Chapter 4 Eli Knows
MIA
Caleb's apartment smells like protein powder and dryer sheets. Not what I expected from a face on a downtown billboard.
"You live like a normal person," I murmur from the doorway.
"Expecting marble floors?"
"Honestly, yeah."
"That's my dad's place. This one's mine." He presses it fast, like the distinction matters more than it should.
The apartment is small. A couch with a balled-up blanket. A hockey stick leaning against the wall like nobody bothered to put it away. A guy sprawled in the recliner, controller in hand, who pauses his game the second I walk in.
"You must be Mia." He doesn't get up right away. Studies me the way you'd study a stranger holding something valuable. "Eli. I already know everything. Figured I'd save you the awkward half hour."
"Eli," Caleb cuts in, a warning in one syllable.
"What? She should know I know." Eli crosses the room, offers his hand like this is a business meeting. "Thirty grand, six months, fix his image before the draft. I've had a front row seat since the idea was a bad joke he made at two in the morning."
"It wasn't a joke."
"It started as one."
I look between them. Easy rhythm, years of it, insults that land soft because there's no edge behind them. I don't have anyone I talk to like that. Chloe, maybe, on a good day.
"So you're the guy who's going to know everything," I tell Eli. "Great. No pressure."
"I'm the guy who's going to make sure he doesn't screw this up and hurt you." He looks at Caleb, not me. "That's the whole job description."
The room goes quiet in a way that isn't comfortable.
"I'm not going to hurt her," Caleb breathes out.
"You don't mean to. Not the same thing." Eli drops back into the recliner, picks his controller back up, eyes staying on his friend a beat too long for a joke. "I've known you since you were twelve. I could draw you a map of every time you disappeared into whatever your dad needed you to be. Don't do that to her."
"I'm not doing anything to her. It's a contract."
"Right now it's a contract." Eli finally looks at me, something softer crossing his face. "Sorry. Didn't mean to talk about you like you're not in the room."
"It's fine." It isn't, not exactly. Hearing someone worry about me from a stranger's mouth feels stranger than the contract itself. "For the record, I can take care of myself."
"I believe that." His mouth twitches. "Doesn't mean you shouldn't have someone watching your back too. I'm just watching his."
"Noted."
Caleb moves to the kitchen, opens the fridge, stands there too long like the cold air's an excuse not to be looked at.
"Water's all I've got," he allows. "Should go grocery shopping."
"I'm fine."
"How long have you two been friends," I ask Eli.
"Since he broke my nose in a pickup game when we were twelve and cried harder about it than I did." Eli grins at the memory. "His dad wasn't at a single practice that year. Mine drove us both. Caleb basically got adopted for a while."
"I did not cry," Caleb calls from the kitchen, flat.
"You absolutely did."
"I was twelve."
"You were a mess." Eli looks back at me, more serious now. "Point is, I know him better than his own father does. If he starts treating this like it's real when it's fake, or fake when it's started being real, I'll know before he does. Figured you'd want someone in your corner who'd actually tell you the truth."
"Why would you do that for me? You don't know me."
"Because I like you already, twenty minutes in." He shrugs, simple math. "And because he's about to spend six months pretending not to fall for the one girl on this team who never cared that he's Caleb Kessler. Somebody's got to keep score."
Caleb comes back with two water bottles, tosses one to me without asking, says nothing.
I catch it. Don't drink it yet.
"Nobody's falling for anybody," I offer. "It's a contract."
"Sure," Eli murmurs, already turning his game back on. "It's a contract."
Caleb walks me to the bus stop. Second time in two days.
"He's not wrong to worry," I counter, mostly to fill the quiet. "You could hurt me. I could hurt you. Contracts don't stop that."
"I know," Caleb offers.
He doesn't say anything else. Doesn't promise it won't happen. That honesty scares me more than any promise would have.
We stop at the corner, waiting for the light. Cold enough that our breath fogs between us.
"For what it's worth," he counters, "Eli doesn't warn people off easily. He's never done that with anyone I've dated before."
"You've dated a lot of people?"
"A few. Nothing that lasted." He shrugs, like it's not worth dwelling on. "None of them ever got a warning speech, though. Just Eli being polite and forgettable until it ended."
"Should I be flattered or scared?"
"Both, probably." He almost smiles. "He only gives the speech when he thinks something's actually at stake."
The light changes. Neither of us moves right away.
"That's not exactly reassuring," I admit.
"No," he agrees. "Guess it isn't."
The bus rounds the corner behind us, and I step off the curb, leaving the sentence to sit there unfinished between us the rest of the ride home.
