Page 45 of Daddy's Christmas Elf
No, but you’ve got lots of otherattractive qualitiesto compensate…Eli’s spirits dropped further. He didn’t blame Peter — the name all but stuck in his throat — for being curious. The man he’d seen in the photo, the man he’d told himself he would never meet and would hate if he did. His stomach bit down on itself, because neither of those things was turning out to be true.
Peter was friendly, polite, and calm. Eli wasn’t quite so sure he’d be as sanguine if he’d turned up at the house that had once been his home only to find his former husband’s boyfriend or lover hanging around. As Peter smiled at him over the rim of his coffee mug, Eli’s less than certain certainties fled; he didn’t know what he was to Grey.
“I’m sorry, Eli. Like I say, it’s not my business.”
“No, it’s okay. We met at a party.” Which was true, as far as it went. Peter didn’t need to know about his stint as a slutty elf, attempting to nick Grey’s coat, and hiding in the back of the Jag.
Peter’s brows arched high, clear and genuine surprise on his face.
“A party? Well, that’s not what I was expecting. Grey was never one for parties. He’d stand in the corner, clutching his drink with grim determination, and would drag us both home before midnight. Honestly, it was straight out of Cinderella.” Peter laughed and shook his head. “Well, things seem to have changed in the last few months. But I’m glad, because he needed to be more social. There’s more to life than working all the hours god sends.”
A frown creased Peter’s smooth brow as he took another sip of coffee, but it was gone in an instant and he smiled at Eli once more.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind putting your head around the door for me? I just wanted to wish him Happy Christmas, and to give him this.” Peter pulled his coat, which he’d lain over the back of the sofa, towards him and rummaged in the inside pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he held a parcel wrapped in plain brown paper. “It’s a—oh, talk of the devil.”
Peter’s smile was brighter than the Saharan sun at midday as he turned towards the door. Eli followed his gaze to see Grey standing in the doorway, all his attention on Peter. Striding across, Grey wrapped Peter up in his arms.
“Hello, what are you doing here?” Grey said, this voice muffled as he buried his face in Peter’s neck.
Checking up, seeing who yourfriendis. You said he’d come round…
Eli stepped back, just a bystander to he didn’t know what.
“Hope you don’t mind me calling in unexpected? I couldn’t hear half of what you said the other—”
“Of course I don’t.”
Eli’s heart tumbled as Grey smiled at Peter, his eyes for nobody other than the man he’d known and loved for fifteen years.
And still loved. Eli’s fracturing heart shattered.
Unseen by either Peter or Grey, Eli slipped out of the living room and quietly closed the door behind him.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
“Eli? Oh.”
Grey pulled himself out of the hug. It was nothing more than friendly, no frisson for what had once been. Eli had gone, the door closed on himself and Peter.
“He’s cute.” Peter nodded towards the door, a smile floating on his lips, as he sat back down on the sofa. “He said you met at a party, which was a surprise.”
“Heis Eli, and yes we did.”
Grey joined him. He had no intention of explaining the circumstances around his and Eli’s meeting. What he was more interested in was why Peter, after months of no contact other than a disjointed call, was back at the house that had been his one-time home. Grey pressed his lips together, because wasn’t it precisely because of the call he was here? He hadn’t been joking when he’d told Eli that Peter had the gall to come round, but he hadn’t truly expected it.
“Sorry. Yes, Eli. And as for the rest, it’s mind your own business.” Peter laughed, but almost instantly he began to scratch the back of his neck.
Grey narrowed his eyes at the sign of nerves, nerves that in all the years he and Peter had been together had rarely manifested themselves. The last time they had was when Peter had told him he was leaving.
Grey didn’t answer, but instead asked a question of his own.
“Why are you here, Peter? It’s not that I’m not pleased to see you…” Grey wasn’t so sure of that, but with some time behind them, and the sudden and brighter path his life had taken in recent days, he was inclined to feel generous towards his ex.
“There are a couple of reasons, including this.” Peter picked up the plain wrapped parcel he’d dropped to the coffee table when Grey had come into the living room, and handed it across.
“A Christmas present?”
Peter shrugged. “Yes, and no. David, Jessica and I,” he said, referring to his siblings, “have been clearing out Dad’s place, getting ready to sell in the New Year. It was where I was phoning from, which was why the signal was so bad.”
