Page 72 of His Elder

I turned. A student in a flannel shirt was watching me with concern.

"The artist," I managed, my voice sounding rusty. "Elias Vance. Is he—"

"Oh, yeah. Eli's around. Probably outside. He hates the reception part." The guy grinned. "Talented, though. You should check out his capstone project in the main hall. It's incredible."

I didn't wait for more.

I pushed through the crowd, out the gallery doors, into the hallway. Students milled around, laughing, drinking. I scanned faces, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

Then I saw him.

Leaning against the wall near the building's entrance, hands shoved in the pockets of a canvas jacket I didn't recognize. His hair was longer than I remembered, curling slightly at the nape of his neck, free of the mission-approved gel. Same sharp cheekbones. Same mouth that had whispered me to sleep in a dark apartment.

Eli.

He was talking to someone—a girl with purple hair who gestured enthusiastically. He nodded, smiled faintly. The smile didn't reach his eyes. It was hispolite missionarysmile, the one he used when he wanted to be anywhere else.

I'd forgotten how to move.

Two years. Two years of carrying the weight of what we'd done, what we'd lost, what I'd failed to say when it mattered.

As if he felt the weight of my stare, his gaze lifted.

Our eyes met.

The girl kept talking. Eli went completely still.

I watched recognition hit him like a physical blow. I saw the shock, the raw, unguarded pain, and then the immediate slam of emotional shutters. His face went blank. Guarded.

He said something to the girl. She looked confused but nodded and walked away.

Eli didn't move. Neither did I.

The hallway noise faded. The crowd disappeared. The world narrowed to the space between us.

He looked different. Thinner. Harder. The softness I remembered from our apartment—those rare moments when he'd let his guard down—had been calcified into something sharper.

But his eyes were the same. Dark and guarded and looking at me like I was a ghost he'd stopped believing in.

I made myself move. One step. Another. I closed the distance until only a few feet separated us.

"Hi," I said.

Stupid. Inadequate. The first word I'd spoken to him in two years, and it washi.

Eli's jaw worked. "Sam."

Not Samuel. Not Elder Price.

Sam.

Hearing my name in his voice cracked something open in my chest that I hadn't realized was calcified shut.

"I didn't know you were in Seattle," I said.

"Yeah. Well." His voice was rough. "Small world."

"I looked for you. After I got home. I tried—"