Page 58 of Enticing the Elf

I nod. “That’s acceptable to me.” Since that’s sorted, I need to find the bathroom. My bladder’s reached its limit.

Eoin shakes his head. “No, you need to contact him and apologize in your role as a member of the security team.”

I instantly forget about my bladder. “What? Why?”

“What he said,” Ari adds.

“Because you’re going to be the liaison with the Warhammers for this project, including the training camp visit.”

“Dáithí!”

I lift my head and glare at Alistair. Shouting like that in my reception area is not okay.

“How come I didn’t get invited out on the weekend?” he demands, plonking his elbows on the raised part of the desk and leaning forward. “We’re friends! I’m on your support team! This was a Summit of Love event!”

“Is this really the best use of your Monday morning?”

He pouts. “Noah told me to get out of the office until I was ready to quit complaining.”

Noah’s a smart man. “So you thought you’d come and complain here and ruin the afterglow of my amazing weekend?”

“Now you’re rubbing it in that I missed out? Wow, Dáithí. That’s mean.”

I give up. “Eoin made the guest list. I didn’t know anything about it until we arrived. Take it up with him.”

He nods enthusiastically. “Oh, I will. But first…” Glancing around, he leans so far over the desk that I worry he might somersault into my lap. “Give me a status update.”

“Not this again.” Most of my irritation is due to the unsettled feelings I’ve been having over the past few days. I need to workthrough them and decide what I actually want, but I’ve been putting it off because the high of the weekend was too good to ruin… which means I also feel guilty about putting it off for selfish reasons. My head is an exhausting place to be today.

Alistair gives me big puppy eyes, and I sigh. Unless and until I end this challenge, he and the others are entitled to updates. “What do you want to know, exactly?”

“This was the second date, right? Hagen said he also cleaned your apartment. How did that go?”

“It was perfect,” I admit, remembering the joy of making pancakes yesterday and not having to rummage for five minutes to find the cinnamon. “Totally clean and organized, but he didn’t mess with my stuff. I still know where everything is.” A smile tugs at my mouth. “He built an extension for Elsking’s hutch with a playground for her, and he used a spell to make the house smell like my favorite things.”

Alistair makes a humming noise. “So he gets full points for that task, and points toward the living entity one?”

“Yeah. All the points.” My chest tightens. “Hey, Alistair? How would you have felt if your boyfriend asked you to do all this?”

He makes a weird face. Is he trying to raise his brows? Why is his face scrunching like that?

“Are you second-guessing the Summit of Love?”

My eye twitches, but I let that stupid name pass. “No. Maybe. I’m… just curious.” It’s the most unconvincing thing I’ve ever said, but he answers the question anyway.

“Honestly, it would depend why he asked it. If it was an ego thing, or just to make me jump through hoops, I’d walk away. I don’t want to be in that kind of relationship, and thankfully Aidan doesn’t either. He’d never ask me to.” He shrugs, even as my stomach sinks. Is this whole thing just going to convince Eoin I’m not who he wants, after all?

“But,” Alistair continues, “if Aidan had something going on in his life and needed me to give him some extra reassurance, then I’d do anything he wanted.”

Which sounds good, but Eoin has no idea why I’m so reluctant to believe he can make this commitment. As far as he’s concerned, I really might be doing this for an ego trip. “Yeah. I guess.”

“It’s like, when I was young, my boyfriend tried to burn down my house with me in it.”

What?

“That made me leery about having another boyfriend,” he goes on, like he didn’t just say something completely unhinged. “Aidan understood that, and he helped me get past it.” He tips his head to the side and purses his lips. It looks ridiculous. “Not that it took much for me to get past it, but he still helped.”

“Is this your way of saying I should talk to Eoin about things that might be holding me back?”