Chapter 3
Almost a reflex, their back-and-forth of answers and questions and teasing remarks.
Miles knows about at least thirteen different occasions on which Mischief had destroyed something, and that one time Elliot fell over Duchess while carrying hot soup.
Miles tells Elliot about the time Zara Hill broke her right, and Miles his left arm during the Jelly Bean Fiasco all the way back in high school, and how everyone had still called them Double Trouble at their reunion party.
(Elliot laughs so hard Miles can hear him bang his hand on the table and wheeze for two minutes straight.)
About four hours later, Miles has smiled so much, his cheeks hurt from it, and he feels warm and at ease like he hasn't since he moved here.
His head leaned against the sofa cushion, it gets consistently harder to stay awake, though.
When did it get so late ...
The living room around him is still dark, even though he did not really notice, not until now, not until Elliot said "I should probably go to sleep soon.
Duchess has been sending me glares from the bed for the past hour or so."
"Yeah, same for me.
Minus the cat."
"Which is very sad."
"You cat people are insufferable."
"Awww, Miles, I thought you liked me a little by now?"
A little more than he should, probably.
Miles bites his lip, refusing to answer that question truthfully, or at all.
"Go to sleep, Elliot."
"You, too, then."
He can still hear it, that smile in this wonderful voice, and Miles does not want Elliot to hang up on him.
He does not want this weird thing between them to end.
It's like a spell, a tiny touch of magic in his lonely little life as of late, and the spell will break way too soon.
Pop like a soap bubble.
"Thanks for brightening my evening, Miles.
I thought it would be ruined without cookies, but I have to say, you quite saved it for me."
You have no idea how much you brightened my evening
"Same for you.
Thanks ... for the talk."
Now or never.
He has to ask Elliot if they can talk again, maybe.
But the seconds pass and the silence grows longer, stretches until it wears so thin it turns awkward, hesitant.
After an evening of feeling at ease, it's quite the change.
"So, yeah," Elliot says, clearing his throat.
"Good night, Miles."
"Good night, Elliot."
The pressure to say something, to save this, to keep Elliot in his life skyrockets until it chokes Miles right up.
He needs all the words in the world, but none of them will fit his mouth right.
Neither of them hung up yet, only white noise filtering through.
By the time Miles finally works up his courage, takes a deep breath to steel himself, he can hear Elliot sigh, and then hang up.
The silence settles around him heavily, and Miles does not feel like moving, does not feel like flicking on the light.
The phone in is hand is still warm from holding it for so long.
When he curls up to sleep under his blanket, pants kicked off and everything else as it was, too tired for an actual evening routine, the echo of Elliot's voice keeps lingering in his mind, whispers him a lullaby.
Miles nearly oversleeps his alarm clock the next morning.
When he stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, he feels like everything about today is going to go as slightly wrong as the way he got up.
The radio is still going, and Miles turns it down to a muffled background noise because he is too tired for music, and maybe because he tries to recall the sound of Elliot's laughter.
The fact that he keeps thinking about the man all day only shows how lonely and pathetic Miles really is.
(Or how wonderful Elliot.)
There's even less to do than yesterday in the evening, so nothing really distracts him from the phone, sitting there like a taunt, like a temptation.
Miles wants to call Elliot, and talk to him again.
Hear his voice and make him laugh and listen to those ridiculous cat stories of his.
He wants it so bad it aches, somewhere deep inside him, getting worse the longer he can't bring himself to pick up the phone.
I'll call him tomorrow , he tells himself.(He doesn't.) Maybe Elliot will call me.(He doesn't.)
Something that might be good<!
He's gotten rid of his crutches, and work still doesn't want him back until he has recovered completely.
How dare they be so understanding and caring about their employees?
The worst part is, Elliot can't even bake cookies for himself, because cookies remind him of Miles, and everything that reminds him of Miles is 50 shades of regret and disappointed hope that Miles would call him instead, when Elliot didn't dare to.
(Miles didn't call.)
(Elliot is not bitter about that.)
(It's not like he cares.)
