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Noah snorted. “Get a room.”
“I think we will,” Ethan said, smouldering. “But not before Elliot spills.”
“Spilling seems to be the theme of today’s brunch.”
Ethan arched his brow, waiting.
“He figured out the truth.” Elliot looked at all of them one by one. “And now . . .”
“Now, what?”
Elliot could tell by his carefully controlled tone, his steadying breaths before they spoke, the false smiles Wentworth gave anyone who entered their office. Twice over the last few days Elliot had caught Wentworth hiding the flex of his hands.
He was holding himself from voicing his anger.
His business calls lacked enthusiasm. They were polite, but to the point. This wasn’t the Wentworth he knew. The Wentworth he knew was quick tempered, true, but quicker to get over it.
This suppressed emotion was part of the new Wentworth, and it saddened Elliot that so much had changed. Yet, there was something . . . something about seeing the differences in him, about having the chance to relearn him, that felt . . .
Stop.
Honey stirred in his basket, ear twitching where a leaf from the potted palm bowed toward his head. Elliot could shift the basket, but the large plant had been obstructing his view of Wentworth’s desk, and if it moved a half foot to the left . . .
He crouched—yikes, heavier than he imagined. Glancing up, he caught Wentworth eyeing him. “Little help?”
Wentworth stared, a kaleidoscope of emotion paling and heating his face. He twisted off his chair and left the room without a word.
Despite Wentworth’s anger, lunch was always there; Elliot ate it, his chest twisting.
He had betrayed Wentworth by pushing him away. He’d known that. He’d always thought if Wentworth knew the truth, he’d understand. He might not like it, but he’d see why it had to be done.
But the tension between them had only grown heavier. A deeper betrayal Elliot didn’t quite grasp.
It felt like drowning. He didn’t know what to do. He was a counsellor, he should be thinking logically about this, but . . . it reduced him to a pot of stewing emotions. Such a heady concoction, he couldn’t think straight.
Elliot tried to frame it for himself, to see it from Wentworth’s perspective. How would he have felt if Wentworth had pushed him away? Heartbroken. How would he feel learning it was because Wentworth’s dad was dying and Wentworth didn’t want Elliot to give up on his dreams?
Elliot closed his eyes.
Anguish bit and bit and bit at him until he was bleeding inside.
Elliot felt Wentworth’s crackling presence as he moved to the piano, so close. He squirmed under the intensity of it.
Deep, angry sounds boomed from the instrument. The same ones, slightly tweaked, over and over. He usually worked with headsets, used instruments when Elliot was on set.
This made it impossible to concentrate on work, and Elliot had the feeling that was the point.
“I get it,” Elliot said during one of the—very brief—pauses. “You’re upset. You wish you didn’t have to see me.”
Fingers plunged towards the ivory keys.
Elliot gritted his teeth. This behaviour was childish and cold. He didn’t remember this . . . petulance. Or maybe it had rolled off him differently back then. Still, Wentworth looked intensely handsome in his quiet anger. His aura crackled. Dark eyes fixed on his sheet music, jaw stubborn and strong. The wobble at the edges, though. Childlike in a different way. In a way that pulled at all Elliot’s protective instincts.
“What makes you think,” Wentworth said, his foot hitting the pedal and lengthening the drone of the keys, “that I don’t want to see you?”
Elliot laughed hollowly. “Really? This noise isn’t to send me out of the room?”
Wentworth went to pound out another dark tune and Elliot reached for the lid and flipped it. Hands shot away from the keys as it clapped shut.
“My fingers are my livelihood, Elliot.”
“I hardly think you took this job because you need the money.”
He looked in the opposite direction but Elliot caught the lump in his throat jutting. “I didn’t.”
Something curious spiked through Elliot, and he frowned. “Why did you then?”
“I don’t think that matters.”
Elliot cocked his head, eying the shift in his posture. “I think it might.”
Wentworth swung his head toward him, glaring. “It wasn’t because I hoped to meet you again, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I confess, I might have wondered.”
“Well don’t.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
Wentworth’s frown deepened and he stared at the shiny lid of the piano. “Finding you working here was the last thing I expected.”
“Your arrival took me by surprise too.”
Lips twisted at the ends. “You don’t say.”
Elliot raised his brow.
“Unless you make a habit of hiding under desks?”
“Sadly, life is not always so adventurous for me.”
Another twitch of Wentworth’s mouth. “I’m not sure if I’m happy to hear that or not.”
Their gazes met and Elliot noted the hesitance in Wentworth’s eye. That sliced through him worse than the angry music. The uncertainty, the insecurity. Like Wentworth wasn’t sure he trusted Elliot anymore.
