Page 3 of All Hallows' Rage
We were hoisted in the air with a gradual rotation as I balanced us out. Eli’s grip was firm, but he wasn’t uncomfortable to hold as I dipped and he lowered. We were perpendicular in the air, and I was his only hold. Sweat misted my forehead as the true fear of dropping him crept in.
The room moved around us, but since the lift, everything had faded away from us. I couldn’t look away from him. In this hold, one precarious movement would send our faces clashing together. Eli held his pose effortlessly, with no sign of worry crossing his eyes. I’d lost track of how many times we circled the room.
“Drop,” he whispered, and the word ghosted across my lips.I said I wasn’t . . .The sudden descent caught my breath as Eli smiled and closed his eyes. I felt the tension return as we stopped and hovered just high enough for his feet to brush the floor.
He released me and stepped back as I flipped to unravel the straps. I dropped one for Eli to take and held my position swaying over the mat. He approached me with a slight run, bouncing just soft enough to catch the strap. Eli secured his wrist in the loop as we were hoisted again. The added moment pulled us apart as we circled around each other.
Without a missed step, he went up into his straddle switch. It was a beautiful hold as he turned down to face me and braced his leg against the strap. Synchronicity was a difficult feat for new partners, but I watched him in awe as he didn’t move around me too fast or too slow. Eli outstretched a hand for my shoulder as we pulled in closer. His arm wrapped around the back of my neck as I supported his open side. My hand slid over his neck and down his shoulder blade. Our rotation tightened, and in the dizzying moment, my imagination told me that his nose brushed along mine.
It was an instant of truly floating before Eli kicked out of our embrace and his position. The on and off touches were a tease of being impossibly close. He dropped into a standard hold before sailing back to me and falling in sync with me. I wrapped my free arm around his back, and Eli dropped his hold and freed both hands. I held him out below me as he stretched his arms out and arched his back over my hold. When Eli came back up, his eye caught the position of his strap as he took his hold and pushed away from me again.
Torture, this is fucking torture.
He didn’t stay gone for long. With a secretive smirk just for me, he twisted his back to me and fell again. I grabbed around his waist this time and in tandem, we watched the room blur around us as we lowered to the floor.
Dizziness had never affected me, but the only thing grounding my senses was the conflicting sensation of the mat. Soft and springy as you walked, but the material was rough. I released Elijah and my strap, stepping back and feeling the floor. He looked me over from head to toe. I was frozen in place when something crossed over his gentle features.
“Nice work, no need to go another way.” He was smiling and stepping forward to eat the distance between us. “I like you leading.” It wasn’t something one would usually read into, but the undercurrent was as present and palpable as the tension.
I broke away to search for Gretchen. She was always ready to give out corrections, and the confrontation with my feelings became too much. Everyone in the gym who’d been engaged in their own stunts and activities had stopped and were focused on us. On the other side, I spotted Lane with half a brownie paused midair on the way to her mouth.
My chest heaved while I read her face. I was certain anyone close enough could hear the way it thundered against my ribs. Lane had no jokes, smirks, or quips to tease me with.
“Again.” Gretchen’s voice finally came from behind us. I needed a break already.
* * *
I landedon the ground with a firm thud. Gretchen had us going round after round, trying the same things, new things, and even a set where we just played off each other. I could hear Elijah move toward me to say something again, but I walked away. It hadn’t been a particularly strenuous practice, but I was burning up on the inside. The eye contact, shared whispers, and light touches not required for the moves were piling up and putting me on edge. When I stepped off the floor, Lane popped up with her mouth open for commentary, but I held a hand up and shook my head.
Running would’ve been quicker, but it also would’ve caused a scene. If anyone cared to ask, it was the perfect time for a water break and nothing more. Perhaps I needed to use the bathroom—truthfully, it was no one’s business.
The doors fell open under my hands with a harder swing than I intended, which meant not making a scene was off the table. The walk to the locker room put me on autopilot until I heard Lane’s voice come in through the trance.
“Matt!”
I looked back and regretted it. Lane was hanging out of the open door watching me, but Elijah appeared behind her, tracking me over her head as he stepped into the hallway. I told myself repeatedly not to read into anything, but as he followed me through the annex, those thoughts were hard to keep straight.
So, I walked. Ignoring them both, I turned and kept moving.
A firm hand landed on my bare shoulder. The way my body reacted told me it was Eli. For a moment, I was still on my way to the lockers until a door opened and I was tripping into a closet and coming face-to-face with the shelving.
“I can move and lift you with little trouble, too.” He stepped into the space and closed the door behind us.
The light was pushed out and we were plunged into darkness. My grip on the shelves tightened at the thought of being forced in here. It was a small space by normal considerations, but the two of us made the air thick, and it was hard to catch a full breath.
“If you want to explain, you have the floor.” He wasn’t touching me, but he was close enough that I felt the body heat radiating off him. “Or I can rattle off my observations if you’d prefer.”
“I just need water.” I turned to face him, ready to follow the excuse wherever I could. The minuscule light coming under the door partially framed a silhouette of Eli.
“Which is why you left your water behind.”
“I-I—”Have no fucking idea what to say.I stood there, fumbling over my words and thoughts, when a large hand pressed against my abdomen. He didn’t say a word as he traced the lines up to my chest. A shiver worked down my spine from the way it tickled. Under his hand, my heart was beating erratically. “I—”
“Stare.” Elijah’s answer was simple. “You stare and linger. This entire situation has you completely undone, doesn’t it?”
I couldn’t answer. He felt the truth and heard it in my silence. I was being unraveled thread by thread as his hand slid over my shoulder and around my neck.
“Matt.” His whisper brushed my face as his thumb pressed into my pulse point. The darkness was a blessing as my cheeks warmed. “Straight men don’t make it a habit to stare at my mouth. Or my ass.”
