Chapter Four

The rest of the week passes by like most others, with Alex and Elena heading to work and to school, and catching up over dinner each night, her Wednesday evening art class coming and going and leaving her with a rather large construction paper mosaic to hang on her bedroom wall. They go out to eat at a local pizza parlor every Friday night she's with him, a thing they'd started when Cass first moved out, and he does his best to consider it less of a way to heal everything that's hurt for a while and more as something nice he can do for himself and his daughter now. And between that and everything else, maybe more of his time can start to feel like it belongs to him in a way that doesn't leave him aching to turn it backward.

When Cass had stood on his front porch that past weekend, she'd seemed pleasantly surprised that he was—well, he's not sure happy is exactly the word for whatever he is these days, but he's looking forward to the upcoming week, which is something he doesn't think he's ever felt when he knows Elena isn't going to be around.

He loves his daughter, and he misses his wife, but maybe he can have a good time with Elijah, too.

So, Sunday night, he drives Elena to Cassidy's new place—not all that new anymore, but Alex is still loath to admit how long it's been already—and he goes home to clean up the typical mess left behind by any nine-year-old, glancing at his pile of books once before he reminds himself there's only one more day before he and Elijah will look through them together. They'll read the story of E and P, from beginning to whatever end they might find, and then Alex can figure out what's supposed to happen next in his own life.

Alex doesn't want to have to say goodbye to Elijah quite that fast, but if they're not destined for some kind of friendship, at least he's had practice at watching someone walk away.

Monday he's able to keep busy with work, which is probably good for everyone, and absolutely ideal for his anxiety. He had texted Elijah Sunday afternoon to give him his address and a good time to come over, and now it's only an hour away, the books on the dining room table already, Alex in jeans and a henley that makes him feel like he's not about to crawl out of his own skin.

When there's a knock on the door, Alex tells himself not to worry about why it sounds so timid, hurrying to answer it so they can get past these first few minutes.

"Hey, come on in and make yourself comfortable," Alex offers, mostly because at least one of them should be. "Can I get you something to drink? Beer, soda, juice, coffee, water?"

"Whatever you're having is fine with me," Elijah answers.

He's all the way inside now, the door closed behind him, but Elijah's still unexpectedly cautious about going far, slipping out of his sneakers but moving nowhere else while Alex tries not to study him all that closely. There's no hoodie tonight, just a flannel over a graphic tee and jeans, and Alex stops himself from asking what Elijah wears at work because he can't figure out why it would matter. Elijah's hair is a bit of a mess, and Alex thinks that might always be true, curls destined to remain especially untamed while Elijah traps his smile between his teeth. And there are two books tucked under Elijah's arm, but Alex can't quite catch the titles from where he stands, giving up while Elijah's eyes scan the living room.

Elijah's probably lost in the blank space overwhelming the walls these days, so many family pictures gone while the ghosts of them remain, Alex reluctant to paint over memories that he couldn't hold in his hands if he tried.

"Okay, yeah, I'll grab the drinks. I put my books on the dining room table, but we can move them out here if you'd rather."

"No, no, that's good."

They both move to get settled then, Alex pulling a bottle of beer from the fridge and holding it up for Elijah's approval before he grabs a second one and gives Elijah time to sort the books into whatever order they know so far. They sit across from each other, each taking one novel to start, and Alex works to breathe through any awkwardness the garage sale's fresh air must have swept away.

"Okay, so the first thing I noticed was the word ‘perhaps' written next to the first chapter, which obviously didn't have to mean anything until I got to the first full entry where P—presumably—calls E's idea clever," Alex explains.

"Which we can assume means E was the one to suggest they pass messages back and forth in these books," Elijah continues. "And ‘perhaps' was an acknowledgment of the beginning of it all."

"Exactly. So, can you tell whether one of your books has those early responses?"

"Yeah, I think so," Elijah says, already looking down at where a folded receipt from the bar has kept his place, a list of what Alex assumes are page numbers scribbled there. It's probably moderately neater, and more sustainable, than Alex's decision to steal an entire handful of bookmarks from his kid. "Okay, here we go: P, I feel everything too and needed this way to tell you. If you think it's clever, I'll gladly accept that honor, though I'm mostly lonely and eager for the chance to come alive the next time you're near."

Alex reads aloud the passage he has about E standing close and touching hands and hoping nobody saw them. "So, other than the fact that they're using these books at all, there's an implication from the very beginning that they don't want anyone to notice them."

