Page 61 of Overeager
Well, Eli had to grant him that, didn’t he?
It was probably for the best, anyway. They had another week until Eli’s heat, and that would give Eli time to … recalibrate. Time to figure out if he was going to be handing in his letter of resignation at the end of the week. Time to figure out what his life was going to look like if the worst happened.
But whatwasthe worst that could happen? Losing his job? Or losing Noah?
Eli swallowed through a thick throat. It took concerted effort to rein his pheromones in, to avoid signaling his distress in bold, vivid colors. But he was the older, more experienced partner. It was his responsibility to be calm and reasonable.
He owed Noah that much.
“Okay.” He cleared his throat—it wasn’t closing up, not really. He knew that, even if it felt like it was. “Yes, of course. It’s, um, hard to think right now. Space would be—would be good.”
Noah didn’t look pleased by Eli’s acquiescence. If anything, he looked even more pained. He started nodding absently, his gaze darting everywhere that wasn’t Eli. “Okay. Okay, good. I’ll get a car.”
“I’ll drive you,” Eli offered quickly. The thought of Noah being driven away by a stranger was for some reason untenable.
But Noah was already shaking his head, still not meeting Eli’s eyes. “Not a good idea. Nosy roommates, remember? Chase knowing is one thing. Spencer would be another.” He came forward to press a brief kiss to Eli’s cheek, and his touch was a consolation, if a small one. “I’ll call you soon.”
And then he was out the door.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
Faith’s expression didn’t change. “I’m not even looking at you. I’m looking at Deadly.”
“But yourface.”
“This is what faces do in these situations,” Faith told him, and apparently things were serious enough that she didn’t even make it sound like a taunt. “It’s my thinking face. Just chill out.”
Eli threw his hands up as he stood from the couch, unseating poor Deadly off his lap. “How?”
He’d realized shortly after Noah had left that, while time apart may have been what Noah needed, timealonewas only going to be the recipe for Eli to have an anxiety spiral of epic proportions.
And since two of Noah’s people knew about them already—no, make that three; Eli couldn’t forget about Chase—Eli no longer felt so sneaky calling in the big guns.
He’d told Faith everything.
And now she was here in his living room, lounging in the armchair across from him, and her face was doing athing, and Eli didn’t like it.
“You hate me now, don’t you?” he asked, covering his own face with his hands. “You think I’m a despicable sleaze?”
Faith muttered something suspicious about preheat hormones before clearing her throat and fixing Eli with a firm look. “I donotthink you’re a despicable sleaze, Eli. What the fuck? I’m just … surprised.”
“That I’d do something so despicable?”
Faith rolled her eyes. They were going to get stuck that way if she kept doing it so dramatically. “Stop it. You told me howall this started. You didn’t know. You’re not some perv lording the possibility of an A over a vulnerable student. I’m just … surprised you’d risk your career.”
Eli had, hadn’t he? He’d risked everything. For aboy. He lowered his hands, searching Faith’s face. “You think I’ve made a huge mistake, don’t you?”
“Eli.” Faith made his name sound like an admonishment. “Sit. Calm the fuck down. Drink some tea, for Christ’s sake.”
She’d made him a cup—herbal, since she’d claimed he was too jittery for caffeine (“vibrating like a damned washing machine”)—even though the weather was warming up with the appearance of spring and it wasn’t tea weatherat all.
When he didn’t sit and drink as commanded, Faith let out a weary sigh. “I didn’t say you’re making a mistake. It’s just … even with all Richard’s bullshit … your career was the one thing you were firm about. You never wavered. EvenIthought you might at one point. But you didn’t.”
“It’s different with Noah,” Eli said automatically, the statement too true to require any thought at all. He glared at her for some reason, as if daring her to object.
“Okay,” Faith soothed, gesturing to the couch he’d abandoned. “So sit. Tell me why.”
Eli finally did as she asked, picking at the tassels on the closest pillow, trying to figure out how to put what had been until now an unexamined gut feeling into words. “Well, for one, Richard saw my career as a threat. Some sort of barrier in the way of making me an ideal omega. Noah doesn’t see it that way. It’s a complication for us, sure, but helikesthat I’m smart. That I’m driven.”
