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A/N: This story is currectly being written by both Cookie and myself.
Summary: (SLASH) A perfect romance doesn’t start by saving someone from a falling bookcase. Not really, anyway. A romance, maybe, but a perfect one?Not even close ....... Maybe after dinner....
Eschew Obfuscation
Chapter 1
How the fuck had this happened to him?
He was lying on the floor of his bookstore with an elbow jabbing into his stomach, a definite bump forming on the back of his head, and a very hot guy lying atop him that he had just saved from certain pain.
FLASHBACK
“Ugh.” The dark-haired man growled at the offensive piece of shit that was now squawking at him. No, not a wife squawking at him. Gods, what a horrible idea. No, this was a slightly more comforting, yet equally annoying squawk. This god-awful sound came from his alarm clock, that currently flashed a red 5:06.
He hadn’t really been awake for the past six minutes –just kind of floating between awake and asleep with the distinct impression that something was bothering him, though he couldn’t quite figure out what that was yet.
With one swift ‘whack’ to the stupid little machine, the sound stopped.
Ah! Heaven.
He had to get up. He knew it, but… he didn’t want to.
He rose –leaving his soft warm bed behind- and staggered to the bathroom. He decided to forego looking at himself in the mirror, at least until after he’d pissed. He didn’t need to know how terrible he looked until absolutely necessary. That would decide what kind of day he was going to have. If it was too difficult to get up, and ready himself for the day, then it wasn’t going to be a particularly good day, and vice versa, though that was rare.
He just barely remembered to lift the seat before he pissed. Liz wouldn’t appreciate going for a piss and finding ‘remains’ on the seat.
Bitch. He thought grumpily, as he did every time he had to take the extra initiative when trying to pee.
Liz wasn’t his girlfriend, no –though either gender was appealing- he wasn’t about to go after anyone like Liz –his sister. She was suicidal, bipolar, mostly depressed, and clingy.
He growled deeply in his throat as he pulled his pajama bottoms back up and turned to leave the bathroom. Before he reached the door, he suddenly spun on his heel and headed back to the toilet grumpily. He dropped the seat obediently –completely not in the mood to have her ream him a new asshole because she wasn’t smart enough to look before she sat and had fallen in.
On his way out of the bathroom he took a quick glance at the mirror that was just about tall enough for his 5’11’’ frame to be able to see all the details of his chest up. It wasn’t a particularly large mirror, just as this wasn’t a particularly large apartment. It had seemed even smaller ever since his sister had practically moved in with him.
He leaned closer to the mirror and poked at a bit of a dark mark under his eye. He hadn’t slept too well. He couldn’t find the sheets in any of the boxes and he’d been up until two in the morning unpacking his belongings. He hated moving.
With a grimace his recognized his lengthily hair becoming a rats nest of black curls that spun around his slightly tanned face and bright green eyes. He hated his eyes. They made people stare at him. He didn’t want people to stare. He didn’t like it when people stared and ogled him just because of his eyes. He was more than just a gorgeous piece of ass with two green orbs stuck in his head. He growled at the prospect of getting hit on by yet another overzealous teenage girl.
It just made him want a lover more. Not some goo-goo eyed teenage plat, but an actual lover. Someone he could love that would faithfully return that love. He sighed in defeat and picked up his toothbrush.
After taking a quick shower, he began to dry himself off. Before he could even start to pick the wax out of his ears a banging came to his door.
“Elijah!” The shrill voice shouted. “Elijah, are you in there?!”
Duh! He thought vaguely to himself as he grabbed a Q-tip.
“You’re taking forever!” Her muffled voice yelled again through the door.
The shower had managed to awaken him somewhat, but that didn’t mean his was in the mood for her shit.
“I’ve only been in here fifteen bloody minutes!” He yelled back and spat in the sink for good measure.
She ‘humph’ed and began to tap her bare foot impatiently. She waited there about thirty seconds before she griped again:
“I have the pee!” She emphasized and he growled deeply at her. “Elijah!” She whined.
“Liz!” He hollered in his sister’s face as he burst through the bathroom door with a towel barely clinging to his thin waist.
She took a step back from the feral look in his angry green eyes and he stalked away from her as fast as he could back to his bedroom.
As he passed the entered his bedroom he noticed the snow falling and he growled again. It was going to be one of those days. He had thankfully found all of his clothes for work the night before and laid them out on the end of his queen-sized bed. Really, he didn’t need to dress any certain way for work because it was his bookstore. He had decided to start one shortly after college a year ago, and it was now a thriving business, though he had had his rough patches.
His sister –being the darling that she is- had decided to invest in the company with the large fat inheritance she had received from their parents after they had died. He had fought against the idea at first, but he had realized later that he needed the help, and he had caved. The best part was that she didn’t actually have to come in to work for him to be able to manage everything. She was more of a silent partner.
He dressed in record time in his black slacks and gray button up shirt, and managed to swallow down half an apple before he was out the door and into the harsh weather. He had pulled on his thickest coat and warmest scarf, but it wouldn’t be helping much. His store was only a few blocks over from where he lived, so he could easily walk without a taxi or a car, but it was still a hassle. Especially with at least four inches of snow accumulating on the quiet Saturday morning.