"That it's a secret romance," Elijah adds.

"Either because it has to be, or maybe they're just shy about it at first?"

"Pretty sure it's the former. Here's what's next: P, maybe we're more wrong than we know, putting ourselves at risk like this, and you in so much more danger than I could ever be. But I want to touch you again. I want more. I want whatever you will give."

"Yeah," Alex sighs. "There's definitely a reason they can't be together. And an imbalance of some kind, if P is really risking more than E."

Elijah takes a long drink from his bottle and nods. "Which is why I'm still not convinced it's my great grandparents. Like I said before, they met when they were young, and both came from wealthy families, as unaffected by the world around them as anyone could be back then. I don't get why they'd be sneaking around. I mean, if it was just fun, sure, but—"

"But this sounds more serious than that," Alex finishes.

"Yeah, it does."

They read through a few more, an ease between them returning as they narrate a love story written long before they were born, random theories or reactions shared as they go. P and E continue to pass the books back and forth, apparently the only way they can talk more honestly, seeming to stay quiet even when they see each other to exchange the novels in whatever situation they've created for themselves, and he and Elijah still can't figure why. Then when Alex moves to the kitchen to grab each of them a second beer and some chips, he yells back to where Elijah's sitting.

"Didn't you say there was something about a law firm?" he asks. "Was that in this first book or the second one you found?"

"It's in this one," Elijah answers. "I think it might be next, actually."

By the time Alex sits back down, he sees Elijah holding the book open, another message there in the margin for Alex to see. "Okay, go ahead."

"This one is a little longer. P, I walked past your firm tonight and saw a light coming from your office, and only wish I could've been in there with you. And yes, I know I should've stayed away entirely. I know I have no business being nearby late at night when I could be accused of any number of wrongdoings. But sometimes it's easier to dream when the sun goes down and the darkness lets me pretend the world might not hate us both. We have lived like this for nearly a year already. Is there any chance for us to find our way there? To something truly good?"

"God, it sounds so sad," Alex says. "And I already know they kiss later, but I hate how hard it was for them to get there. A year? Did you find out any more about whether your great grandfather worked at the law firm back when he first met your great grandmother?"

Elijah nods. "Yeah, I asked my mom about it, and she said my great grandfather did start working there when he was young—I guess his father was already some big deal at the firm—but this sounds like he was more than just a clerk or something, right?"

"It definitely does. He had his own office, which would've had to mean something," Alex agrees, sitting back in his chair with the beer in his hand. "But there's also the part about E being afraid of being accused of wrongdoing. What's that sound like to you?"

"Prostitution?"

"Hmmm, yeah, maybe. I mean, I guess it wouldn't have even had to be true, because I'm sure it was frowned upon for any woman to be walking the streets alone at nighttime, right?"

"Yeah. But it also could've been true. Maybe he was in love with a prostitute and that's why it was forbidden," Elijah muses.

Alex shakes his head. "No, but if he wanted to sneak around with a prostitute, he could do that wherever prostitutes did everything else. He wouldn't have had to wait for some secret book exchange just to touch hands."

"And we still might be way off, and this has nothing to do with my family at all."

"Guess that's true, too," Alex sighs. "How about we read a little more and then just call it a night?"

He hates the suggestion, even as it falls off his tongue, not particularly interested in saying goodbye, especially if Elijah decides he's not invested in the story after all. But he has to work in the morning, and he can't expect Elijah to hang out with him and a bunch of old books for that long anyway, free beer or no.

"Yeah, a little more sounds good."

"Okay, this should be next then: E, I only ever want you close, but please don't risk your own wellbeing for a glimpse at my window. We've both only just become free from the terror of another world war and are so close to terror of our own always. Perhaps it would be better if I could find my way to the warehouses sometime. Perhaps those could be our nights."

"World War II," Elijah says, running a hand through his curls. "Fuck."

"Hell of a time to be living, huh? Get through the Depression, go almost straight into a war. I mean, everything is terrible enough now, but—"

"No, it's not—that's not what I was saying," Elijah interrupts as he fumbles for his phone in search of something. "I mean, yes, it was a hell of a time then and it's a hell of a time now, but when I talked to my mom about my great grandparents, I took notes about a few things. The years they were born, where they lived and what they did for a living, when my grandpa was born, when they all died."

"Okay," Alex drawls, something obvious there, even if he can't quite see it yet.

Elijah takes a deep breath. "If these messages were written sometime after the war, E couldn't have been my great grandmother. She died in 1940."

