Page 52 of Daddy's Christmas Elf
Looking around him, Eli’s stared in dismay. He’d gone the wrong way, the wrong bloody way. His stumbling walk had taken him further, not nearer to his destination, as in front of him, cloaked in beautiful, snowy desolation and stretching for miles, lay Hampstead Heath. The Heath, where he and Grey had hunted down greenery for the living room, where they’d had a snowball fight — and where Grey had saved him from falling, scooping him up in his arms and holding him tight.
Eli covered his face with his hands. He’d never get home, because he had no home to get back to, so what was the point of even trying? As the snow beat down on him from a cold, unfeeling sky, as the wind whipped and grabbed at the coat that still held a taunting trace of Grey, Eli’s legs buckled beneath him and he sank to the ground.
Eli didn’t know how long he sat there, whether it was one minute, or ten, or an hour. He didn’t know anything until he was lifted up by arms which wrapped themselves around him and hugged him tight to a strong chest, where a heart beat its hard, steady rhythm. Shouldn’t he struggle, shouldn’t he try and get away, and make his cold and lonely journey across a deserted, dark city…? But the words he should say were as frozen as the world around them as he looked up into Grey’s serious face.
“It’s no use running away, because I’ll always find you. I’m taking you back to where you belong. I’m taking you home, little elf.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
“Hot chocolate with marshmallows.”
Grey placed the huge mug on the coffee table, and sat down next to Eli, who was curled up in the corner of the sofa, thanking every god he could think of that Eli was home and safe.
He’d driven around in mounting panic, searching the empty streets when he’d found the tube station dark and locked up. Grey had been sick with worry, his heart almost bursting through his rib cage when he’d spotted Eli, collapsed on the frozen ground. Now, all he wanted to do was to hold Eli tight in his arms and never let him go, but first he needed to put right what had gone wrong, and make Eli believe in every word he had to say to him.
“Thank you,” Eli said, his voice small and shaky.
“You’re lucky I found you, because the weather’s lethal.” Grey looked over at the window, and the snow hammering against the pane. However long it had taken, Grey would never have stopped searching for him. “Christ, Eli. Why did you run away?” The words exploded from Grey, all his self restraint collapsing.Why didn’t you give me a chance to tell you what I needed to?
Eli, head bowed forward, didn’t answer, as he sat with his legs pulled up tight against his body, his arms wrapped around his knees.
He looks so young and vulnerable…
“I won’t — can’t — be a substitute. For Peter.”
Eli’s quiet words smashed into Grey.
“What? No, of course you’re not that. You have to believe me. Me and Peter, we’re finished, over. We’re divorced. He’s met—”
“Somebody else. I know. I know all the facts, but it doesn’t stop you from… from loving him still, does it? In here.” Without looking up, Eli pressed a hand against his heart. Grey had never seen anything as sad and desolate and every part of him cried out in pain for how wrong Eli had got it.
Grey leaned into Eli and with one finger tilted his chin up, forcing Eli to meet his gaze. Grey’s heart stuttered as he stared into those incredible eyes, eyes he’d seen sparkle with life, or widen to dark fathomless pools as their bodies had flowed and melted into each other’s. Eyes that had looked into Grey’s with a wonder as all those needs and wants Eli was only beginning to comprehend began to unfold in the shadowy places within him.
“You need to listen to me, Eli. You need to listen and understand.”
“What’s there to under—”
Grey pressed his forefinger to Eli’s lips, halting his words. Eli fell silent, and Grey let his hand drop away.
“Just listen to me, okay?”
Eli hesitated, before he nodded.
Silently, Grey counted to three before he spoke.
“Peter turning up today, it was a shock. Other than the phone call, I haven’t seen or heard from him in months. He’s moved on with his life, and I’m pleased for him. A week or so ago I wouldn’t have said that, but I’m saying it now because it’s true. I’ll always be fond of him, I can’t deny that. But love him? Want him by my side? Want him to be the last man I see before I fall asleep, and the first when I wake up? Want him to be the man who completes me, and the manIcomplete? Once, yes. But now? No. No way.”
Grey shook his head, the idea that Peter could fill that place, could be the man Grey enfolded in his arms to keep safe, it was wrong, so, so wrong.
“He’s not who I want in my life, Eli.”
“Isn’t he?” Eli whispered. “But I saw you. How you looked at each other. The way the two of you smiled, you—you seemed so happy. And fifteen years together. All that history. How could I ever compete with that?”
“Oh, Eli.” Grey cupped his palm over Eli’s cheek, a smile ghosting his lips when Eli pushed into the touch without thought or hesitation. His little elf, who needed all the care he could give. “It was my fault. I should have talked to you properly, instead of chewing over Peter’s visit and leaving you to put two and two together and come up with five.”
Eli ceased nuzzling into Grey’s palm, and frowned.
“You were quiet and distant afterwards. You were thinking about what you and he were together. I know you were. There was no place for me. I can’t and won’t be a second best.”
