Page 3 of Devilry

“Elijah?”

An unexpected but familiar voice penetrates the moment. Paralysed by fear, I stare into Alex’s now apologetic eyes. I take in every feature, committing everything we just shared to memory, because I know without a doubt, this is the first, and last time, I will ever touch him. Taste him.Be with him.

“Is that you?”

Time stops. My heart does too.

“Yeah, Dad. It’s me.”

1

Cole

PRESENT DAY

“Fuck,” I shout, as I stub my toe on the corner of my coffee table. Again.

My new apartment appears to be a little on the small side, or maybe it’s the ridiculous amount of paraphernalia I’ve lugged across the country with me that errs on the side of excessive. Either way, I’m overwhelmed by the never-ending number of boxes that sit in every corner of every room.

Lumping myself on the couch, I grab the remote control and lay down. While thanks to my hoarding tendencies the rest of this place is in shambles, my priorities in regards to entertainment are intact. Clearly evidenced by the sixty-inch flat screen that I had mounted onto the wall before I even spent my first night here.

When moving into a new place, there are some things that are negotiable; access to every sports channel known to man is not one of them.

As soon as I switch the television on my cell rings. I groan into an empty room, frustrated by the disruption. Looking down at my phone, I see my sister’s name on the screen.

I hit mute on the remote control before answering. “ Hey. Long time, no talk.”

“How’s the new place?” she asks, launching straight into the conversation.

“Small.”

“You ungrateful shit,” she teases. “Only you would be unhappy with free housing.”

When you’re offered a job at King University, they make it impossible for you to decline. With one whole building dedicated to--it’s so cheap it’s almost free--staff accommodation, it’s one of King’s lucrative incentives to acquire all the educational talent from around the world, and keep them.

“I am not,” I protest. “I’m grateful. I thanked them, but I don’t want to be living this close to campus. Nobody wants to see their students inside and outside the classroom.”

“When you put it like that,” she muses. “So, what’s your plan?”

“I’m going to line up a few houses in Georgetown to inspect over the coming weeks, and hopefully I like one enough to place an offer.”

“Got my fingers and toes crossed for you.”

“Thank you.” There’s an extended length of silence between us and it dawns on me, my sister didn’t just call to see how I was settling in. “What is it, Megs?”

“Nothing,” she says,a little too squeakily.

Rolling my eyes, I pick up the remote and turn the volume up just a smidgen, and settle in to watch a rerun of a Blackhawks game. “I’ll just wait here till you’re ready.”

Meghann and I are as close as siblings can get. Only fourteen months apart, we used to often get mistaken for twins. My parents got the raw end of the deal with two kids still in diapers, but my childhood was all the better for it.

“Why do you do that?” she huffs. “I didn’t call to lay my shit on you.”

“Didn’t you?” I joke, pairing it with a soft chuckle. She doesn’t laugh back. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t your intention to sound all mopey, but there’s clearly something bothering you and you’ll end up telling me, so while you’re on the phone, why not kill two birds with one stone?”

“I just miss you.”

Guilt eats away at me as I imagine her pouting on the other end of the phone. This is the first time we’ve ever been more than a twenty-minute drive away from one another and I didn't anticipate a struggle. “I’m sorry.”

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