Page 25 of Lessons with the Mothman (Monster Smash Agency)

CHAPTER 25

Victoria

What am I doing here? I stood at the end of the block, but Nightlight's glow was visible from here, warming the sidewalk, shadows of figures shifting and fading into one another.

What is the goal? What will I say?

Because I missed Elias.

I missed him, and I wanted to drag him in front of me to yell at him all over again, because my mom had been dropping little hints and questions about Elias ever since he'd appeared at the bridal shop.

Because I hadn't told her anything. Not that he was a fling. Not that he was helping me with my study. Not that he was no one.

Elias wasn't no one to me.

Which I supposed was my answer to why I was standing just out of sight of Nightlight, arguing with myself about whether or not to walk in. To demand an explanation…and maybe also to apologize.

Just a few steps… All I had to do was take a few more steps, peek through the window.

And then…

What? Date Elias? Why was that such a terrifying thought?

I swallowed as the door opened, light and sound spilling out, and turned my back on the bar, shrinking a little closer to the corner of the alley to let the flow of Wicker Park traffic sweep past me.

Sex with Elias was simple. Well, no, it was fucking spectacular. It was everything I'd ever wanted, been too afraid of or discouraged from asking for. But Elias was even more than that. He was smart and curious and intuitive. He was as interested in me as I was in him, not in the usual way of attraction, but at a deep "how does this person tick and what drives their choices?" level. I knew that hadn't been an act. That was who Elias was.

"Victoria?"

I startled, looking up and finding an unexpected face in front of me. "Hannah!"

The shadow behind her grew in size and then burst into a smile, dark wings spreading to shield us from the street. "Hey, Victoria! Looking for Elias?" Rafe greeted, one arm slung over his mate's shoulder.

I froze and the pair stared back at me, a subtle twitch of Hannah's elbow into Rafe's side, his face going slack with surprise and then recovering with a sheepish grin.

"I was trying to find him, 'cause the venue for my dinner club just dropped out on me, but he's not at the bar," Rafe hastened to add.

I blinked, glancing down the sidewalk, my shoulders dropping. "Oh. Umm… Yeah, I came to see if he was around."

"I told Rafe we should text him first, but—" Hannah started.

"I like the urgency of bursting into the bar without warning. Keeps the old man on his wings," Rafe said.

I smiled at that. "You could always surprise him at home," I suggested.

Rafe snorted, but Hannah tipped her head in curiosity, a sharp light arriving in her eyes. "Have you been to Elias's house?"

"Of cour—" I paused as Rafe and Hannah both leaned in, the same intense focus in their gazes, and then recalled what he'd told me during his mating season. None of his friends had ever been to the house. "That's unusual, I take it," I said, pretending not to already know the answer.

Hannah relaxed and shrugged. "I've never been, but I'm still new to the crew."

Rafe shook his head. "I know it's nearby. And to be fair, he'd never been to my old place. I just assumed it was too tight for us all to have dinner there. Moth cozy, you know?"

Normally, I had a lock on my expression. But it had been a month made for fraying me at the edges, and I knew I was failing to hide my reaction from them.

"Told you," Hannah said to Rafe, nudging him lightly in the side. "He's ostentatious."

"It's not… He's more—" I swallowed hard and shook my head, pausing at the corner, staring blankly into the cars that turned around us.

"He's not at home, anyway," Rafe said, and it took me a moment to process the words, the gentle tone. I turned to stare back at him and found his smile uncomfortably kind. "We texted him at the bar. He's out looking for you."

I stiffened, my shoulders drawing in, and then caught myself, drawing in a breath. Why was irritation and defensive anger my first reaction? I was out looking for Elias , after all.

"He has good hunting instincts," Hannah said to me. "He'll find you…if you let him."

I chewed on my lip for a moment before a slow, tentative smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. "He's not just a hunter. He's Elias. He already knows where to look."

The light was on over my back porch, striking soft golden wings and the pattern of huge amber eyes. The stairs creaked beneath me as I climbed, but Elias didn't lift his head, his smooth voice crooning softly to the alley cats who swarmed around him, yowling and croaking and mewling for pets.

"How long have you known where I lived?" I asked, halfway up the last flight.

"Since you agreed to let me work with you," Elias murmured, lifting his head. The light reflected off his and the cats' irises eerily—a reminder to myself that for as beautifully as Elias spoke, as handsomely as he dressed, as familiar as he sometimes seemed to me, he was not human.