"Oh. Fuck," Alex echoes, draining the last of the beer just before Elijah does the same.

"Yeah."

"So, it sounds like they wrote these shortly after the war ended, like in 1946 or 1947? Maybe a little later than that? How old would your great grandfather have been then?"

"Um, around 33 or 34?"

"Okay, so he definitely could've been a hotshot attorney by then, with his own office, and it was years after losing his wife, so it's also entirely possible that he could've fallen in love again," Alex says.

"But then he fell in love with someone he shouldn't have. A relationship problematic enough that they were both afraid of being caught."

Alex nods. "And he mentions going to the warehouses sometime, so maybe this is just a massive class conflict. You said your great grandmother had come from money, but what if this new woman didn't? She might have worked at a warehouse of some kind, far beneath someone with a prominent legal career."

Elijah rubs a hand over his forehead before blinking some of his frustration away, and while Alex knows he's not strictly tired, he looks like he's wiped out. "That all makes sense."

"But you—" Alex catches himself, wanting to offer comfort that really isn't his to give to a friend he's only barely made, if he's even done that much. "We can put all this away if you want."

"I'm sorry, I—" Elijah looks across the table at Alex, his lip caught between his teeth again. "This would make a hell of a column, huh? And you've probably got some nice investigative resources at work."

"This has always been off the record, Elijah. I'm not gonna let anything about that change."

Elijah presses a fist to his eye, rubbing away something that might not have been there in the first place. "Sorry, I know I'm being weird about this, but I think I got so wrapped up in the idea of this being my family history, and now I don't know what it is anymore. It might not belong to me at all."

"Hey, no. I understand. And you already agreed that I'm very weird, so I certainly don't have much room to talk."

Alex pushes away from the table then, clearing their bottles and putting the chips away, returning to find Elijah still staring down at the book in his hand when he speaks. "Do you still want to know the rest of their story?"

"I do, yeah," Alex answers honestly, leaning up against the doorway when Elijah slowly looks up at him. "But remember that it was never about my family at all. I was just intrigued by these two people fighting their way together in the margins of some classic novels. It's okay if you don't want it to go any further."

"I have the missing pieces you need, though. The story won't make as much sense if you only have half of it."

"Mmmm, no, maybe not," Alex agrees. "But if there's one lesson I've learned in the past several months, it's that half is sometimes all I get to keep."

"You miss her."

Alex looks around, his gaze safe anywhere as long as it's not pointed toward the same seat Cassidy had sat in every night. "I miss my best friend, yeah. And I miss what we were supposed to be. What I thought we were."

Elijah doesn't say anything else right away, marking his place with the bar receipt, then closing the book and picking it up with the other one he'd brought with him, as reverent as Alex always has been when he holds his own. When Elijah starts walking toward the front door. Alex follows silently, as unsure as he usually is these days, stepping in front of Elijah to open it for him, Elijah turning around as soon as he's safely outside.

"I still want to know what happens next," Elijah admits softly.

"Okay," Alex tells him, but even as he says it, he thinks maybe tomorrow night would be too soon, for reasons he doesn't fully understand. "Do you maybe want to meet up on Saturday, like for lunch or something, before you have to work?"

A sigh of relief rattles Elijah's next breath, and Alex doesn't understand that either. "Yeah, that would be great."

The text from Elijah comes on Thursday afternoon.

You busy tonight?

Alex calls him and doesn't bother with a hello. "Thought you had to work."

"I do," Elijah laughs. "I'm headed out soon, actually. But listen, you can't get mad at me."

"Well, that sounds suspiciously like something my nine-year-old would say right before confessing to something she knew she wasn't supposed to do, even as she did it."

"Yeah, okay, I—I know I was kinda bummed about what we read on Monday night, and then I spent the next couple of days forcing myself to forget about it."

"But?" Alex prompts.

"But then today I got curious again and I peeked ahead and obviously I don't know what's in your book and please don't look in yours yet which I know is a really unfair thing to ask of you since I totally looked but also if you don't already have other plans then maybe you could come by the bar tonight and bring just the one book with you and we can talk about it," Elijah rambles, breathless by the time he finally pauses. "Please? Come to the bar?"

"Do I even get a hint? I mean, it's raining, but instead of sitting comfortably at home, you want me to just sit by myself in a bar while I watch you work," Alex teases with a smile he pretends he can't feel. "And that's after you went behind my back, so really, I should feel incredibly betrayed and maybe even hang up on you now."

