Kissed My Rival, Hear His Mind novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Twenty Feet

Eli wins a client call by listening to Declan's mind, notices the voice stops past twenty feet, and covers Declan's hand at midnight to hear the thoughts go loud.

"You kissed Declan Corcoran," Maggie said, "and you're telling me this over my cereal."

"Our cereal."

"I bought the box, Eli. It's mine in spirit."

She stood at their kitchen counter in her blue scrubs, three hours from the end of a night shift, spooning Cheerios into her face.

Eli had decided on the train that he wouldn't tell her about the voice.

She was a pediatric ER nurse.

She would have a neurologist at the door before the toast came up.

"It was a mistake," he said.

"It was a hate crime with tongue. I saw the video. Craig put it in the firm chat." She pointed her spoon at him. "Did he kiss back?"

"No."

"Eli."

"A little."

"I knew it." She swallowed. "Eleven years of bickering. You two have been flirting since Intro to Studio."

"We have not."

"He once corrected your spelling on a model label in a different color pen so you'd know it was him."

Eli opened his mouth, and then he closed it.

Because he had, in fact, kept that label.

The war room on the ninth floor was a glass box with one plot table, two chairs and a window onto the river.

By ten Eli was sitting in it with Declan Corcoran and a speakerphone.

The woman on the other end was the library's project director, and she had a pleasant, careful voice that gave away nothing.

"We love the idea of the corner entrance," she said. "The board has concerns about the budget."

"Naturally," said Declan. "We'll hold the number."

"She's lying. The budget isn't the concern. Something else is, and she's frightened."

Eli leaned in to the phone.

"The board chair doesn't like the corner entrance, does she?"

There was a pause on the line.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because you said 'the board' and not 'we.'"

Declan's head turned slowly toward him.

"How did he know that?" said the voice, sharp as a dropped plate. "I was only thinking it. I was only thinking it."

"The chair grew up on that block," the director said at last, lower. "She lost her house to the old freight depot. She doesn't want a front door facing it."

"Then we turn the door to the garden," Eli said, "and the depot becomes the view she doesn't have to use."

He could hear the director write it down.

When she hung up, the room was very quiet.

Declan took his glasses off and set them on the table.

"I didn't know you read people," he said.

"You never asked."

"Don't you dare say a word. Don't say a word. He's looking at me like I'm a hallway he's decided to walk down."

Eli looked away fast.

They worked through lunch, then dinner.

At six the studio went home.

At eight the cleaners came and went.

By ten they were the last people on the floor, and the river outside the window had turned to black glass.

Declan was drawing the garden door.

Eli was watching his hands.

They were long and exact, and he drew a line.

"Do not look at his forearms," the voice said, a little desperate. "Where he rolled the sleeves. Do not think about the forearms."

"I'm not looking at your forearms," Eli said.

Declan's pencil stopped.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said you wanted to see the section. I'm looking at the section."

"I didn't say that."

"You did."

Declan put the pencil down and gave him a long grey look.

"No," he said, "I didn't."

"Maybe you muttered."

"I do not mutter."

"He's suspicious. Good. No. Not good. If he finds out I think about his forearms I'll have to emigrate."

Eli bit the inside of his cheek until it hurt.

Then he did something stupid.

Declan's left hand lay flat on the table beside the plan, one inch from Eli's.

His knuckles were pale.

He wasn't moving it away.

Eli put his hand over Declan's.

Skin on skin.

The voice came at him so loud he nearly lost his breath.

"Oh. Oh. Oh God, his hand. His hand is warm. He's touching me. Don't breathe, if I breathe he'll stop. I'd lie down in traffic for this hand. I'd let him have the seat, the firm, all of it, for one night. Eli. Eli. Eli."

Eli went hot to the roots of his hair.

Declan sat perfectly still, cool as marble, looking at the wall.

"Donnelly," he said, in a voice like paper tearing. "Your hand is on mine."

"I know."

"Is there a reason?"

"Yes."

Declan's mouth stayed set.

His thumb moved, very slightly, against Eli's wrist.

And in Eli's head, the voice began to say things no one should say aloud in an architecture firm.

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