Ryan didn’t return that evening, and Eric didn’t come home either. Around midnight, after doing some more unpacking, I went to bed in my own room, alone, with a distinct, frustrating sort of ache low in my stomach.
The following morning, I woke up to a quiet house and thought that maybe Ryan and Eric had left for the day already, if they’d even been home in the first place. I was thinking this was the case, because I hadn’t been awoken in the night by the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs or anything.
However, after showering and dressing, I came downstairs to find Eric in the kitchen, cracking eggs in a pan. Even dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and sock feet, he had a general look that was somehow commanding, maybe even regal. Maybe it was his posture, I thought, or his broad shoulders or his strong jaw.
Maybe it was just something intangible that all alphas possessed inside. At any rate, whatever it was, it was something that seemed to draw me to Eric like a magnet, despite the fact that I was still a bit irritated with him for changing the terms of our deal. This wasn’t because I was necessarily displeased with the change, especially not after my encounter with Ryan the day before, but just because I felt like a sneaky little trick had been pulled on me.
Seeming to be sizing each other up, Eric and I said good morning to each other a bit cheerlessly.
He then gestured to a full coffeepot with steam still rising from the lid. “Go ahead and help yourself, if you’d like. There’s cream and sugar on the island.”
The intoxicating aroma of the freshly-brewed coffee nearly made me swoon. A former coffee addict, I’d only had it sporadically during the Chaos, and even then, it had usually been of the instant variety.
After helping myself to a cup with cream and sugar, I asked Eric if he needed any help cooking, and he said sure.
“You can butter the toast if you want.”
Not seeing any, I asked him what toast, and not a split-second later, four perfectly browned slices popped up from a toaster a few feet from the coffeemaker. For the first time, I saw Eric’s characteristically stern expression soften just slightly.
With his lips twitching with clear amusement and his dark gray eyes sparkling in bright sunshine streaming in through the windows, he looked from me to the toaster and back again. “That toast. The butter dish is right beside it.”
I went over to the toaster, and he asked me if I liked steak, scrambled eggs, and sliced tomatoes.
“I’ll make enough for both of us if you do, and there’s plenty of toast for us both as well.”
Like Ryan, he had a rich, deep voice that I found almost impossibly attractive. Thinking back to the day before, I wondered if Eric had a masculine, woodsy sort of scent like Ryan too. I also wondered if Eric had a penchant for dirty talking like Ryan obviously did.
I told Eric that I’d love some steak, eggs, and tomatoes, and he got some leftover steak from the fridge, quickly sliced it up, and put it in a pan to heat. Once finished buttering the toast, I asked if he needed any more help, and he said no.
“Just feel free to have a seat and enjoy your coffee if you’d like. I’ll have everything done in a minute.”
While I sat up to the island with my coffee, it was kind of an awkward minute, because I found I couldn’t stop staring at Eric’s broad back, trim waist, and tight rear as he worked at the stove. Wondering where Ryan was and when he, Eric, and I might be able to spend some time all together, I began letting my mind wander, soon extremely hungry for something other than food.
When Eric brought our plates over to the island and had a seat across from me, I felt an urgent need to speak and say something “normal,” as if to mask the dirty thoughts floating around my mind. So, I thanked him for the food and told him it looked delicious. Still seeming to have his guard up, Eric said I was very welcome and then fell silent again, using two slices of toast to make a steak, egg, and tomato sandwich. Just simply wanting something to do with my hands, I began doing the same, and Eric suddenly got up from his barstool.
“Forgot our cheese.”
I was beginning to wonder if our time in the kitchen together was going to be filled with anything other than small talk with long, slightly awkward stretches of silence in between. I was beginning to wonder if I even wanted anything from Eric other than that.
After all, I didn’t completely trust him because of his changing of the deal, not that I completely trusted Ryan either, being that I’d just met him. With Ryan, though, I could at least see us having a relationship with some kind of warmth and affection present in it. With Eric, I just saw us having a relationship of quiet, endless civility, no matter how steamy things in the bedroom eventually became. He was just beginning to strike me as a person who simply wasn’t very warm, maybe just because that’s how most alphas were. I had no idea.
When he returned to the island with a plastic zip-top bag of sliced cheddar, I asked him if he was coming or going from the house.
Having a seat on his barstool, he said he was just returning home from an overnight patrol shift. “Just to grab some food, a shower, and a little sleep, and then I’ll be heading back out again. I expect Ryan will soon be doing the same too.”
Adding a slice of cheese to my sandwich, I asked him if whatever Creeper trouble that had been going on the day before had been resolved, and he said no, unfortunately.
“We killed some of them and drove away others, but the biggest part of the swarm just migrated over to the west side of the wall. Later today, Ryan and I are going to take a team of our strongest fighters out to break up the swarm so that the wall doesn’t eventually collapse. It’s fine for right now, but it won’t be if the swarm gets any bigger.”
“Well, let me know if you ever need any help from an orb-thrower. I’m pretty good at taking out Creepers from twenty or thirty feet away.”
Eric thanked me for the offer, said he’d remember that, and then set to eating his sandwich, which was stuffed so full of food that the bites he had to take to eat it were downright wolf-like, I thought to myself.
We both ate quietly, to the sound of loud birdsong coming in through the open window above the sink. After a minute or two of what felt to me like uncomfortable silence, despite the birdsong, I set my sandwich down and picked up my coffee mug, feeling the need to just say something, no matter what it was.
“So, Tom told me that you were a sheriff’s deputy before the Chaos.”
Lifting his sandwich to his mouth, Eric glanced at me for just the briefest of split-seconds. “Yes, that’s true.”
He then took another enormous bite of his sandwich, indicating that he wasn’t going to say anything further. Two bites later, feeling a little miffed that he hadn’t asked me about my life before the Chaos, I piped up again.
“I used to be an artist, you know. At least, I was part-time. I worked the front desk at an apartment building to pay the bills, but I also made extra income selling oil paintings and watercolors online.”
Again, Eric glanced up at me for just a brief second. “Yes. I know. Tom told me.”
“And thanks for inquiring about my life before the Chaos, too, Eric. Your interest in me is staggering.”
My hastily-spoken words had come out sharper than I’d intended them to, but I wasn’t really sorry. If Eric was stung a little, which he probably wasn’t, I figured, I felt like he kind of deserved it. In response to what I’d said, he just frowned, spearing several pieces of steak from a large pile of it on the side of his plate. “I’m starving, Ellie. I just want to eat.”
Now deeply stung myself, I picked up my remaining half a sandwich. “Fine. Don’t let me stop you. I’m just the woman who left her community to come here as part of a deal that you offered and then changed. I’m just the woman who you should be acting a little warmer and nicer to, and maybe even apologizing to.”
“You just dropped scrambled egg and melted cheese all down the front of your shirt.”
I glanced down and saw that he was right. Snorting in indignation, I cleaned up the mess as best I could with a napkin, then balled it up, threw it on my plate, and hopped off my barstool. “Here. Since you’re so hungry, you can have the rest of my sandwich. Knock yourself out, because I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”
With that, I stormed out of the kitchen, thinking about what a massive prick Eric was, and thinking that I didn’t want to get to know him any better than I already did. With this being the case, I thought it was strange, as I raced up the stairs to my room, that tears had begun to well in my eyes.