Eli Pride is Elizabeth Bennet (hybristic) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-12-30 22:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | elizabeth bennet, viola |
Who: Eli and Preston
What: I was drunk!
Where: Eli's apartment
When: Christmas Night
Warnings: More of Eli being Eli I feel like I should warn for that.
The tell-tale door slam next door interrupted Preston’s third viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. He’d been drinking doctored eggnog and sipping coffee, none of which was enough to alter his faculties, and his Christmas Day had been uneventful, which after this many years, he was used to. He was rereading A Tale of Two Cities for no clear reason except it was long and detailed enough to keep his attention for most of the day. He thought about working, but ironically it felt like cheating, so he abstained.
He took his mug, a completely boring default Sparke Industries thing, and climbed out onto the fire escape. He waited until he saw Eli’s silhouette and the room lit up before he tapped politely on the window.
Eli had been grateful when the last customer left the shop that evening. It had been a long day; the weeks of announcing that the shop would be open on Christmas Day having had the intended result - a full house come evening.
He’d stood behind the counter, his elbows on the dark wood, and he’d looked out at the scene before him. It was precisely the sort of scene Eli longed for at Reliquary. The place was so crowded that strangers shared the same large tables and spoke to one another without qualms. Christmas gift money was spent on the antiques that littered the shop, the proceeds bound for the hands of local merchants come morning.
It was, in truth, the entire reason Eli had kept the shop open after the first, required year. Because he believed in nights like the one he’d just had. And yet he had enjoyed none of it.
The argument with Preston hung heavy on his mind, and he was glad to lock the doors. And when he opened the door to his Bathos apartment, he was thinking about it still. A small distraction came with the ringing of his phone, Drake and a job to be done come morning, and his fingers touched Preston’s phone in his pocket as he unwound the scarf from about his neck.
Eli was dressed festively in denim and a green, ribbed sweater with a zipper up the high neck, and he’d just started pulling on that zipper when he heard the knock at the window. He looked up, blue eyes showing clear surprise to see the figure there. He grabbed for his discarded coat, pulling the cellphone out of the pocket, and he made his way to the window and pushed it open. The apartment beyond was visible - crowded and comfortable, and Eli stepped onto the escape a moment later.
Preston hadn’t known any place could be so messy and crowded while still being cohesive and full of character, and while he waited for Eli to come to the window, he unthinkingly compared it to Anton’s usual disregard for material things and his own carefully naturalistic approach. He tried to remember what Elijah’s apartment had been like, but all he could conjure up were explicit magazines and teenage mess.
He had been about to put out his hand to take the phone through the window, but Eli was already ducking his head, so Preston hastily retreated so he would have room to stand. “Hello,” he said, probably not realizing how antique the full word sounded, “Did anyone call me?” He put his palm out again, and his preoccupation with the question was clear on his expression.
“It rang twice,” Eli said, as he handed the phone over. He had just finished speaking to Blake on the forums before he’d left the shop, and it had left him with enough confusion that it showed around the corners of his mouth and in the creased corners of too blue eyes. “But there are no voicemail messages,” he added, because he’d checked. If anyone had felt their call important enough to warrant a message, Eli would have called Preston to tell him about it.
The moon was bright in the sky, and there was no snow falling that night, and Eli could see Preston clearly, despite the darkness. Somewhere Christmas music was playing, a soft kind of background noise that wasn’t loud enough to do more than catch the ear every few seconds, and Eli leaned against the fire escape’s railing and looked over at the blond man at his side. “Would you have knocked?” he asked. “If it weren’t for me holding your phone hostage?”
Preston didn’t lean, he just took the phone and looked down at it immediately, flicking quickly through the menu screen and pulling up missed calls. The disappointment on his face was clear: not who he’d been hoping for. He looked up a second later with a sigh and pocketed the phone. As its dull green glow vanished, Preston’s expression eased into his usual calm, and it would probably last until Eli called him Ash. “No, probably not. It’s not the kind of conversation you pursue without a break,” he replied honestly. He hadn’t been expecting a conversation out in the snow, and he wasn’t dressed for the cold, just boring house slippers, a thin shirt and sleep pants that the dim light leeched all color from.
Eli noticed the look of disappointment at the missed calls, and fresh off his conversation with Blake, he jumped to the conclusion that it was he Preston was disappointed over. “If it was Blake you were expecting to hear from, I believe he’ll be in touch. He indicated as much.” There was dislike in the words, distrust and something green and sharp. He was still looking, but it was only then that he noticed the lack of appropriate clothing. He didn’t invite Preston inside, assuming he would say no. Didn’t ask to go inside Preston’s apartment for the same reason. Instead, he moved back from the rail and reached into the open window, his fingers finding the end of the black, woolen peacoat he’d shucked off and handing it to Preston. “What kind of a break?” he asked.
