Page 10 of The Elves and the Shoemaker (The GriMM Tales #4)

Eight

Johan

J

ohan wasn’t sure what to do. Sitting on a wooden chair at his dining table, he waited until Elias and Henrik finished resolving their quarrel and the sound of soft snores drifted across the room.

The only problem was they were snoring softly in his bed.

And he had no desire to sleep downstairs on a mattress that was too short for him to lie out on.

In the end, Johan deliberated on it for almost an hour before he struggled to keep his eyelids open.

He grabbed the other blanket Henrik had discarded when he joined Elias and slept on the far end of his mattress.

The elves were wrapped so tightly around one another that they took up very little room anyway.

Johan would like to think he was a better man than to go to sleep with the image of Henrik’s naked body behind his eyelids, and that he was definitely above replaying the soft moaning sounds that had floated up the stairs earlier that evening, but he wasn’t in the business of lying to himself.

After Elias had lain down to rest, something had tugged at Johan’s gut, telling him to go and check on Henrik.

He’d seen how Henrik was around Elias, and it left him with no doubt whatsoever that the elf loved him.

Johan had observed enough people interacting to have quickly deduced that there had been a drastic misunderstanding.

He hadn’t, however, expected to find Henrik having some kind of fear attack.

They had happened to Johan quite frequently when he was younger.

There were more occasions than he could bear to think about where his determined parents would try to force him to speak to strangers in an unsuccessful attempt at having him overcome his “curse,” as they called it.

The endeavour almost always ended with Johan in tears and struggling to breathe.

The feeling was so familiar to him that seeing Henrik experience it had hurt his heart and ripped open old wounds.

He was grateful in some ways that the two of them were sleeping up here where he could see them.

Johan would have worried about Henrik otherwise.

Despite Elias being the physically weaker of the two, Johan didn’t worry about him in the same way.

There was a resilience and fight to Elias that Johan imagined would burn eternally; it was something not even the cruelty of slavery had snuffed out.

Johan tossed and turned for a while, unable to get himself to sleep as he usually would, with his fist wrapped around himself.

In the end, he settled for lying on his side and listening to the soft, even breathing of Henrik and Elias as they slept.

It was dangerous how much Johan could get used to this.

How something so foreign could feel so comfortingly familiar only he knew it wouldn’t become so.

He knew that this was an exception, and they hadn’t intended to spend the night in his bed, so he promised himself he would appreciate it for the rare gift that it was.

J

ohan scrubbed at his eyes with his knuckles when he woke. Only, when his sight came back into focus, there were two sets of amber eyes staring back.

The two elves lay on their sides facing him. Elias was in front, Henrik tucked behind him with his head resting in the crook of Elias’ neck, peering at Johan with wide eyes.

“We’re sorry we took over your bed,” Elias whispered, but the way his lips quirked up in the corners indicated he wasn’t all that sorry, and Johan couldn’t help but smile, his heart feeling full at not waking up alone for the first time in over six winters.

“Can we make you breakfast to thank you?” Henrik asked.

Johan almost said no, because he didn’t need them to thank him. But then it occurred to him that maybe it would make them feel less indebted, and it would be nice to have a meal he hadn’t had to make for himself, so he smiled and nodded.

Henrik looked relieved. “We’ll go wash up quickly and then come and make something to eat.”

Elias blushed, and that made Johan recall why they probably wanted to wash up right away, which in turn made him blush. Only his reaction seemed to give away to the elves that he knew they’d been intimate last night, and now they were all as red as tomatoes and avoiding eye contact.

Thankfully, Henrik quickly grabbed Elias’ hand and tugged him out the door, which gave Johan the opportunity to get himself together before they returned.

Johan kept himself occupied by tearing up some newspaper and building up the kindling and logs inside the fireplace.

By the time Henrik and Elias came back, there was a roaring fire, and Johan was less at risk of standing to attention in his breeches by recalling the soft moans of the two—entirely too handsome for his health—elves he lived with.

Johan pointed to the cupboards and gestured for them to help themselves while he left to use the outhouse.

