Page 46 of Somnium

Cadi laughed. “No! I was just curious which came first … the bar or the band.”

Elias’s head dropped, and his shoulders shook with laughter. “I see Miles left an impression.”

Cadi shrugged, spinning one of the empty glasses against the bar, still waiting for an answer.

“The band,” he replied, turning around to grab two pint glasses from the rack behind him. “I was with them basically from the time I moved here until I got the opportunity to buy this place. I knew I needed a change, so I took the chance.”

The lines of his face shifted as he spoke, the jovial ease darkening to something heavier. It was the look of someone remembering things better left forgotten.

“Do you regret it?” Cadi asked.

Elias looked up, his expression almost startled, as if he hadn’t expected the follow-up. He frowned, sliding a glass of water across the bar toward her. “Not the bar, no. I think leaving the band was the best thing I could have done for myself. It was a pretty dark time in my life and I needed to get out, but …”

He pulled in a deep breath and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if maybe there was a better way to do that.”

He leaned forward again to crook his thumb and finger against his jaw, studying the glass in his hands. Sensing that she had taken them to the edge of something deeper than she intended, Cadi scrambled to pivot.

“Where did you move here from?”

Elias looked up, the shadow in his eyes lifting into a lightness that eased something in Cadi’s chest. “Vardheim,” he said.

Cadi tilted her head. “Never heard of it.”

Elias let out a soft laugh. “No one who isn’t from Vardheim has ever heard of Vardheim, so I’m not surprised. It’s a little nowhere town up north. Lots of sheep.”

Cadi frowned, feeling herself leaning in to listen closely as he spoke, searching for any hint of the telltale northern lilt that would normally be a dead giveaway.

“You don’t have an accent though,” she said, frowning when not even the barest trace revealed itself.

Elias smirked. “Well, I’ve spent the last nineteen years working very hard to sound as local as possible. Glad to know it worked.”

Cadi bunched her lips together in a move she hoped hid her disappointment. She loved a good accent, and the one from the north was by far her favorite. But seeing as she was actively trying not to become infatuated with the man staring at her from across the bar, perhaps it was for the best.

“Is your family still up there?” she asked.

Elias nodded as he pushed himself up, and Cadi tried to convince her pulse to calm down as she watched him step around the bar and slide onto the stool next to her. “My mom and my sister, yeah. I haven’t spoken to my dad since I left, though. He and I have a … difficult relationship. Kind of ironic, the son of a mean drunk owning his own bar. Kind of explains why alcohol never appealed to me, I guess.”

“Oh,” Cadi said, regretting her question immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open another old wound.”

Elias shook his head, the movement so slight she might have missed it if she hadn’t been transfixed by the way he was looking at her, the softness in his gaze nearly matching that in his voice. “You didn’t.”

Something caught in her chest, forcing her to clear her throat just to pull in her next breath. She found herself still wanting to know more, and she searched for a reason to keep talking to him. There was something in the way his eyes held hers that made her wonder if maybe he might want that, too.

“How about you?” he asked, taking a sip of water. “Where was home before this?”

Cadi let out a dry laugh. “That is a simple question with a not so simple answer,” she said. “My mom oversaw operations at different temple locations for Poseidon, so we moved around a lot. I guess I never had one spot that I called home, but before moving here, I was a few hours east in Harbor View.”

A new tension seemed to settle in Elias’s limbs that hadn’t been there a moment ago, though she didn’t know why. Nothing about her answer had been particularly scandalous, and there was no way he could have known about the quiet ache that bloomed beneath her ribs when she talked about her mom.

“Was?” he asked, his voice so quiet she barely heard the question despite being so close to him.

Cadi nodded, lowering her eyes to her glass. “A few months before my dad. I don’t have any siblings, so it’s just me now.”

She watched as something in his composure cracked the tiniest bit. Like he had been anticipating her response, but when it came, it still took a piece of him with it.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his hand lifting slightly before he settled it back against the polished wood, gripping it tightly.

“I’m fine,” Cadi said, forcing a smile through the familiar pull that urged her to retreat, to hide away and collapse in on herself until the pain stopped.