Page 67 of The Badger in His Burrow

The boxes at the bottom of the stairs were badger-free, and I felt terrible that I was both relieved and disappointed by that.

There was something seriously wrong with me.

17

Elliot Crane

Can I take you out?

I stareddown at my phone, having absolutely no idea how to answer that question. For one thing, it had been just over a month since he’d walked out on me after I’d confessed my feelings, and about two weeks since he’d ended up sleeping under a box at the bottom of my exterior stairs. After leaving me apology shoes, I hadn’t heard a word. I figured he’d moved on, and I should, too.

I hadn’t really done a very good job of that, though. I still thought about him, about what his rough hands felt like on my skin, about his sardonic smile… Even the fact that when he’d done something stupid—showing up drunk and shifted at my apartment—he’d apologized for it and tried to make amends. By buying me shoes to replace the ones he’d yarfed all over.

But this text message did not appear to have been sent in a state of inebriation, unlike the last ones he’d sent me before the badger-in-the-box incident. Needless to say, the question itselfmade my heart race, but I tried to force it to slow down again. For one thing, I wasn’t sure if the question meant that Elliot was offering to buy me a beer, or if he was asking me out on a date. That didn’tseemright, given our last few conversations, but that weird-as-hell chat with Hart in which the elf had said Elliot cared about me—that I had played through my head a thousand times despite telling myself it wasn’t even remotely healthy—had kept me hoping against logic and what I told myself was possible.

Maybe—just maybe—he did want to go on a date.

But it was far more likely—and I knew this—that he just wanted to talk to me. Or fuck me. Not that I didn’t want that, but Noah had been right, too. I wanted more than that. And me settling for a sexual relationship instead of a romantic one wasn’t good for me and wouldn’t make me happy. That road only led to bad places.

So I texted him back.

Seth Mays

Are you asking me on a date?

Yes.

A romantic date?

Yes.

Can I?

You know how when you want something badly enough with no hope of getting it, and then you somehowdoget it, your brain sort of short circuits, and then you start wondering whether or not you actuallydowant it?

That wasn’t what I felt. Yes, my brain had absolutely short-circuited, but there was no question that I wanted it. Desperately.

I was also terrified out of my mind. Because I’d built up the relationship I didn’t have with Elliot to be something it couldn’t possibly live up to. SomethingIcouldn’t possibly live up to. But I would be an absolute fool to refuse just because I felt unworthy or inadequate.

Yes.

I’ll pick you up at 6?

6:30?

I’ll be there.

Then I had to take about a dozen deep breaths just to be able to refocus on the microscope in front of me. The really old, desperately out of date microscope that was all the horrifically low budget of the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office could afford.

We’d gotten the blood test results back on the samples from the barn where they’d found the kidnapped shifter, and it was definitely Arcanid. And didn’t match anything in the database. According to Smith when I’d called to tell him, it would probably just end up in a cold case file if we couldn’t find an actual body to go with it. But the gleam in his eyes told me he wasn’t quite done with it yet.

There wasn’t anything else I could do, though, so I’d be done—assuming no one died—by five, and that would give me time to get back to my apartment, shower, and change so I didn’t smell like chemicals, which botheredmynose, so I was pretty sure it would also bother Elliot’s. He claimed I had a more nuanced sense of smell, probably because badgers spent most of the timewith their faces in the dirt. That might be true, but I still didn’t want to smell like lab on a date.

An actual, honest-to-God date.

My blood pressure was probably through the roof. I’d tried convincing myself that while I didwanta relationship—a real one—with Elliot, it wasn’t going to happen. He’d made that clear. And I had been trying for the past three months to convince myself to stop thinking about it, and failing utterly.

And now it seemed that maybe I had reason to hope.

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