Page 113 of The Turning of the Tables

“Yes,” I answered him honestly.

“It gets better,” he said softly. “The loudness, the smells, the fatigue.”

“So they tell me,” I replied blandly.

“They?” he asked softly.

“Elliot.”

Noah spun spaghetti around his fork, a skill I’d always been envious of. “You talk to Elliot a lot,” he observed mildly, looking up at me through his eyelashes. I didn’t buy the innocence act—because I’m his twin and I’m not stupid.

I shrugged, shoveling a non-twirled forkful of spaghetti into my mouth, trying—and failing—to keep sauce out of my beard. That’s what napkins are for. I chewed a couple times before answering, hoping that having food in my mouth would obscure any stray emotions that got through my careful facade. “He’s a shifter, too,” I told Noah.

“So’s Taavi, but you’re not texting him.”

“Elliot isn’t Hart’s boyfriend,” I replied.

“But he is Hart’s friend,” Noah pointed out.

“Well, yeah. That’s why he was here to begin with,” I said.

“You still haven’t answered the question, Sethy,” my brother prodded.

“I didn’t hear a question, Nono,” I replied, skewering the other half of my meatball. “I heard a leading observation.”

He rolled his eyes. “Who is he to you?” he asked me, pointedly.

“A guy who’s been answering a lot of questions about being a shifter,” I answered.

“Your new boyfriend?”

“No.” It was the truth. It wasn’t what I wanted the truth tobe, but it was the truth. “Just a friend.” Sort of.

Noah made a sound somewhere between a hum and a grunt. It was the sound he made when he thought I was full of shit.

“Not much point in dating someone who lives in Wisconsin from here,” I said, keeping my tone even.

“Wouldn’t be the first long distance relationship in the history of the world,” Noah observed.

I shrugged again, sticking the meatball half in my mouth.

Noah sighed. “I want to see you happy, Sethy,” he said gently.

“Me, too,” I told him. “Although I’m not sure the universe agrees with us.”

Noah took another bite of his pasta. “You’ve definitely had a rough six months,” he agreed. “But things have to look up at this point, right?”

It was my turn to sigh. “You know you should never say shit like that, Nono. It’s like daring God not to make it rain.”

30

SETH MAYS

Is it bad if I hate working with my brother?

ELLIOT CRANE

That depends.