Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 69836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I wish I knew more about him. It would help me navigate my task of keeping him safe.
Eli passes the empty wooden benches where customers can sit down to eat by the warmth of an outdoor heater and approaches the truck. It’s decorated with festive lights, and every twinkle reminds me that I’m stuck without my last Christmas gift from Sullivan. But I’ll worry about that once Eli is safe.
I stand back, watching him order his food, and then coffee, and the sight of a bank card makes my blood run quicker. He can’t be this ignorant. If he uses that thing, the cops will be here in under five minutes, so I step forward, ready to stop him, but he catches himself on time and stuffs the offending plastic back into his ratty wallet.
With this emergency avoided, I let myself relax, but the single fiver Eli plucks out next won’t be enough to cover his meal. He’s fiddling with the coin purse under the watchful eye of the truck owner, but both he and I already know Eli doesn’t have enough cash on him.
I told myself I wouldn’t interact with him, just protect him from afar like a guardian angel. But now I find myself stepping forward, with my own wallet out. “I’ll also have the signature turkey sandwich, and a coffee,” I say and put a large bill on the money tray. “My treat,” I add when Eli turns his big gray eyes to me. They’re large, with dark rings around the paler iris, and appear almost iridescent in the glow of the twinkling lights. He’s even more handsome from up close and just my type.
“Are you sure?” he asks from behind the scarf he pulled up high to be less recognizable. “Thank you,” he adds without waiting for an answer, because he’s desperate to eat. Obviously.
I smile. “Isn’t Christmas the time for good deeds?”
He looks at his shoes with a frown, probably imagining his own ‘good deed’ from yesterday. What was his grudge against Sullivan? The police haven’t yet leaked much about that. It shouldn’t matter, but the closer I am to him, the more I want to find out, and I already crossed the boundary of talking to him.
Even his voice is pleasant to the ear—much lower than I expected, and it has depth and darkness to it, like strong black coffee. It’s as addictive already.
Eli takes a deep breath. “I suppose it is. I’ve had a… rough day, so thanks for this, really. I don’t usually need help.”
I should let him go. Wait for my food and scurry off to continue watching him from far away, but he glances at me again, curious what I might want, so I clear my throat and shrug. “I want to see you eat. Hope that’s not too strange?”
He might be a killer, but is he strong enough to break the social contract after I bought him food? Does he want to? Reasonably, he’s a fugitive. He should stay away from people. Especially in a situation that will require him to pull down his scarf. So what will it be?
Eli nods as the seller hands him his food and coffee. When he assesses me, does he like what he sees, or does it not matter to him? Am I someone who bought him food, or is he calculating how much bigger than him I am, in case he needs to fight me off? We’re almost the same height, but where I’m a solid wall of muscle under my coat, he’s a twig in broken shoes.
“S-sure. I have some time to kill until my bus,” he eventually says and leads the way to one of the benches under the colorful lights strung above us.
We take the table closest to the portable heater, and I immediately see the warmth it produces is a huge relief to this young man in threadbare clothes.
He leans a bit closer to me. “Is this like… a fetish thing? You can tell me, I don’t judge.”
I’ve only had a pastry and some protein bars since I’ve started following him, so the savoriness of the sandwich is a blessing. “Do you always go with people’s fetishes?” I ask after swallowing the first bite.
He takes a cautious glance around, but then pulls down the scarf to take a bite of his own dinner. His eyes have a sharpness to them, and while his hair is gray, his eyebrows are dark, but his mouth is so pink and sweet I regret he hides it with food so fast.
“Only if they buy me food,” he says playfully, meeting my eyes. Does he notice one of them is barely moving? “Sorry, I didn’t mean that I do fetish things for food. Let’s just rewind all of that, okay?”
He’s eating voraciously, as if he’s been hungry for much longer than the past twenty-four hours, and I sense a pull of sympathy when I watch him fill his cheeks with the food.