Preston hesitated, but he wasn’t wearing a sweater, and he put on the coat. It was only a little shorter on him, and a little tight around the shoulders, but he just tried not to move much and it helped a lot. “Thanks... I could have got one.” He could have, but he didn’t. He took this one. “I don’t know, Eli. Just a break. Time.” He slid his fingers down into his pocket where he’d dropped the phone. “You spoke to Blake?”
The coat smelled of coffee and tobacco and dusty things, and Eli watched it settle on Preston’s shoulders a few seconds before speaking. “It was closer,” he said, waving away the thank you with the response, and following it up with a sound that was yes without needing to say the word. “He contacted me on the forums.” He didn’t offer anything more than that, though his gaze followed the movement of Preston’s fingers to the phone. “Do you love him, this man from your past? I know it’s not the sort of thing a man should ask, but I’m curious, nonetheless.”
Preston tried to quash a smile, but failed, and it appeared at the corners of his eyes. “You shouldn’t let him bait you.” Glancing to the side, he shifted too, and leaned next to Eli on the railing. He was looking inside the other man’s apartment as he spoke, not really searching for anything, just looking. “You’re right; it’s a private matter.” Meaning no, he wouldn’t say yes or no. He didn’t evade the question to infuriate Eli, but he really believed in what he said, and it was second-nature to him to protect his personal relationships from the rest of his life... and vise versa.
The combination of the smile for Blake, and the refusal to state his feelings made Eli jump to the conclusion that, yes, Preston was in love with the other man. He stared out at the night, forearms on the railing of the escape, and he thought it should make him feel more certain about everything, but it didn’t. It make him cranky, and he wanted to huff, turn around and climb back in the window. He didn’t. “My apologizes on the impertinent question,” he said, and there was a tightness in the sentence that hadn’t been present before. He straightened, slow and casual. “I’m hardly worth baiting, as he’ll realize in time. Or, he’ll be busy with better things.” He did look over, then, once, quickly. “Back to work tomorrow?”
Eli’s tone made Preston frown. “I can ask him to back off. Sometimes he overdoes it and he doesn’t know when no is no.” Preston knew that Blake would love the kind of coup de resistance that seducing a stubbornly resistant heterosexual male would be, and he didn’t want Eli’s mind more tangled on the matter, not when he was upset enough to hide in a closet about it.
Literally.
“I... took the day off. [Sebastian] probably won’t be in town but I was still hoping he’d call.” He turned the phone in his hand, which was still in his pocket.
Eli chuckled, and it was a sound that was masculine, despite everything about him that was not quite as masculine as it could be. “He wasn’t interested what I think you’re implying, but thank you for the offer to call him off. We were talking about you, actually,” he said looking back over at Preston, slower this time, the gaze slipping from Preston’s arms on the railing and then up. He turned, his back to the metal bar, and he took advantage of the new position, allowed himself to notice little things, like the pajama pants, and the thin shirt, and the slippers.
He almost missed the comment about [Sebastian], almost. “You were waiting for a call from your brother?” Eli asked.
They were talking about him. Preston closed his eyes theatrically and groaned. Of course they were talking about him. His imagination conjured up all sorts of things Blake could have said to embarrass Eli--that would probably embarrass Preston quite a bit too, coincidentally. Blake would probably enjoy the hell out of shocking Eli, and Preston sincerely hoped all he’d managed to do was get Eli angry.
“Yes...” he shifted, his hips and then his elbows as he redistributed his weight against the railing in the too-tight sleeves of Eli’s coat. “Christmas, and all.” He sighed, as if admitting a failing. “Makes me nostalgic.”
“You aren’t in the least bit curious what he said?” Eli asked, surprised when Preston made no comment on Blake. He sighed, turning toward him and giving him a frank look, intensely honest in that moment. “I don’t trust him,” he said. “And I don’t want to see you hurt by him.” There was an old protectiveness there, one that tasted of high school, and Eli didn’t look away when Preston shifted in the too-small coat. “Christmas makes us all nostalgic. You should have come this evening. It was a house full of nostalgic people, none of them wanting to be alone.”
“You forget I know him better than you do,” Preston said, smiling at this youthful protective streak that remained. “I think if I was going to be hurt, the first time around probably would have done it.” The mug he’d left on the window sill was stone cold by now, which he realized when he turned to look at it. He turned back almost immediately, giving it up for lost. “I don’t like nostalgic crowds. Somehow I always manage to be the killjoy, I’m not sure how.”
