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"So, ah, are you staying in Navesink Bank?" I asked.
"At least for the next year. I don't have much choice in the matter."
"You don't want to be here?" Why was that information making my heart sink a little?
"It's the only place I've ever called home," he hedged, pulling back on the leash when Coop looked like he was about to lunge at a shadow.
"But you feel done here?" I asked, understanding.
"Been there?"
"I grew up in the sticks in Pennsylvania," I offered. "Very rural. Very conservative community."
He looked over at me, smirk devilish. "You sure showed them, huh?"
I laughed at that. "It wasn't that I set out to raise eyebrows. Once I was an adult and realized how far we, as a community, still had to go in being open about sex, and giving comprehensive sexual education, I kinda figured this was a niche I would do well in."
"So you do more than sell sex toys?"
"I won't lie; that is the majority of my income. But I teach classes too."
"What kind of classes?"
Okay, so I know I said that the sex store thing wasn't a good idea for topics of conversation. But Eli, unlike most men I tried to have this kind of conversation with, wasn't making double-entendres or leering at me. He was genuinely curious. In a casual way.
"I offer a class for parents and kids about 'the talk' for when the parents are too embarrassed to do it themselves, but want their kids to get accurate information not based on shame and taboo. Then there are couples classes like tantra. I have classes - and these are usually done at bridal showers or bachelorette parties - just about sex toy education."
"Rabbits verses eggs?" he suggested, managing to simultaneously pique my interest - because, let's face it, any man up-to-date on his vibrators was intriguing - and send another surge of desire through my system. There was simply no way to keep my brain from imagining being in bed with him. With a rabbit. Or an egg. Or, hell, just him.
"Exactly," I agreed, hoping my voice wasn't as airy as I was worried it might be.
There was another tense silence as Coop - as he usually did - led us his way, which was down a dead-end side street where there were only two stores, both of which were closed, likely following the scent of a mouse or stray cat. Or both.
Eli turned suddenly, light eyes so intense under those thick black lashes.
"Autumn, why the fuck did you write me?"
Oh, so we were doing this.
And me, well, I didn't have any good, satisfactory answers for him.
"The first time, just so you knew your dog wasn't at the pound on death row. After that," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I honestly don't know."
"You knew what I did?"
"I looked into you once I remembered your name."
"Remembered my name?"
"Yeah, you know. Between the arrest, then trying to take care of Coop, and work, and life... I kinda forgot what the cop called you. It wasn't until right before I wrote you the first time that I was at a bar, and someone called another man with the last name Mallick. Then it clicked."
"Did you talk to them?"
"To whom?"
"My brother or father."
There was a noticeable tension in his body right then. His shoulders squared; his spine went fully straight; his jaw looked like it was clenched painfully.
So family.
That was a sore, sore topic for him.
The nosy part of me wanted to know why, wanted to ask for the details, wanted to understand. But I also understood that wasn't my place, that wounds like that hurt when they got uncovered, ripped open again.
"Ah, no. No. I was at Chaz's for my birthday, and someone just called out the name Mallick. It clicked, so I turned, and I saw someone who looked a lot like you. But in a fancy suit."
"Ryan."
"I'm sorry?"
"That was Ryan."
Ugh.
There was pain in his voice.
Whatever story that was there, it could not have been a good one.
Had they disowned him when he got arrested?
Was there a disconnect even before then?
It was clear that, at some point, his family must have meant something to him. That was the only way to describe the depth of tortured emotion in his tone.
Something about hearing that in a man's voice, maybe just in this man's voice, it gave my insides a tug, something I couldn't place at first, but was ultimately just a bone-deep desire to ease it slightly.
Without thought, truly without realizing it was going to happen until I felt the contact myself, my hand moved out to close around the outside of his hand.
At the contact, his body jerked, like he wasn't expecting it, like he was unfamiliar with touch. And, I guess, that made sense.
His eyes sought mine, full of questions.
I had no answers.
