He kept walking toward the front of the house.
Damn it.
I headed back to the guest cottage, my heart and limbs feeling heavy. When I stepped inside, the carpet squished under my feet.
What the…? I rested a hand on the wall to steady myself and see what was going on. Icy cold wetness met my palm. The carpet was soaked, and the walls were leaking.
Either Elliot’s guest house was haunted, or a pipe had burst. Fuck.
I ran back up to the main home and hammered on the rear door as hard as I could without breaking the glass.
Seconds later, running footsteps sounded behind me, and I spun, startled to see Elliot sprinting toward me, with King hot on his heels. “What’s wrong?” His question was breathless rather than angry.
“My house—your house—is leaking. I think a pipe broke.” I gestured toward the guest house.
“Fuck. Water shut off is—” Elliot gave his head a quick shake. He pushed the back door open a few inches. “Easier for me to find. Tell Mrs. Ria. Get your stuff into the main house before it gets ruined.” He didn’t wait for me to respond; he was already running toward another part of the yard.
I found Ria inside, and explained the situation to her. She reacted just as quickly. Within moments, she and I were hauling my luggage and computer into the house, and stacking everything on and around the dining room table.
“What about the furniture in there? The rugs?” I asked her.
“Not important.” Elliot seemed to come out of nowhere. “Are your things safe?”
I didn’t want to get hung up on the concern in his voice, but it was impossible for me to ignore. “Yes.”
“Good.” He clipped off the word, and like he’d been rebooted, his face went blank. “Mrs. Ria, can I talk to you for a minute?”
She nodded and followed him to a few feet away.
I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but it wasn’t as though they’d left the room, and I was curious to know what kind of secrets he felt like he had to keep from me. I caught snippets of what he said that sounded like, “Make sure she can replace anything if her things were damaged” and “Put it on my card. That’s fine.”
Without so much as another glance at me, he turned and walked from the room.
Ria joined me again, and grabbed my garment bag. “Let’s get you situated in a real room.”
“Thank you.” I followed her further into the house, away from the stairs leading up to Elliot’s room.
So much for talking things out with him. I felt both less and more isolated than ever, being inside, but still being so far away from him.
9/
fallyn
Despite the fact that I was staying in Elliot’s house, he managed to avoid me the rest of Tuesday night and Wednesday. I didn’t know if it was on purpose or if it was because he was busy with work and RinCon prep, but I suspected it was a bit of both.
Ria was wonderful, though. She seemed happy to have breakfast and lunch ready for me, and King didn’t mind that I took him out to walk and play several times.
When the first day of RinCon arrived, my stomach was butterflies and acid. The quad shot vanilla latte with extra whip that I had for breakfast, that I washed down with a heavy helping of absolutely nothing else, probably wasn’t helping.
But I was going to do this convention thing, the way I’d planned, with or without any support from Puff69 or Archer, and I was going to rock my public persona like no one knew. Elliot could choke on my bald cunt.
I had an outfit for every day. They were all a combination of simple to transport, and cutely revealing. The three of them were laid out on the bed in Elliot’s guest room, taunting me. Why did I think I could wear any of these, especially in 30-degree temps?
Because I could. And I would.
I grabbed the red and blackkitty. It was the only outfit that wasn’t based on a popular game character, but itwasa cat, because I was Demon Kittie. A tiny voice whispered in the back of my mind that I was only picking this one today because I was least likely to run into Elliot or Link today.
That was ridiculous. They could see me in any of these. I didn’t care what they thought, or that I might remind them of what we’d shared.