He trudged through the snow because no one had walked by on the sidewalk enough to make a path for him. Lucky day. After fumbling with the store keys for about five minutes he finally got the damned door to unlock and after a few swift tugs the icy door final broke free of the door jam.
It was about six o’clock by the time that was finally ready to start his day in the store. After turning up the heat to make the place more homely feeling and flicking on only some of the lights, he breathed in the smell of books and furniture polish and he started his work.
Customers began arriving around six forty-five, but he gladly welcomed them into his store even though it wasn’t supposed to open for another fifteen minutes. His clerk finally stumbled in about ten minutes late for her shift and he frowned at her.
“I’m so sorry, Mr…” She began hastily, but after glancing at her flushed appearance, ruffled clothes, and the fact that she only had one boot tied, he guessed that she had made a sincere effort to get to work through the snow.
“It’s alright, Cat.” He told her, using her pet name. She smiled immediately at him and gave him a warm hug. “Just be grateful the bastard hasn’t arrived yet.” She paled for a moment and nodded her agreement. “Get to work please.”
“Thank you, Sir.” She told him cheerily as he pulled off her coats and scarves and placed them on the coat stand behind the counter.
She was a college student trying to make money and study at the same time, so he was lenient with her; besides… he didn’t have enough extra money to hire too many employees, so there was only Catherine for most of the week, and a boy named James on Tuesdays and Fridays.
One of the best things about the store was its multi-levels. You would walk in a find a wide selection of books for the first half of the store, then there was a staircase off to the side of the two-story store which led to the second level and the more advanced books of all kinds. On the rest of the bottom level of the store was merely the backrooms, cash register, office areas, and the toilet –which was only for personnel use.
He sighed heavily as he began to load the bookshelf.
“Elijah!” A nasty nasally male voice shouted. He vaguely heard Cat drop something in the background –probably startled from the abrupt voice.
Elijah’s body tensed with hidden fury. He hated when that man spoke his name in such a tone. He spoke it like a curse and it made the dark-haired man want to strangle his ‘partner’.
“What?” Elijah snapped back, not even bothering to turn around. He clenched his eyes shut, hoping to drown out the man’s nasty smelling cologne and bad breath. The man could be across the room and you could still smell him. It was so horrible that Elijah wondered how their bookstore could be so popular with that smelly bastard hanging around.
“Why haven’t you loaded that shelf yet? Hurry up and put all those books on it! You know…” He seemed to pull himself together and take on a prideful tone, “I put that shelf together myself.”
“Is that why it looks like it shall fall apart any moment?!” Elijah hissed back.
The bastard walked off without being able to enunciate words for Elijah’s response.
The dark-haired man sighed as he felt the fat man’s presence leave his vicinity for the back room where he could drool over his porno magazine which Elijah had found a month or so before. He had taken great pleasure in finding colorful markers and scribbling pink bows in the women’s hair and drawing colorful clothing all over their naked bodies. He had even gone so far as to write little word bubbles saying things like ‘Oops, I farted’, or ‘Oh! Oh! I’m… gasp constipated!’.
He wasn’t quite sure whether the bastard would make a scene and confront him about ruining the stolen porno –stolen from his shop from behind the counter- or if he would pretend like it hadn’t even happened. The latter was probably the least likely.
He picked up a few more books and began looking at them as he placed them one by one on the shelves. He really was worried about whether the high shelves would hold up or not, but he couldn’t rightly go argue with the bastard over it. There were quite a few customers coming and going from the shop and he wanted the new books to go up soon. Today if possible, though judging by the large volume of books in the box, he probably wouldn’t get them all up.
Elijah was looking over the cover to an adventure novel when he decided that he wanted to read this particular one. He put the stack of books that he had in his hands on the shelves –trying to put them on the shelf that looked most secured to the wall, before he walked away to put this book under the counter, near Cat, for later reading.
As he turned back around, he found a startlingly gorgeous boy looking inside the box he had been unloading. The first thing that caught his attention was the mop or silky looking silver hair that slid teasingly back and forth as the guy’s head moved to look at different books. His body was very slim. His tight ass was sticking into the air slightly –almost tauntingly as he looking through several of the books in the box. His pale body squatted now to get a more comfortable position, as it seemed that he was going to look through the whole box. The boy placed a few of the books on the shelf Elijah had been loading them onto, but he didn’t seem to notice or care when the shelf groaned under the new pleasure on it.
Before the boy could register a thing more he heard a loud crashing sound and felt something hard hit his foot. He looked down at his foot and realized that it was a hardcover book that had hit him. From that book he looked up to the large mess of books and fake wood, where the shelves had obviously collapsed and nearly crushed him under their weight. He felt his heart beat pick up at his near-death…. well, okay, not near-death, but a very painful and possibly hospitalized experience. After his heartbeat began to slow again with relief that he had been saved, he looked back to his savior.
He gasped when he realized that he recognized the man. It was his new neighbor! Well, not neighbor. They didn’t live in the same apartment building, but this Adonis of the hero-world had moved across the street from him into a slightly taller and newer building the day before. He could almost kiss the guy! How perfect! He’d been saved by the guy he had been fawning over yesterday.
It was a shame the guy was living with a woman.