“You? A killjoy? Impossible.” Eli said, entertained smirk in place. He watched the glance at the mug, and he pushed away from the railing. “Come inside. I’ll make you something far superior,” he said, already moving toward the window as if it was a given. “The first time?” he asked as he moved, his leg sliding into the open window before his body. “I got the impression that it wasn’t something that had ended.”
“Always so critical of my beverage choices...” Preston pushed up from the railing, and when Eli wasn’t looking he gave the apartment a wary look. He decided to just... be careful. Personal space. With some effort (and care for the stitching) Preston took off the coat and handed it in before following the other man inside. He left the slippers just inside the window because they were still wet, and he looked like someone had just dropped him there in the middle of the night. “Ended... generally, things end when you’re not in the vicinity of the other person. It’s complicated.”
Eli looked and felt more comfortable back in his own space. It gave him a sense of himself, and it was obvious in the easy way he unzipped the neck zip of the sweater and dragged it over his head, leaving a white undershirt beneath, over well worn jeans. He kicked off his boots, leaving them beside the couch, and he motioned toward the open kitchen as he spoke. “You’ll forgive me? Beverage choices are what I do.” He chuckled when he said it, and he watched Preston as he rounded the kitchen island. His gaze lingered a little too long to be strictly proper, and he turned and began work on two espressos. “Well, it’s not what my degrees are in, but it’s what I do.” He looked over his shoulder, black hair mussed from the sweater. “But those endings aren’t truly endings, are they? They’re doors closed by distance, not by lack of desire or emotion.” And, yes, Eli’s speech was still too elevated for anyone’s good, even this far removed from high school.
By the time Eli turned around Preston made sure that his eyes were averted, a tactic that felt pathetically second-nature. “I can’t complain when I’m getting free drinks,” Preston said, smiling in his turn and wandering toward the kitchen in his own time. He walked over to the walls to look at the strange things pasted on boards, and he crouched down to look at what was in the bookshelf. He felt odd without his suit and his shoes, and a spot between his shoulder blades itched, but he tried not to show it. “What degrees do you have?”
Eli glanced over as Preston perused the bookshelf, which contained mostly books on abandoned places the world over, including some scientific publications on how quickly man-made items would disintegrate should humanity cease to exist. “History and Architecture, and a Masters on the combination. My grand thesis was about old, abandoned antebellum homes. It included, I assure you, a great number of photographs that you would consider depressing.”
The espresso machine Eli used was large and silver, the professional kind that cost more than the couch and the books put together, and it whirred in the background as the scent of coffee took over the apartment. “Did you study business?” he asked, assuming Preston had.
Sitting on his heels, Preston flipped through one of the books. He still thought it was depressing, wetting his lips and finally rising slowly, leaving the book atop the shelf. “Yes, same way, two degrees. The company paid for the second one while I was in LA.”
Eli frothed the coffee, and he poured it into demitasse white cups that you wouldn’t find in most bachelor’s kitchens, and he carried both cups (and their saucers) to the couch, where he set them down on the glass table that served as a high coffee table. He sat down, and he watched Preston as he took a sip, waiting for him to choose between the sofa and the safety of the armchair. He had watched him whet his lips, and now he watched him move and straighten. “You actually got taller, I believe,” he said, remembering.
Preston took his time moving around the sofa so he could decide, and then he sat down on the armchair, sitting for a moment as if he was in a business meeting, and then melting back into it so he could stretch out his (admittedly long) legs. Ruefully, he replied, “Yes. It was hell trying to find affordable clothes that fit my senior year.” With the additional negative of never having clothed himself. Preston didn’t really know what to do with the saucer, and looked at it in bemusement.
Eli, who was perfectly at home on his couch, watched Preston choose safety with a grin, and then he laughed when Preston looked at the saucer as if it was a foreign object. “It doesn’t bite, love,” he said, not realizing the endearment had come out until it had. He ignored the heat at his nape, or he tried to, but his hand raised to rub at it, and he put the coffee and the saucer on the side table, because it gave him something to do.
Preston went red too, and looked at the ceiling for a moment before sipping. “Still laying the Brit accent on pretty thick, I see,” he observed, trying to keep the conversation light while attempting to figure out what was so special about the coffee to please Eli.
The fact that Preston actually addressed the elephant in the room surprised Eli enough that he laughed, and it was a thick, rumbling sound that spoke to the fact that he smoked more than he ought. “It’s an old habit. I spent most of my life there, after all. Your Boston was only home after I was fifteen, and even then we moved around too much to ever call it home, even now.” He thought back all those years, and he sipped at the coffee, which had the perfect amount of smoothness and froth to temper its hard punch. “Your parents, did they react poorly?”