"You are far too nice to hang up on me, especially because I will buy your dinner and drinks."

"So, no hint then?"

"Nope," Elijah says, but then he takes a shaky breath. "But you'll really come? Like, without peeking at the book first?"

Alex pauses for a moment, trying to figure out what just shifted, and he's serious when he answers. "Yeah, of course, if that's what you want."

"I think I—I'm probably just being an idiot. And maybe I'll realize it too late, but yeah—I'll see you when you get here."

Alex is still staring down at his phone when it chimes with a text and the name of the bar, and he can barely wrap his head around the conversation he just had with Elijah, a whirlwind of a thing leaving him unsure of which one of them was really teasing the other. It takes another couple of minutes before he can focus on finishing up his work, but he gets everything done in the next hour or so and then goes upstairs to get ready. He's pretty sure he puts too much thought into all of it but ends up more or less business casual—a thin forest green sweater and dark jeans with a suede jacket to top it off—like he's just going out after work and definitely isn't trying too hard. It was easier when he used to be in the office full-time and would just head out to happy hour with coworkers, or of course, all the times he went out with Cassidy, someone else there to ground him, a contrast to how obviously he'll be alone tonight.

Or not exactly alone, but really only there while Elijah is almost certainly going to be busy, talking to Alex long enough to share whatever got him worked up, then turning back to paying customers and what Alex assumes must be a whole lot of tips.

He splashes some water on his face and scrapes his hands through his surprisingly neat brown hair and sighs.

What did Elijah find? Why did he go from rambling about it to being so unsure that Alex would show up? And why was he worried that he might have been making some kind of mistake?

The drive to the bar is easy enough, the traffic typical with this many stupid people caught in the Southern California rain, but it's nothing Alex hasn't lived in for his whole life. He parks a couple of blocks away and jogs toward the bar, a small messenger bag slung across his torso keeping the book dry, and he holds the door open for a couple of women before he steps inside and out of the way. The place is near the beach, and it probably brings in a good mix of regulars and tourists, but while Alex would guess it's generally pretty popular, it's a rainy weeknight, and he has his choice of plenty of tables when he goes to sit.

Elijah is in the middle of the bar, a second bartender busy a few feet away, and he leans forward to greet the two women who'd just passed Alex, his smile a mile wide. The sleeves of his deep blue button up are rolled to his elbows and Alex already knows the color of it must make his eyes that much more noticeable, the two women seemingly lost there while Elijah offers to get them their drinks. Alex takes a few steps forward, the movement enough to have Elijah glancing up at him, his smile becoming something strangely shy until he turns away to make two cocktails.

Alex finds a small table against the darkest wall, opposite the glass doors that open to a patio and are probably only closed tonight to keep them dry, and he sets the bag down on another stool before lifting a small, laminated food menu from where it's tucked between the condiments and an announcement about upcoming live music dates.

"Did the two women scare you into the shadows or did I?" Elijah asks, sliding a coaster across the table, a name tag introducing him as Eli enough to give Alex an uncomfortable itch on his behalf. It doesn't last, though. Can't last when Alex catches sight of the tattoo on Elijah's forearm and has to drag his gaze back upward before it becomes impossible.

"No, I—I just thought I should stay out of the way."

"You're not in anyone's way, Alex," Elijah says. "Except maybe your own."

Alex thinks he should probably be offended by that, but he can't quite manage to get there when he's busy wondering what Elijah means by the observation, doing whatever it takes to spin his confusion into some kind of joke.

"Sounds dangerously close to being fortune cookie wisdom."

"Nah, just bartender wisdom. And I don't really have room to talk, so—" He winks and nods down at the menu in Alex's hand. "Most of that's pretty good for bar food. Anything look appealing?"

After no more than a glance, Alex picks out a cheeseburger and fries because it's easy, and a lager because it's even easier than that, and then for the next couple of minutes, he can catch his breath, watching as Elijah taps out the order on a small computer screen and then pours the beer. A few different people talk to him as he moves behind the bar, and Elijah easily responds to all of them, a natural people pleaser where Alex barely knows how to have a conversation without tripping over half the words that flow more naturally inside his head. He's done a pretty decent job of talking to Elijah, he supposes, but maybe every now and then the world makes one simple thing as easy as it should be.

Elijah laughs at something one of the ladies says, then brings the beer to Alex, who nods his thanks and tries not to look back at the bar where everyone waits. His eyes land on Elijah's arm instead, and he surprises himself when his fingertip follows, tracing the black ink he's only just found.

