Kissed My Rival, Hear His Mind novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: The Decoy

The silence in Eli's head after Godfrey's voice was the loudest thing he had ever heard.

He stood in the model shop with his palm still on Declan's hand and listened to a wall.

"Who was that?" he said.

Declan took his hand back.

He pulled his shirt closed and did up one button, then another, with fingers that weren't quite steady.

"It was a long time ago."

"It was Godfrey. He said he'd keep something between you."

"The week I came home from Copenhagen, Godfrey hired me." Declan found his trousers on the floor and stepped into them. "He was kind. That's all it was."

"Not a lie," said his mind, thin and careful, from somewhere behind the wall. "Not all of it. Not yet."

Eli should have pushed.

He had given Declan a week, and four days of it were left, and he wanted to take Declan's face in his hands and make him say it.

But Declan was shaking, and a model bus shelter lay cracked between them.

A man who has just let you hear everything is allowed a closed door.

"Fine," Eli said. "Tell me about Craig instead."

Declan's shoulders came down an inch.

"Thank God. Something I can hate in order."

They sat on the shop floor with their backs against the maple table and a roll of trace between them.

Eli had spent two nights over the weekend drawing the seashell stair clean, every plate, every column, in Craig's favorite tidy hand.

It was the best thing he'd ever made, and he had no intention of giving Craig the best of it.

"Third plate," Declan said, with his glasses on and his pencil moving. "Column C7. Move it three feet off the grid."

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