Page 34 of Stolen Fate

Elliot looked down at his feet and said something in a small voice. I bent down so that we were eye to eye and said, “What was that?”

“I can be your friend,” Elliot said.

I nodded and smiled. “Yes. I would love that, Elliot.”

Seeing that I wasn’t going to reject him, Elliot brightened, and led me to the coffee table, where at least three coloring books were laid out, with boxes of crayons, markers, and colored pencils placed nearby on the floor.

“We can color if you want,” Elliot said. “It’s my favorite-est thing to do in the whole wide world. And– and you know what?”

I smiled. A brief glance back told me Jace was gone. He probably went back to his room to get dressed. Hopefully that was the case, because I didn’t know where I was supposed to look with a half-naked Jace and not have the effect of it show on my face.

How unprofessional. On both of our parts.

“What?” I asked.

“I also like to watch superhero movies. And color superhero books.”

He pointed to a Spider-Man coloring book and I smiled.

“Is he your favorite superhero?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes. Spiders are, you know, really, really, super cool.”

He grinned up at me, his blue eyes shining with excitement, and I was glad to see most of the initial shyness he might have had with me was gone, enough to get him to relax around me.

I playfully scrunched up my face at him. “Spiders are pretty scary.”

He patted my hand. “That’s okay. I don’t like to touch them either. But I think they’re cool. And if we find one in the house, we can tell Daddy and he’ll catch it and release it out into the wild for us.”

“Is that so?” I asked.

He nodded fiercely, as if defending his dad’s good name, so confident in his dad’s ability to pull through for him.

I had once been like that, where my dad had seemed like the strongest man in the world. Then I saw him break down because of my mom’s death, and I saw him deteriorate because of his injury, and I realized just how human my dad really was.

“Evelyn?”

“What is it, sweetie?”

“What is your favorite-est thing to do in the whole wide world?” he asked.

“Hmm, well, I do like coloring. But I don’t think I can color as well as you,” I said.

He brightened. “That’s okay. I can teach you! It’s really hard to color inside the lines, but if we try really, really hard, we can get it right.”

I nodded seriously, trying not to let my smile show through, and Elliot was kind enough to give me one of his coloring books. Not the superhero one, mind you, but a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one.

We colored in silence for a few minutes, with Elliot turning to me every once in a while to check my progress.

God, he was a cute kid.

Feeling eyes on me, I looked up and found Jace dressed for the day, and he was looking at us with a soft look in his eyes.

I didn’t know what that soft look meant, or why it was there, but I was too chicken to ask him about it.

So I looked away and pretended the sight of him in dark gray suit didn’t affect me as much as the sight of him in a towel, and I pretended not to notice that the blue tie he was wearing really brought out his eyes instead of clashing like I thought it would, and I pretended that I couldn’t smell his unique scent, even from across the room.

I was here to do a job, not crush hard on my boss.

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