Page 112 of Rules to Love By

“No. I can’t. But relationships need honesty. Trust.”

“What about my privacy?”

Eli nodded. “Yours to keep. As long as you realize that if I’m doing something that seems to be hurting you—making you tense—I will stop and ask you why. You don’t have to tell me, but I won’t keep doing something you don’t seem comfortable with, even if you ask me to.”

“Reasonable.” If that came out little more than a grumble, who could blame him? The kissing had been nice. Very nice. He hadn’t even been aware he was tensing up until Eli pointed it out. And now he couldn’t seem to relax.

“I’m trying to be.” He moved so they stood, side by side, next to the bed. “Come here.” He sat and pulled Marcus down next to him. An order Marcus was happy to comply with.

“Three dates rule, huh?” Marcus asked, leaning into Eli.

Eli sighed, wrapped an arm around him and sighed again. “Yeah.” He kissed the top of Marcus’s head. “Three dates.”

“So if you’re not even going to continue what we were doing because I can’t answer your question—” Pulling away, not so far Eli had to let go, but enough he could see his face, he asked, “Why am I here? In your bedroom.Onyour bed?”

“You were wandering the streets alone. Again. Second night in a row. Did you sleep this afternoon?”

Marcus thought about not answering that, but shrugged. “Spinning brain,” he said instead.

“Mm.” Eli tugged him back into his side. “If you can’t sleep anyway, might as well not sleep up here.”

“And do what?”

“Talk.”

“Talk.”

“Third date.” It was said lightly, as a suggestion.

“Do you even do dates like normal people?”

“Haven’t in a long time.”

“The negotiation thing.”

“That, and I got tired of dating guys outside of that who expected me to be someone I am really not.”

That was interesting. “Like who?”

Eli scootched up onto the bed, back against the footboard, feet up between them. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “You understand, what I look like and what I am like are two different things.”

“I have eyes,” Marcus said, non-committal, because he wasn’t sure what Eli was getting at with the “what I look like” comment.

“When you walk into a room, you’re noticed. You command attention.”

“Too much, sometimes.”

“You’re stunning.”

“It’s genetics.”

“As is my lack of muscle, my soft middle.”

“Eli—”

Eli held up a hand. “Don’t. I know what I look like, and I’m okay with it. Mostly. But people see the softness and expect me tobesoft.”

“You are. You’re a genuinely good guy. Probably too good for me, actually.”

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