.

‘Matt… Lemming?’

‘The one and only.’ My brain is having an impossible time imagining those two together in the same place. ‘I brought Dylan dinner and met Matt in the elevator. Wanted me to tell you hello.’

He doesn’t sound particularly happy about the message, and his eyes watch my face for a reaction. I can’t help my nose from scrunching at Matt talking about me at all. I feel like he should have forfeited the right to consider me ever again when he started fucking his coworker while I was at home waiting for him.

‘Well, if you see him again, I don’t say hi back.’

This makes a smile crack over Elijah’s face, and I wonder just what happened in this meeting. Matty is notoriously charming and pleasant–extremely easy to get along with. And Elijah seems to like everyone, so I’m not sure why he looked so displeased to be speaking his name. Unless Elijah is holding a grudge with me, in solidarity.

I have way too much fun on the ice with him skating in circle after circle, holding hands, or arm in arm, until my feet hurt and my stomach growls.

‘Pizza?’ I ask, though I know he won’t eat it anyway.

‘Would love nothing more than to get you a slice of pizza,’ he says. It feels way too much like a date, but maybe if we never call it that, we can live under the emotional safety net of friends with benefits forever.

I get a cheese slice and a Diet Coke and teach him the differences between Coke, Coke Zero, and Diet Coke. He listens, never appearing bored by the things I tell him.

‘Why not just have the full sugar one?’ he asks after I’ve talked for too long about diet culture and its many woes.

‘Because I’ve now convinced myself that this one tastes better.’ I wave the silver can around. ‘Plus, I have cavity-prone teeth and, unfortunately, you only get the one set of teeth to take you through all of your adult years.’

I finish the slice and soda and let Elijah wrap his scarf around my neck before we go back into the cold night. I wonder if he’ll ask for it back, and hope, like the hat I still have in my apartment, that he won’t. I don’t know why I want to keep it–I have my own things, my own scarves, my own hats. It’s not like I need his, but I have an undeniable urge to keep them.

It’s not normal how much I want to snoop around his closet, his pockets, his desk, picking up his things and pocketing what I like best. It makes me feel like a lunatic, or a kleptomaniac, but only for the belongings of Elijah Thorne. It’s better not to think about it.

As we walk around, I tell him things I think would be important to know if I’d been living under a rock for the last century and, even if they’re things he knows already, he listens intently, asks questions, makes jokes, and this non-date is better than any date I’ve gone on in the last three years.

Again, not that this is a date. It’s research for him, basically charity for me.

‘Here’s one,’ I start. ‘When I was a kid, you told someone you were more than platonically interested in them by saying you like-liked them.’

‘Like-like?’

‘Yes. Emphasis on the first like.’

‘Good to know that human courting rituals have progressed past the need for more than a declaration of like-like,’ he exclaims, making me snort.

Times Square, with all its bright signs and people pressing around us, overwhelms Elijah, I can tell, but he grins and holds my arm tighter as we manoeuvre through the throngs.

‘You like comedy?’ someone asks, and Elijah stops to talk to him, despite me tugging on his arm. Rookie mistake. The man tells Elijah about the comedy shows happening this weekend and Elijah agrees to attend, which is somehow more shocking than him stopping to talk to a stranger in the first place.

‘People usually ignore them,’ I say while we walk away, the show information tucked into Elijah’s pocket.

‘Why? He was perfectly friendly.’

‘There are lots of people asking for things on the street–everyone’s busy,’ I say, though it feels hollow. I’ve gotten really good at disregarding the pang of guilt every time I ignore someone on the street.

‘If you had an eternity of sleepless nights, what would you do with them?’ Elijah asks, answer enough. I blink, startled by the concept, but when he puts it like that, it makes so much sense. I probably would stop in at a random comedy show–it’s not like I’d be running out of time.

My feet ache from the ice skating and walking, but I don’t want to go home yet, so we stop at his favourite bookstore, and the bookseller he told me about is thrilled to see him. Their name is Kai and they ask me if I liked the minotaur book Elijah got me. I tell them I devoured it, which is not a lie–the book was fun and well-written and left me wishing I was still in academia so I’d have reason to write a research paper about monster romance.

Kai tells Elijah that the book of poems he ordered is behind the check-out bar waiting for him when we’re done browsing. It’s another thing I have the urge to steal from him and read under my sheet at night as if it’s forbidden.

I pick a book for him, and let him pick one for me, and he buys them both. Kai loves Elijah and gives him a discount, ostensibly just for existing and for being so friendly and wonderful. It gives me a sick satisfaction to be the one standing next to him, keeper of his secret, wearer of his scarf. It means nothing, though.

Not something to be worried about.