Elliot, Song of the Soulmate (Love Austen 5)

Wentworth had paled; Elliot reprimanded himself. That was private, just theirs. He shouldn’t have shared it.

“Wentworth?”

“Ah, yes. A very old one. I used to sing it at high school. Never published.”

“That’s a crime. I’d love to hear it sometime!” Louisa looked at Benny. “Don’t you agree?”

“S-sounds too happy for me.”

“Benny likes songs he can feel deeply,” Wentworth said.

“Agreed,” Elliot murmured.

Louisa’s stomach rumbled loudly. She laughed. “That’s my cue to hit the food. Benny, which is your potato salad?”

Benny went with her. Elliot took a deep breath—

He and Wentworth were interrupted by a grinning reporter.

“Do you mind if I take your picture?” She flashed her camera.

Wentworth looked at Elliot. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Excellent,” the reporter said. “If you’d just . . . a bit closer?”

Elliot stepped in close, but not close enough to make Wentworth uncomfortable—

Wentworth wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hauled him flush against his side. Elliot knew it was acted up for the reporter’s sake, but the move felt familiar, and here, on this boat—

“You look startled,” Wentworth murmured under his tongue. “Say cheese.”

Elliot relaxed into Wentworth’s warmth and there was nothing fake about his soft smile.

The camera clicked.

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s lovely.”

She pinned him with greedy eyes, “If you could give me a few words on what it’s like working alongside Wentworth McAllister . . .”

Beneath the painful silence

My soul forever sleeps

W. McAllister, “Bumblebee Breakup”

Elliot blinked at the reporter. She was waiting for his opinion, what he thought about seeing Wentworth every day.

“It’s never boring. I never have any idea what might come out of his mouth. I never go home without learning something new.”

His neck prickled where Wentworth’s warm arm pressed against his skin, and his profile prickled more from Wentworth watching him. Elliot’s mind raced at what Wentworth might make of his statement. Did he understand?

“I hope,” Elliot continued, “his time here inspires more words from him.”

“Lyrics, you mean?” she asked.

“As long as they’re soulful.” He laughed as if it were a joke, but the subtle increase of pressure at his nape told Elliot Wentworth understood him perfectly.

Elliot dared a glance at him. His slight frown suggested apprehension. But his eyes were not as cold as they had been the rest of the week.

After the reporter got what she wanted, she beat a hasty retreat.

What wasn’t so hasty? Wentworth dropping his arm from his shoulders.

“McAllister!” Someone hailed him. “We need your opinion.”

At last the pressure slipped away as Wentworth went, and Elliot moved below deck to breathe in the quiet.

Only, it wasn’t quiet. No people crowded the narrow rooms, but memories did. And they were loud. Pulsing in his head.

He shouldn’t be down here. He had not been invited. Yet, he could not help it. He opened the cabin door.

The single bed, the digital piano, the guitar . . . Everything exactly as Elliot remembered.

All this might have been ours . . . There might have been ten thousand more memories made here together.

His phone buzzed loudly; he snatched it out of his pocket to mute it. He didn’t want anyone visiting the lavatory to know someone was in here. He did not want anyone passing that on to Wentworth.

He perched on the piano stool, set his phone atop it, and drifted his fingers over the cool keys. Memories tinkered around him: Wentworth pounding out a jig, laughing, swapping lines for lyrics; keys clunking under their naked, undulating bodies; the silence as the instrument bore witness to that day.

“But . . . I love you, Elliot.”

“I can’t say it back.”

“Can’t right now?”

“Can’t ever.”

A sound outside the cabin startled him, and Elliot discreetly checked the hall. Someone heading into the lavatory.

A sign he should return to the party upstairs.

Elliot was experiencing a serious bout of déjà vu.

He was supposed to have said his goodbyes and made his way home hours ago. Supposed to be tucked up in bed having a moment alone with his right hand.

Instead, the sky had reached its darkest shade of navy, and his colleague Philip had cornered him at the back of the boat, and the only thing his right hand was doing was holding the man back before he puked all over him.

Philip laughed and Elliot wished for a breeze to carry off the boozy scent. Around them, colleagues were still mingling, some swaying to the music pulsing from below, where Wentworth, Louisa, Benny, Henry and Cameron had disappeared to play a few rounds of poker.

“You’re just so pretty,” Philip said. “An eight for sure. Maybe even a nine with the beer goggles.”

“Not the most enticing come on of my life.”

“Better than being a four or a five.”

“I hope you don’t make a habit of telling people how they rank.”

“It’s all about honesty,” Philip said.

“No, Philip. There are times being honest causes more pain than good.” Elliot sighed and stared out over the gently lapping water. “No matter how tempting it might be to blurt the truth. To have them know.”