As he walked back up the stairs afterwards, he could hear light giggles and gentle ribbing between the two elves, and it made him smile. Inside, he found them side by side in front of the fire, keeping an eye on a small pot they’d placed on the flames.

Johan poured the three of them each a drink of water and placed three forks on the table.

A lump formed in his throat at the image of three place settings before him.

In recent years, he’d even begun avoiding eating at his table altogether, finding it a painful reminder of how alone he was—but not that morning.

Elias trotted over from the fireplace with the pot in hand and a bounce to his step, and Henrik grabbed some slices of bread from the kitchen.

Johan tried to reach for the pot, but Elias shooed him away.

“Where we’re from,” Elias explained, “the people who cook the meal, serve the meal, especially when a meal is a gift. This isn’t a very good gift since you bought all the food yourself, but next time, it will be better.

” He grinned and began scooping eggs out of the pot and onto the slice of bread Henrik had placed on Johan’s wooden plate.

They were about halfway through their meal when Johan managed to whisper, “Thank you.” He spoke so quietly, in fact, that had the elves not had exceptionally good hearing, they probably would have missed it.

But they did hear, and Henrik said, “No, thank you , Johan.”

“For everything,” Elias added.

A

fter breakfast, the elves returned to the workshop, claiming it needed reorganising in order for them both to be able to work efficiently at the same time.

Rather than take offence that Elias clearly didn’t think the space was ideal, Johan was mostly relieved that someone other than him was taking some responsibility for the shop and left them to it.

Johan stepped out onto the cobbled street, taking a moment to notice the weather. It was his favourite kind of day—the air was cold enough that his breath puffed out ahead of him, but the sky above was a cloudless cerulean blue.

Johan nodded and smiled at the neighbouring shop owners as they set up for the day, and he used a wooden step to affix the little wooden shoe and elf figurine to the shop sign.

Across the street, Mr Müller, the baker, was arguing with his delivery boy, who’d once again turned up with a fraction of what the baker had ordered.

Food really was becoming a sparse commodity, but it was a worry Johan stubbornly ignored due to its being so far from his control.

If things got dire in the spring, he could return to his family’s hunting cabin or go fishing to get what he needed.

There was no way that the forest could be as barren as the townsfolk implied.

Johan distracted himself by stepping back to admire his and Elias’ whittling efforts, and he was hopeful that the rumour mill would do what they needed it to.

That afternoon, a man dressed in smart, tailored clothes entered the shop. His attire suggested he was from the wealthier part of town, and Johan had butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

The man didn’t say hello; he just walked in and looked around somewhat disapprovingly. “Your sign outside. Your shoes are elf-made?” he asked.

Johan stepped forward and picked up the fine leather shoes from the shop window and passed them to the man to inspect.

“Hmm. But how do I know they are in fact made by elves, since you are clearly not one?” he asked as his gaze raked judgementally up and down Johan’s form, which couldn’t be less elf-like.

Johan held up a finger, asking the man to give him a moment, and went to look for Elias and Henrik in the workshop.

In an incredibly brief span of time, they had transformed the space and set up three workstations.

The sight made Johan’s chest warm. Each time he witnessed them carving out space for themselves in his little world, it reassured him that there was a sense of permanence to their presence in his life.

Sitting on one of the chairs was Elias, with Henrik standing behind, braiding his long white hair. Elias beamed when he spotted Johan in the doorway.

Johan pointed in the direction of the shop and beckoned for the two elves to follow him out; thankfully, they obliged.

The customer looked shocked to see Elias and Henrik appear behind him.

“You made these?” he asked, holding up the brown leather shoes.

“The left one,” Elias replied.

“I made the right,” Henrik added.

“Do you take commissions?” The man directed the question at Johan, clearly assuming that he owned the elves rather than employed them since a free elf was rare and practically unheard of among the poor, but he just waited for Elias to answer.

They looked at each other, clearly having some kind of silent conversation before Elias spoke up. “We take commissions, but fifty percent of the price is required up front in order to cover the cost of the materials.”

“What’s the total cost for one pair?”