Chapter 27
“Why?” Elliot asked after a few moments of silence. “Why did he do it?”
The question had bothered him all day. Why would a seemingly normal kid with well-off parents do something like that?
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any answers for you.”
Mick kissed his neck and slid one knee between Elliot’s thighs, tangling their legs together. For the first time since he’d laid eyes on the orange box cutter that ordinarily looked so harmless, Elliot felt calm and safe.
After a few minutes, his eyelids grew heavy, and his thoughts started drifting. He wiggled closer to his lover and let his mind float, wanting sleep to carry him away. Mick’s breath evened out, and he sighed, happy to be snuggled up in the safety of his partner’s arms.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when he was woken up by squealing tires. Metal crashed into something on the street, and a car horn honked continuously. He jerked up into a sitting position with his hand pressed against his pounding heart and his eyes wide open. Screaming wafted in through the window, and it didn’t take long for sirens to approach.
“Shhh, lie down. It was an accident. It’s the snow,” Mick mumbled, still half asleep despite the chaos outside. He tightened his grip on Elliot’s waist and pulled Elliot back down under the blanket.
Elliot listened as several emergency vehicles arrived on the scene, and he wondered if the drivers were all right. Every year, he was dumbfounded by the drivers skidding around on the icy streets, totally unprepared for winter. Why didn’t they ever learn?
He lay awake long after the rescue vehicles had sped away from the scene, unable to go back to sleep or quiet his mind.
It was always so noisy in the city. When he’d moved here ten years ago, he’d loved the sounds and the buzz, felt energized by it, but with time, the infatuation had passed. These days, he longed for stillness, open skies, and an environment where children didn’t bring knives to school.
Maybe it was the chaotic day talking, but he’d thought it for a while now. He yearned to get out, desperate to go back home. And that had nothing to do with what had happened today.
He turned carefully in Mick’s arms, buried his face in his lover’s neck, and inhaled Mick’s scent. Mick hummed in his sleep, and the sound of contentment hit Elliot right in his heart.
Mick loved the fast-paced city life and his job at a prestigious law firm. He would never be happy two thousand miles away in a mountain town with a population of seven thousand. And Elliot had believed for a long time now that he’d never be happy anywhere else. His chest ached with a longing for a quieter life, and if it hadn’t been for Mick, he would probably have gone back a long time ago.
Elliot bit back a sob. It felt like an impossible decision, but he knew in his heart what he had to do.
The question was: how would he ever be able to leave Mick? 3: February
It was still pitch black outside when Elliot woke up. His face was stiff from the cold, and, for a second, he feared he might have ice in his beard. He pulled the covers over his head and rubbed his palms against his cheeks to warm them up. When his entire head started to tingle and he felt like he would choke from oxygen deprivation from being under the blanket for so long, he took a deep breath, flung it off, and jumped out of bed, careful to hunch over so he wouldn’t hit his head on the sloping ceiling.
“Holy shit,” he muttered when his naked feet touched the freezing floor.
The chill penetrated his soles and crept up his calves as he crossed the floor to the woven basket in the corner where he kept warm clothes. He pulled on two pairs of thick, fuzzy socks, snatched the hoodie, and yanked it on as he ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time.
“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered when he saw that the fire in the woodstove, as suspected, had gone out.
He must have slept through the alarm he’d programmed into his phone for when he was supposed to get up and put more wood in the fire. He shivered. It was even colder downstairs than in the loft. He pulled the hood over his head and drew the strings tight, leaving only his nose and beard uncovered. It was so frigid, he could even see his own breath.
“Shit, that can’t be good.”
He groaned and kneeled in front of the stove. He flung open the door, grabbed the fire poker, and stirred the ashes.