Chapter 7: Four Rules

Eli woke up in a bed that was not his, with a gray sheet over his hip and the smell of coffee in the air.

For a moment he did not move.

He lay still and let it be real.

Then he found his jeans and followed the smell downstairs.

Gabe stood at the stove in a T-shirt and sweatpants, with a pan of eggs in front of him.

He was barefoot again.

"You're up," he said without turning.

"You didn't wake me."

"You were asleep. I like it when you're asleep."

"That's creepy."

"It's an observation."

Eli sat at the small table by the window.

A mug was already waiting there, black, with a spoon in it.

"I don't drink it black."

"You did at your graduation party. I watched you pour it down your shirt."

Eli stared at him.

"You were watching me at my graduation party?"

"Constantly," Gabe said.

He put the eggs on a plate and set it in front of Eli.

"It was the worst two hours of my life."

Eli laughed, and then stopped laughing, because Gabe's hand on the plate was shaking.

It was a fine fast tremor, and it showed in the coffee when Gabe poured his own.

Eli looked at it for a long second.

"You're nervous."

"I'm a physician. I have steady hands. I'm not nervous."

"Gabe."

Gabe put the pot down.

"Fine. Yes. I'm nervous."

"Why?"

"Because I spent two years certain that you were a phase, and certain that I would be a mistake you'd regret by thirty."

"I'm not a phase."

"I know that now."

Gabe sat across from him and wrapped both hands around his mug.

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