Chapter 17

Fuck it, was Eli’s opinion on the matter. If he wanted to spend the night with his boyfriend, then he could. He was twenty-fucking-one, for God’s sake, he was well past old enough to make his own decisions about who to date.

He meandered upstairs, noting Jenny’s absence by the open door to her room and the basket of clean laundry Dad had put in the doorway. Rob would piss himself laughing if he knew how house-husbandy Chief Inspector Bell really was. Eli was fairly sure Rob still had to read the manual to operate the washing machine in his flat.

Not that Eli minded. It meant Rob never offered to wash his clothes before he went home, which meant—

He dropped his bag on his bed, and lifted the neck of his T-shirt to inhale the leftover smell of Rob. Pure Rob—the man didn’t bother with deodorant, referring to it scornfully as ‘perfume for poufters.’ A statement Eli found hilariously ironic, really.

“Eli!”