At least Elliot can go outside again, gingerly put weight on his foot, and help out volleyball practice by observing.
Maybe he takes it a little too seriously, jotting down all the data, but analysing it is interesting and takes his mind off things rather well.
Half the notes are slightly crumpled from Mischief marching over them with her tail so high she could flick it in his face, and Elliot only narrows his eyes at her look of betrayal when he puts her back down on the floor.
"You troublechild," he chides her, fondly, and she goes off into a corner to groom her glossy pelt for another two hours, back pointedly towards him.
"I love you too," he mutters into her direction at some point, and gets an annoyed flick of her tail for his troubles.
Ah, cats.
Gotta love them.
Elliot is nearly done sketching out a new tactic they might try over a warm mug of tea and with the purring Duchess on his lap when he hears a key in the door and glares into the direction of the person coming in before he can see them properly.
He knows who this is already.
"I don't remember giving you a spare key, you know."
"Awwww, don't be like that~ I don't remember you taking it away from me either.
Who wouldn't want my charm to enrich their dull -"
"My living room isn't dull," Elliot tells Damien as he makes his way into said (comfortable and absolutely not dull) living room.
"I was about to speak about your dull life, dummy.
Your living room is actually quite cute.
One day I'm gonna steal your curtains, I love that pattern."
"Please don't.
You stole half my mugs already.
And you still owe me that hoodie!"
Damien plops down on the seat next to him as if he hadn't heard him (he always hears everything, even when he's not supposed to) and drags the paper away from Elliot's pen, leaving a stray line across it.
"It looks better on me anyway," Damien tells him without looking up, pointer finger tapping his lips as he takes in the notes.
Staring down at them, he gets that intense gleam in his eyes.
For all his bravado and childish behaviour, the other man is a force to be reckoned with, especially on the court.
Elliot would have asked for his opinion anyway.
(He still furrows his brow at the line his pen left when Damien dragged it away.)
For a while, it's pretty peaceful.
Damien steals Elliot's tea, complains about the lack of sugar, and spends a nearly ridiculous amount of time discussing the notes and improvements for them.
But Elliot knows his next door neighbour all too well.
Damien Voss did not merely show up to be nice to him.
His day would not be complete if he did not pester one person, at least.As the ever-single lonely cat-loving freak, unfortunately, Elliot is pretty high up on the list of priorities for pestering and meddling."So~," Damien says, dragging out the vowel of it lazily, his gaze snapping up.
Elliot swallows.
The intensity is not gone from his eyes yet, and under his scrutinizing gaze, anyone would feel as if Damien was scanning their brain, figuring out their weakness.
Seeing he is the type of person to drag it out into the daylight shamelessly, Elliot is glad they are friends and not enemies.
(Befriending a person like Damien had never been the plan.
It had simply fallen into place and suddenly half his mugs were in a different kitchen and Liam liked him for being the only one besides him who could stand Damien for longer.)
Elliot is getting the nagging feeling he would need a shot of alcohol in his tea to get past this talk.
(Not that Damien had left any tea for him.)
"Just spit it out already," he tells him, feeling tired already.
Duchess gets up on his lap, turns around herself and curls up again.
He pets her soft fur, glad that at least one person here actually does appreciate Elliot and will show him true, easy affection.The smile on Damien's face gets a little more devious.
"So, did you have any flirty phone calls again?
Talking to a stranger all night, so romantic~"
"I regret telling you about it so much.
It was not romantic!" He talked more about his oven and cats and volleyball than himself.
There was no pining and gazing into the sky longingly involved, no matter how hard Damien wanted there to be.
"So your dreamy phone stranger -"
"God, you make it sound so creepy."
"- you just want to be friends with him?"
Elliot nods, maybe a little too enthusiastically.
He just ... really likes making friends, okay?
"And you still haven't called him back because ...
?" He drags out the 'a' in because, and Elliot gets the feeling he's a tiny mouse faced with a looming cat who watches him slowly walk right into a trap.
"I was busy."
"You were busy." If Damien raised his eyebrows any higher, they would reach for the sky.
Okay, maybe Elliot had not been that busy.