"A swan."

"Once an ugly duckling."

Alex stumbles over a few different responses, Elijah so far from ugly, except that that's not the point of the story anyway, and thinking about the messy layers of that particular fairy tale hurts before Alex can understand why. One fingertip becomes two, and Alex wants to press his entire palm to Elijah's skin, but nothing about a wish like that makes sense when he's never touched another man like this and he doesn't want the tattoo covered anyway.

"This is new. Or it's—I guess, it's probably not new for you, but I—I didn't know it was there." Alex stops, frustrated with himself until he can pull his hand away and smile up at Elijah, eager to change the subject. "Thank you for the beer. And as much as I want to hear why you dragged me out in the rain, you can go back to work if they need you."

"They have everything they need right now," Elijah assures him, quiet and almost too still before he goes on. "And what if I said that I only dragged you here to help you relax a little? To get you out of your house for a night?"

"You mean you didn't want—I mean, it's—I thought this was about the books?"

"Don't worry. It is about the books," Elijah shrugs. "But what if?"

Alex takes a sip of the beer to keep from reaching for the tattoo again, and while he's pretty sure Elijah already plans to wait for an actual answer, he also knows he can't help but want to give him one, like a puppet on a string that he doesn't want to cut. Sure enough, he sets the glass back down and takes a deep breath, Elijah far more patient than he should be with money waiting to be earned elsewhere.

"Okay, well, I'd say thank you—and that I probably needed it. And then I'd stay a while."

"Good."

"Does that mean you're going to tell me about the book and then get me drunk off my ass?" Alex asks.

"Definitely not getting you drunk, no," Elijah promises. "Not now anyway. And give me just a few minutes and I'll be back with your food and what I found in the next message from E."

Alex's first thought as Elijah walks away is "If not now, when?" and that's followed quickly by the realization that he'll have to stop reaching for his beer just to have something to do. He pulls his book out instead, resting it carefully on top of the bag and out of the way while he waits, Elijah back with a plate in his hand not long after. It's barely down on the table before Elijah steals a french fry.

"Help yourself," Alex grins.

Elijah smiles back but says nothing as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. "Okay, so I didn't bring the book with me because, duh, work, but I took pictures for you. And again, I really am sorry about being in a dumb mood on Monday night and for looking at the book without you there."

"It's okay, I get it, and you don't owe me any more apologies for it," Alex says. "But I'm not gonna let you take any more fries if you don't show me the damn pictures soon."

So Elijah hands him the phone and Alex turns it sideways to read the message captured there, as steady as he can be while Elijah's watching him so closely.

P, we should find a way to make that happen, meeting by the warehouses. It could happen late at night, in the shadows I know so well. After I've worked too hard for too little, my scarred and calloused hands will be desperate for something beautiful and tender beneath them. Please let me see you there. Please come take what's already yours.

"Any reaction to that?" Elijah asks.

"I—maybe. ‘Scarred and calloused hands' sounds kind of—"

"Yeah," Elijah interrupts, his fingers tap-tap-tapping on the table until Alex can almost feel them, too. "Go to the next one."

P, I haven't stopped thinking about tonight, about the feeling of your strong body crowding mine, and even though we weren't brave enough for more, even if it lasted no more than a minute or two, I will never forget the sensation of your perfectly shaven face brushing against the hint of stubble on mine. I can only hope it didn't hurt you, as it healed everything in me.

"Oh. Shit. It"s—they are—" Alex starts. "That's—we didn't even—"

"Nope."

"We just assumed."

"Yep."

"But they're both men."

"Pretty sure, yeah," Elijah sighs. "And I think the class difference would've been some kind of obstacle on its own—a wealthy attorney falling for some kind of warehouse worker, I guess—but to be gay on top of that would've been absolutely disastrous for them."

Alex can't even say anything else right then, stuck staring at the phone instead, and he feels Elijah studying him until he must have to go back to work, leaving Alex alone with a chest so tight he doesn't think it will be possible to take more than a single breath. He lifts his glass for another drink and pretends his hand isn't shaking, and while he hates that he's so trapped inside this story, everything hurts now, and he can't imagine that there's a way back out. He looks toward the bar and finds Elijah busy with several people at once, then he starts on his dinner because he can't freak out over a tragic love story that must have ended years ago, swallowing bite after bite while he tries not to wish for a happy ending he doesn't think would've been possible.