"Have you come here before?" I asked, stopping at the top of the stairs and leaning against the railing post.

He nodded. "A few times. After you stayed with me."

The regulars came to rub against my legs, but some of the wilder strays remained near Elias, their crackling purrs and ragged fur a stark contrast to his brilliant elegance.

"Do you know that there's an opossum living in that cat tree?" Elias asked, pointing to the sprawling structure in the shadows of my porch.

"That's Fred. They have a peace treaty with the cats." Elias smiled at that, and my heart panged. "I went to the bar."

He froze for a moment, then sat from his crouch, the cats skittering away from his wings as he leaned against the wall. "I owe you an explanation."

I had meant to say the same, but it was easier to wait, to let him do the hard part of speaking first. Still, I needed one thing…

Elias's eyes tracked me as I crossed the porch, his hand flexing against his thigh as I sat down next to him. My thigh touched his and we both sighed, the cats sniffing at the soles of our shoes, one old clipped ear tomcat settling on Elias's lap for scritches, his purr thunderous in our silence.

"I've never been in love," Elias said after a long stretch of mutual quiet.

The sudden ache in my chest was revealing, but I lifted my chin and studied Elias in profile.

"Which is notable, given my life span thus far," he added with a skittish glance in my direction. "Some time ago, after Rafe and Hannah mated, I decided that I would…like to try the experience."

I inhaled deeply and held it there, letting the breath push against the crushing sensation in my chest.

"Rafe and Khell both fell in love with their clients, so I…"

"Looked for a similar opportunity," I supplied as he hesitated.

"It wasn't fruitful," he said. "They were just clients. The cases didn't even really interest me. Not much has, recently. Not until you."

I leaned my head back against the brick wall behind us, but found the gentle cushion of Elias's thick wing instead.

"Did you ask to assist me because you wanted to fall in love with me, or because it interested you?"

"Both," he said, so easily. He shrugged, and our shoulders brushed. "I don't think I could develop feelings for someone without that intensity of curiosity as well."

I stared at the brick of the building opposite us, the pattern of color, the veins where the wall had been repaired and patched, and considered Elias's confession. The more thought I gave it, the more the tightness eased.

"Are you in love with me, Elias?" I asked.

It had been a painfully obvious lie that day we'd argued outside of the bridal shop, but he'd looked so shocked when I'd pointed it out that I wondered if he really did believe himself in love.

He didn't answer quickly now, but shifted, twisting slightly to better search my face, take in my features. I remained still, allowing him to look his fill. Somewhere along the line, I'd learned to enjoy Elias's stare, when so many others made me uncomfortable. Aside from those awkward weeks leading up to our argument, Elias never looked to find what he already thought he knew was there. He observed , accepting what he found. He did so now.

And finally, he answered.

"Not yet," he said softly.

My breath caught, and a warm well of tears rose in my eyes, an unfamiliar, wide smile stretching over my face. Elias's own features eased, and our hands found one another as our knees nuzzled closer, fingers tangling.

"Are you in love with me, Victoria?" he asked, velvety and knowing.

I grinned and blinked back the tears. "Not yet," I said.

Not yet…but maybe I could be. Not yet .

He leaned in, and I closed my eyes in readiness for the kiss, a watery laugh escaping as it landed on my forehead first, then a sigh as it grazed down the bridge of my nose, and a sharp inhale as it nipped at the tip of my upper lip. And then we were quiet, breathing against one another, not hungry but curious, always curious for one another, learning what it meant to be not yet in love as we kissed.

How exactly did we fit together? It wasn't a perfect fold. Elias's mouth was wider, enveloping my small smile one nibble and caress at a time. I nudged my nose against his cheek, trying to press closer, and his arm wrapped around my shoulders, but it was a gentle, tempering embrace, our hands still clasped between us.

And I wasn't the only one owed an explanation.

It was easy to draw apart. I rested my head against Elias's arm, and his own forehead lowered to rest against my hair.

"I spent so long being my mother's daughter and Brett's girlfriend, the version of myself that they expected, that I…I'm still learning who I am," I whispered. Elias didn't so much as twitch, just listened. "My independence is precious to me."

"I overstepped," he said.

"A little. A lot when you introduced yourself to my family," I said, straightening. We leaned back enough for me to stare up at him, but our hands still held fast around one another. "But I shouldn't have said that you were nothing but a fuck. That wasn't true, and I knew it."

