“Do you...want to use...my name?” Cooper asked haltingly.

Eli snorted. “As you plant the first seeds of sedition amongst the oldest institutions of our kind with an enormous moon-shaped target on your back? No, thank you. I’ll just take up the name I had before the Parks.” He tipped a nonexistent hat. “Elias Smith, at your service.”

“Elias Smith?” Cooper repeated incredulously. “Was Alias Smith already taken or is that your attempt at subtlety?” As he spoke, another thought came to mind. “Wait, Alice Smith... They’re both pseudonyms, aren’t they? The same pseudonyms, no less.”

Eli was watching him, amused. “If so, we’d fit right in. It seems to be all the rage around here.” His lips twitched into a sharp little smile. “The Moon and the Shepherd. Has a nice ring to it, actually. The Moon and the Shepherd...went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey”—Eli elbowed Cooper with a wink—”and puh-leeeenty of money—”

“God, you’re insufferable.”

“On the contrary, people suffer me often,” Eli said. A strange look passed over his face, there and gone again before Cooper deciphered it. But considering the three days they’d both just had, he could guess.

Fuck it, Cooper thought, and brusquely leaned into Eli, pressing their shoulders and hips together. He felt Eli stiffen, and almost pulled away, an apology already poised on his lips, when suddenly Eli sagged back against Cooper like his strings were cut, head hanging low. Cooper grunted at the abrupt weight, but braced himself and stayed unmoving. He could see the back of Eli’s neck like this—soft, pale and vulnerable—and wondered what he was supposed to do now. If it was Park, he’d kiss it. But it was easier to comfort a sexual partner. Eli clearly needed...something else.

Wet wind lifted his hair and Cooper glimpsed paler, shinier skin on his neck—a very old scar, silvery and slippery like the inside of a seashell—before Eli picked his head back up and cleared his throat. “Ollie’s here. We can’t let him catch us making passionate love.”

The front door opened and Park joined them mid eye roll, which meant he was perfectly synchronized with Cooper, busy doing the same.

“Of course you’re both out here. You are the two most unsociable, undomesticated...” Park muttered. “Did you know the cat is being more cordial than either of you right now? And I know for a fact she was raised in an alley.”

“My poor, tortured beauty. I’ll rescue her from the perils of conversation posthaste. Which reminds me, we’ll have to come up with a visitation schedule, of course.” Eli straightened and stretched leisurely, setting off a number of clacking sounds from the region of his spine. “God knows I can’t leave her with you two all year round.”

“Leave her?” Park asked, sounding suddenly nervous. “Where are you going?”