Eli trembled. Could he? Images battered at Eli, wanting to be let in, but the first thing he missed as usual was how she smelled to him. “She used to have this perfume. It was cheap, from the market, and on its own it was crap, but…but it always smelled different when it was on her.”
Connie smiled and nodded, and still didn’t let him go.
“And she liked daisies and buttercups. I couldn’t find her daisies, but I could the others.” And she had nearly always had a jar of the wild yellow flowers on the windowsill above the sink. “She used to like the stars,” Eli said in almost wonder. He’d forgotten that. Sometimes they’d turn off all the lights in the apartment and open all the blinds so the stars could shine in. And sometimes he’d crept into his mom’s bed and snuggled, and she would wake up and tell him stories about astronauts and far-off planets and distant, amazing worlds.
And then one morning he’d waited for ages for her to wake, but she never had.
“And you have no other family, sweetheart?”
Eli shook his head and scrubbed his face.
“Well, that’s okay, because you have ours now. You can be one of my boys for as long as you need me.” And Eli let her rock him some more.
Eli looked up at the knock on the bedroom door just after Connie had left after being made to promise he would come for supper tomorrow. He stood quickly, not wanting Daniel to see his face, even though he’d probably heard them, or Connie had said something.
“I made breakfast.”
Eli glanced at him, startled. That was his job. “Sorry.”
Daniel smiled. “No worries. It’s just bacon. I once did eggs, but Eric said if I ever did them again, he would hide my bike, so I gave it up.”
The short laugh from Eli made him jump. “Bacon is always good.” Eli followed him into the kitchen and paused at the small bottle of orange juice next to his plate. For a second he struggled with a really tight throat, but managed to whisper, “Thanks.”
Daniel glanced over. “Mom picked them up for me. I knew she was coming over, just not this early, but she’s got a mom meeting this morning.”
Eli looked up and the puzzlement must have been on his face because Daniel explained. “Mom and Dad officially retired as foster parents three years ago before she took Liam.” Eli nodded. He knew that. Liam was the enhanced teenager who was thriving with her. Apparently, he was clever, to say nothing of his ability to see through things. Sawyer had even told him he’d been able to tell when Talon had lied to him, because he could see his brain color change or some weird shit. It sounded gross to him, but Sawyer had said it wasn’t like some technicolor in-your-face stuff, more shades of gray. “But she’s formed this enhanced parent support group, and they meet once a month, and she just dropped Liam off at school.”
He was glad Liam was with Connie and the lieutenant. “What’s your dad’s name?” Eli cringed because he couldn’t believe he had said that thought out loud. It was like he didn’t have a filter anymore. “I mean, no one ever refers to him other than a lieutenant. Not that I would call him by his first name,” Eli ended lamely and wanted the counter to swallow him whole.
“Matthew,” Daniel said and took a cautious bite of the bacon and winced when he tasted it. “Mom calls him Matty when she’s teasing him, but full names him when she’s mad like Grandma used to do.”
Eli swallowed. “You have a big family.”
“It’s killing them that Eric is in Portland, but they just went to visit and Mom has other grandkids to fuss over.”
It was killing him that he’d cried all over her, and he didn’t know if he should apologize to Daniel or say anything at all, but then Daniel got his laptop out and started mapping the other storage places.
Like nothing had happened. Wasn’t Daniel gonna say anything about earlier either? Or had he already dismissed it because he’d had time to realize what a bad idea it was?
And why did he feel like this about him? Why was he letting some guy tie him up in knots? He had one job, but Daniel made him almost wish for a different future, and he wasn’t going to ever let someone have that amount of control over him ever again.
“I think we should go to the storage places first and give Gael a chance to tidy the rest of the tape up. There’s only two more operational. He’s closing on a fourth, but it’s pretty derelict, and Caffrey doesn’t own it yet, so we could swing by, but I’m not sure there would be anything to see.”
Daniel glanced over to where Eli was looking at the bacon Daniel had crucified. He liked it crispy, but this had been incinerated. “I don’t want to put you in the position of getting sick, so no touching anything this morning unless you think you need to.”
Eli glanced back and pushed the plate away, heading to the fridge for an apple. It didn’t look like Daniel was going to eat his either. “I would have thought you wanted me to touch everything just in case.”
Daniel frowned. “You’re not some human metal detector, and the key word there is human. I’m not gonna lie and say your gift won’t be amazing for the team, but you also need to protect yourself.”
Eli paused. Amazing? Gift? He flushed. When had he ever been amazing? Then he remembered he wasn’t planning on staying around long enough to be anything for the team and slammed the fridge door shut harder than he should have, and because he didn’t know what to say and that made him angrier, he turned and went into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He strode to the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Daniel confused the hell out of him, and he yanked his T-shirt up over his head. The bedroom door slammed open with nearly the same force he had closed it. “What the hell did I say this time?”
“I’m going in the shower,” Eli snapped, and just to prove he was all out of fucks, he unzipped his jeans and let them fall, stepping out of them and expecting to hear the door close.
He was wrong.
The hand that shot out and yanked him around made him stumble. “What did I do?” Daniel ground out.
“Let the fuck go.” Eli fired out each word like a bullet.
Daniel immediately dropped his arm. “Answer my question. You owe me—”
“I don’t owe you fuck,” Eli practically yelled. “I’m not some cause for the great Connelly clan to adopt, and I don’t need charity. You and your mother can—” And Eli snapped his mouth closed. No, not Connie. That wasn’t fair.
“Oh no.” Daniel waved his arm expansively. “Please tell me what you think I should do.”
“Leave me alone,” Eli muttered.
Which seemed to make Daniel pause, and he sighed. “You’re my partner.”
“Not through choice.”
Daniel stepped back as if Eli had hit him. “Wow, I didn’t think I’d been such a bastard to you since we met.”
You haven’t. Eli had to clamp his lips to keep the admission slipping out. “I don’t do partners.” Eli looked at his jeans where they were kicked away on the wooden floor, and with a start realized he was naked. He looked up, ready to retreat, only to find Daniel had taken a step closer. Maybe two steps.
“Am I that bad?” Daniel asked gently, then unbelievably he put a finger under Eli’s chin to tilt it up. Eli could have slapped his hand away. He could have jerked backward. Hell, he could have set the idiot on fire, but he seemed completely helpless to do anything other than allow the gentle pressure of Daniel’s finger to tip his face up until their eyes met.