Page 36 of Enchanting the Elf
(wasabi, get it?)
I tiptoe toward Adelbert’s study. I don’t want to linger outside his door because I know my presence might disturb him, but as I put his plate on the console table across from the door to the study, I can’t seem to move my feet.
There are some strange mutterings and then an object crashes to the floor. I let out a yelp of surprise and the door flies open a second later, causing me to stumble into the console table behind me.
“What’s wrong?” Adelbert stands in the doorway and his gaze flicks up and down my body. His hands ball into fists and the veins on his forearms stand out sharply against his pale skin.
Try not to salivate, Florence.
“I’m sorry.” I clutch a hand to my chest, my heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings.
“What happened?” he barks, looking at my hand, then searching my face.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just brought you some lunch. I thought you might have forgotten to eat,” I explain and angle my body so he can see the plate behind me.
Adelbert’s scowl softens and he rocks back on his heels.
“Oh. Thank you.” He glances at the intricately carved cuckoo clock in the hallway, the movement granting me a glimpse into his study.
Unlike the rest of the house, it’s a very masculine room with a desk made of a thick slab of wood in front of a large window overlooking my favorite spot in the garden. Against one wall, the live edges of natural floating shelves add a rustic feel to the otherwise traditional furnishings. I can just make out an antique globe lying on a rug in the center of the room. That must have been what I heard fall.
“Is it lunch time already?” Adelbert asks me.
“Yes,” I say slowly and start to cautiously move backward little by little away from him. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Fuck,” Adelbert lets out on a heavy exhale and runs a hand through his hair.
Before he can say anything more, I turn around and speed walk back toward the kitchen.
As I walk away, something occurs to me. The door flew open but Adelbert’s hands were nowhere near the handle.
I must have missed something when I stumbled back.
Adelbert prepares dinner for us again later that night and we talk about anything except what happened over lunchtime.
The pattern seems to repeat itself every day.
On rainy days, I sit inside on the same couch in the living room, and on sunny days I move to the garden. I make light lunches, leaving a plate—and a joke—for Adelbert on the console table in front of the closed door to his study, and enjoy mine in the kitchen with Sir Purrington as my constant companion.
Every evening, Adelbert and I return to the kitchen around the same time, an unspoken agreement between us to enjoy one meal together. I sit at the table, head propped on the palm of my hand as I stare at him while he cooks something different each night.
Adelbert is a talented cook and makes a variety of dishes, most German, but some are inspired by friends from other countries. On one of the cooler nights he even makes usdoenjang-jjigae, a Korean soybean paste stew that Daehan taught him how to make. It’s so good and the meal warms me right up, sparking a new-found desire to travel to Korea and taste more of their food.
Not being a great cook myself, I kind of wish Adelbert would teach me. But, I respect his boundaries and always remain seated at the table and far away from the possibility of having any physical contact with him.
While Adelbert cooks, Sir Purrington usually cuddles up in my lap right until Adelbert sits down with me. Sir Purrington thenhas his dinner and disappears to a warm corner in the house, and Adelbert and I end up talking, sometimes even for hours, while we enjoy dinner and wine.
Slowly, we get to know each other over these nightly chats. Even though I always seem to crave a little bit more from him, I’m happy with the easy rapport between us. I only indulge my attraction to Adelbert when my door is firmly closed behind me and I can muffle my screams as I come around my own fingers, pretending they’re his.
Adelbert thaws around me and his formalities wane with each day that ticks by. He tells me more about his grandmother. Despite being in love with an orc, she was forced to break up with him when her parents presented her with her chosen elf partner. Just like everyone in his lineage for hundreds of years, she had to agree to an arranged marriage, or face shaming her whole family. She moved off campus and into this house the moment she was able to, days after his grandfather died and his father took over as head of Alberad.
I can’t help but think that this is also a major factor in Adelbert’s reason not to entertain thoughts of anything more happening between us. I’m sure his father has already got prospective mates lined up for Adelbert to marry the moment he deems Adelbert worthy, but we never speak about it.
My wish for Adelbert is that he can have some kind of say in who is chosen for him. I hope it’s someone who will love him the way he deserves to be loved, because the male I’ve gotten to know is so much more than the Alberad name.
Adelbert also tells me of his upbringing, his mother—who is the head of another school, more elite than Alberad and whom he hasn’t seen since he was young—and many stories of his friends and the shenanigans they used to get up to and how he’d ultimately bail them out of trouble.
Adelbert asks about my embroidery, my mother, and her husband. We touch on the death of my father many years ago, and I talk at length about Dede and my love for her.