Elias relaxed slightly, just enough for me to know those words had injured him.

"I don't know what to call us, but I know it isn't just sex. But the more you forced me to acknowledge that, the more I tried to shut you out. And I know it isn't exactly fair, but?—"

"Victoria," Elias sighed.

I shook my head. "I'm not trying to shut you out now. It's just that I'm not sure what I do want from you. It's more than what I thought I wanted, but I'm worried it might be less than what you expect."

"Victoria, I was forcing things."

"Yes, but, I mean, only what was already there."

Elias winced, and the ramble I'd been working up to died away. He met my gaze and offered me a crooked smile.

"It was very inconvenient to be constantly trying to appear with baked goods and coffees. I don't bake. I have a business to run, investments to manage. I was trying to be the kind of lover that my friends are to their partners. But it was annoying…even to me."

I blinked at that.

"I'm finding emotions very time consuming," Elias admitted with a heavy sigh, sagging back against the wall. "I would be glad to come to the university if you needed me to, or to any event with your family, when you're ready. But to be honest, keeping up with your schedule on top of mine was not ideal."

I tried to hide my laughter, but it rose up out of me in fits and starts, a snort through the nose and then a sudden bubble from my throat.

"I like your independence," Elias said, watching me, his own smile warming. "I appreciate knowing that you let me in when you trusted me, and not before. I shouldn't have jeopardized that."

Our hands squeezed at the same moment, and then he added with a little quirk to the corner of his mouth, "I also occasionally enjoy scheduling sex in advance."

I gasped and then laughed more in earnest. "So do I, actually. The anticipation is like its own foreplay."

"I was an idiot to try and model our connection based on one where the parties mate. It's a wholly irrational phenomenon," Elias muttered.

I wasn't so sure that love was always that rational on its own, but I was also glad Elias didn't mate. It would've sent me running to the hills if he'd told me that he and I were destined for each other in some permanent fashion. It would've felt too much like my mother and Brett, pushing me into that boxed up version of Victoria I'd lived in for so long.

"I don't want this to end, Elias."

Elias hummed and leaned into my side. "Neither do I."

"Can we just keep going, without following anyone else's pattern or model or whatever you want to call it?"

I looked up into his impenetrable gaze, a cool stroke of study caressing over my face and down my neck.

He nodded slowly. "Of course."

A sudden gust of wind set the cats who'd watched us into sheltered corners. I sat up, squeezing my fingers around Elias's.

"Would you like to come in?" I asked, and watched him think, and then overthink the offer. "I've missed you," I said, and his eyes widened.

"Yes," he said, very quickly, and then added, "I've missed you too."

Elias was so soft. So warm. With the air cleared between us, I found it dangerously easy to wrap myself around his body, a touch I'd always been so greedy for and so cautious in accepting. He was freer with his touches too, hands stroking thoroughly up and down my side, over the leg I'd thrown across him, up my back, into the hair he'd tangled with his tireless fucking, and then back down again.

"I ran into Hannah and Rafe," I said, my eyes opening briefly as Hubert jumped up onto the bed and curled up against my bare back after a few moments of biscuit making.

"Ah. Rafe had something he wanted to discuss. Serves him right for showing up without warning," Elias murmured.

"The supper club venue dropped out," I said, recalling what Rafe had told me.

Elias stiffened, then relaxed once more. "I'll call in the morning." And he would take care of the problem for his friend was the unspoken message.

"How come you've never invited your friends to your house?" I asked, rubbing my cheek over his furred shoulder again. He wasn't as comfortable as a pillow, but I wasn't ready to quit the effort of cuddling him yet.

He liked cuddles.

"No need," Elias said, shrugging.

"Mmm, and you need dozens of unoccupied rooms?"

Elias was silent for a moment, perhaps too tired for the conversation, and then he roused. "You think it would be an appropriate offering of friendship?"

It was my turn to shrug. "I think your house is sort of like a work of art. Or many works of art, each of the rooms its own moment. I'm surprised you don't share it more often, is all."

Another long stretch of quiet, and this time, I was the one dozing when Elias spoke.

"You think I should host the supper club," he said.

It hadn't at all been what I was thinking. That had been more along the lines of inviting his friends over for dinner, like he'd said before, or to…watch some kind of movie or sport? But the latter suggestion didn't really seem like an Elias kind of activity.

So I just hummed in answer and fell asleep, surrounded by velvety limbs and wings.