Straightening up, he held his arms open wide, “Cousin.”
Thankfully, Lottie had run to put some pants on so I didn’t have that to worry about, but Red and Rambo took full advantage of the open door to try to escape. I managed to grab Red before he got too far, but Rambo ran past a confused Elijah and started trying to get down the steps.
“Catch him, will you?”
Holding his hands out in front of him, he shook his head wildly. “I don’t touch vermin, man. I need to keep my tools clean and all.”
A hand pushed me out the way and Lottie ran out after Rambo – thankfully with pants on now. Scooping him up, she turned back and stopped when she came face to face with Elijah’s chest. Almost like it played out in slow motion, she slowly looked up his chest until she reached his face and stared at him.
“Elijah, this is Lottie. Lottie, this is…”
Not waiting for me to finish, he held his hand out to her. “Elijah Townsend-Rossi, his favorite cousin.”
Shaking his hand, she smiled at him and looked nervously over at me. “Great to meet you. I didn’t know you were coming today.”
Flicking a wide-eyed glance at me as soon as he heard her voice, he replied smoothly, “I wanted to surprise this one. Gotta say, though, hearing that voice and seeing how beautiful you are, I don’t blame him for not opening the door.” Clenching my fists, I started rehearsing my apology to my aunt over the death of her son, when he turned his head fully in my direction. “You lucky fucking bastard.”
Trying to ease some of the tension, Lottie took her hand back from where he was still holding it and smiled at both of us. “This is so awesome. When are your brothers arriving?”
Rolling my eyes, I opened the door all the way and stood back. “No one knows when they’re coming, they just turn up.”
Some might think I was being rude, but it was true. In fact, I had good reason to not be happy with Elijah and he knew it, which he proved by bursting out laughing.
“You still pissed at me? Come on, I thought we were friends.”
Shooting him a glare, I closed the door behind them, trapping the two puppies which were now pulling on his shoelaces and growling. If it had been anyone but him I’d have told them off… No, wait, I was totally lying. If it had been one of a handful of people I’d have done that, but definitely not with him.
“What did you do?” Lottie asked, unable to help herself.
“I sent him a cake for his birthday,” he shrugged, sitting down on the couch and watching Red and Rambo. “What are they?”
“Miniature Daschund puppies. What was wrong with the cake?”
“It was one of those diaper cakes. It was actually a total fluke that they had denim diapers out at the time, and also that you can buy fake Levi jeans labels online.”
Yeah, I was pretty certain you weren’t meant to do that and with his job breaking the law wasn’t just frowned upon – it was a fuck no. Which obviously I reminded him about, because I’m a good cousin and all.
Waving it off, he looked at me and for the first time, I saw how tired he was. I wasn’t a heartless bastard, I might still have a tiny bit of a grudge (what he’d divulged to Lottie didn’t even come close to what he’d done), but I actually loved my cousins no matter how big of a pain in my ass they were. Seeing the guy who always seemed like he didn’t have a care in the world trying to hide something that was big enough to smother that carefree attitude? It concerned me.
“Speaking of work, how’s it going?”
“Busy.” That was it, that was all he said. I left it a second to see if he’d expand on it, but he purposely kept his eyes on the dogs.
“What do you do, Elijah?” Lottie asked him this time as she curled up and leaned into my side.
With anyone else, he would probably just ignore the question, but he looked up and saw the way we were sitting and his eyes softened. “I’m in the Coast Guard in Alaska.”
“Whoa, that’s really cool. Are you on a ship or do you go on the helicopters?”
“Both. We land on the ships periodically to launch off of, but usually it’s from land.”
Saving her from having to wring the answers out of him, I cleared my throat. “Elijah is the guy who goes down into the water, or lowers from the helicopter onto the deck, baby. He’s a rescue swimmer.”
“You go into the water in Alaska? How are you still alive?”
Smiling at her, he replied, “We try not to spend too much time in the water when we go down.”