He"s just finishing the last of his beer when a new one lands on the table, Elijah's finger dragging through the condensation, and any eye contact fleeting.

"Saved a few fries for you," Alex offers.

"Didn't have to."

"Didn't have to be here at all," Alex points out.

"So, why are you?"

"Because you asked me to be, and I—I guess I wanted to be. There's still a lot more of the story, isn't there?"

Elijah finally looks up and nods. "If you want to keep going."

There's something melancholy between them now, and Alex doesn't know whether it's only about the books, or whether he's missed something more, but he gently knocks Elijah's hand away from the beer, and wonders how many more times he'll touch him tonight.

"You okay? I mean with this and—I don't know. Everything?"

"Everything?" Elijah laughs, and it's the heaviest sound Alex has heard in a while. "That's a loaded question better left for another time."

"Like when you get me drunk some other night?"

"What?"

Alex shrugs. "Earlier you said you wouldn't get me drunk now. Just wondering when else you think that might happen, or whether it's something that's supposed to take us both by surprise."

Elijah doesn't answer, rapping his fist against the table a couple of times before he picks up his phone and gestures back to the bar, spending long enough over there that Alex thinks maybe he's supposed to grab his bag and duck quietly back into the rain. In the end, he closes his eyes for a few seconds, strains to hear Elijah's voice among the crowd of people who know how to have fun, and then he opens them as he reaches for the book he'd brought, finding where they'd left off there.

E, yes. Yes, I will meet you there. I'll let you hold me if I can do the same. If you trust the shadows, I'll learn to trust them, too. The next time you deliver to our office, give me a signal. Tell me when and where. And until then…

Alex re-reads it, committing it to memory as much as he's tried to do with all of them. It's the transition from only seeing each other in passing, E delivering the books, alone or with something else, to P at the law firm, and finally agreeing to meet somewhere they can be alone, however briefly. And then there's the message he read on Elijah's phone about P meeting E late at night, no kiss happening yet, but some kind of embrace enough to keep them going.

Bittersweet, always.

And maybe it makes sense that that's when Elijah finally returns.

"You asked if I was okay, and I don't have a good answer for you right now. I just—I don't."

"Not sure you really owe me one," Alex says.

"Maybe not. Still want to try sometime, if you're willing to wait a while."

"Of course. Yeah," Alex agrees. "But I—can I ask you something?"

Elijah looks back at the bar and then at Alex again. "Sure."

"Do you still think this is Peter, or did we just end up with a random story on our hands?"

"I think it's him," Elijah says, his voice somehow both unsteady and firm. "The first initial, the time frame, the law firm, and the fact that my grandpa had these books all kept together on his shelf, like they mattered. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am."

Alex nods. "And you said the books you have are ones your grandpa read to you when you were younger, so he would've seen the notes. You think he knew?"

"I think he must have, yeah." Elijah picks up the mostly empty plate and waits for Alex to down the last of the beer before he reaches for the glass, too, clearing his throat and going nowhere. "You know, those two women at the bar have been asking me about you."

"Okay," Alex says, strangely careful about not looking at them. He's not sure he's ever known how to do it right anyway. "And what did you say?"

"That you're a friend of mine."

"Okay," he says again, relieved somehow. Settled at the sound of a word that seems so incredibly safe. He wants a friend. Needs one even. Glancing past Elijah for more than that already feels like it would be a mistake, and as he stares at the swan again, Alex tries not to want something new.

"Did you want me to tell them anything else?" Elijah asks.

Still distracted, Alex feels his mouth twist into something that wants to be a smile and hasn't quite made it there. "Why? So, you can be a margin of my very own?"

Elijah laughs at that, though, incrementally lighter than he was earlier. "I've been called worse."

There are so many things Alex wants to say, but he can't imagine how any of them would be okay here, tonight, with the fragility of the love story still on the table, the book closed for now but unlikely to stay that way. Everything feels pulled taut in a way that he doesn't understand, and he's almost certain most of his thoughts would only cause him to fall apart and come dangerously close to bringing Elijah down, too. What he does say is the only thing he thinks he can.

"I um—I should go. I have to work in the morning."

"Yeah, of course," Elijah agrees.

He takes the dishes away while Alex slides the book back into his bag and stands, turning toward the door just as Elijah returns. Looking at him gives Alex such an easy view of the bar just over his shoulder, and the chance to smile at the two women he'd opened the door for a while ago.

He still doesn't take it, blinking up at Elijah instead.

"We still on for Saturday?"

"Looking forward to it."