Preston liked his coffee very dark and bold, and to him it just tasted like an aggressive brew without a too much bitterness, which pleased him. He sipped a little deeper to buy himself time. “I am not sure how they could have reacted worse. By trying to murder me, perhaps.” He was trying to make light of it (badly) and smiled.
“Is that when they found out?” Eli asked, the that understood. He was hoping, really hoping, the answer was no.
“No,” Preston said truthfully, lifting his cup and trying to think of a topic change.
“You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?” Eli already knew the answer, and he leaned his arms on his spread knees and sat forward, eyes intensely focused on Preston. “When did they find out?” No subject change.
Preston rolled his lower lip under his teeth, then slowly pulled himself up out of his slump on the chair. He leaned forward, abandoned the saucer on the table, and then turned his teacup around on his hand. “Later.” He cleared his throat. “School was difficult, and eventually they found out and wondered why.” He aimed a sharp look at Eli. “Don’t think it’s about you.”
“You mean I wasn’t the one to convert you?” Eli asked, but there was no truth to it, the question, and he folded his hands between his knees. “I am sorry I left you to deal with it alone. If you believe nothing else I tell you, that at least is entirely true.” He waited a moment, watched Preston before continuing on. “What did they do when they found out?”
Preston shifted his weight on his knees and a line appeared between his brows. “They wanted to believe it was a mistake. Vicious rumors, that kind of thing. What do you mean, ‘convert’?”
“I suppose I’m asking if you ever found yourself attracted to women,” Eli said, after a pause that said, very clearly, that he had considered not asking the question.
In the intervening moments, Preston sat back on his chair again. He deliberately loosened his shoulders so they weren’t up on his neck defensively. “Occasionally. Depends on the woman. Why?”
“Curiosity,” Eli answered, looking toward those shoulders as they rolled, the change in the direction of his gaze momentarily very obvious before he caught himself and looked back. “Isn’t it easier to only date women, then?” he asked, cautious.
Preston’s eyes were waiting when Eli’s eyes came back, and he had a very slight smile on one side of his mouth for him when they got there. “No, not really. Women aren’t, as a race, less or more complicated than men, in my experience.” His eyes twinkled a little bit.
Eli noticed the smile. In fact, it was all he noticed for a good ten seconds, that quirk of the corner of Preston’s mouth. He was still looking at it when he started speaking, actually, only looking up at the end of the sentence. “I meant with society and your family, not in the... relationship.” That he had a bit of trouble getting out the word relationship out was an understatement.
Funny, it just got deeper the longer he looked at it. “My family doesn’t have a problem with who I date, they have a problem with who I am. I wasn’t dating anyone when I left home.”
“But... if you are attracted to women, why not date them exclusively. Had you done that in high school, they wouldn’t have ever caught on,” Eli countered, moving his hands between his knees with the words, his gaze going back to that hint of crooked smile that was much more interesting than it had any right to be. “What are you smiling at?” he finally asked, gaze moving up to Preston’s eyes again, holding his gaze a little too long when he got there.
“I didn’t date in high school. I didn’t like anyone enough.” When it was mentioned, the smile evaporated. “Nothing.” Preston blinked a moment to reassemble his thoughts, then he said, “They wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. You do too?”
Eli quirked a brow at the mention of not liking anyone enough, the reaction entirely involuntary. “You didn’t like anyone well enough?” he asked, and it was a challenge, a push for Preston to deny he’d liked him. “And I don’t want you to be anyone but who you are. You’re the one who wants to do that to yourself.” The Ash at the end of the sentence was almost audible, despite going unsaid.
He hadn’t precisely said it, so Preston decided not to hear it. “As I said,” he persevered, “I didn’t like anyone enough to risk dating them. I don’t want to do any such things. It just seems... You keep asking me why I don’t lie.”
“It isn’t a lie, is it? If you like women,” Eli said, and there was still some burn in the question at having his own challenge go unanswered. For a moment, he thought he’d be able to hold his tongue. In the end, he didn’t. “You didn’t like me well enough?” And, yeah, that was a challenge.
Preston smiled. “I liked you, too. But we didn’t date.” This particular smile was like the curve on one side of his mouth a moment ago. It wasn’t amusement, or even bemusement. It was something else.
That too, Eli thought, was completely uncalled for, and he would have said something about it, surely, but then Preston kept talking and there was that curve of lip that wasn’t quite a smile and- “What in the bloody hell did we do then?”
Preston spread one palm. “As I recall, we hung out... and we made out, quite a bit.” He sat back in his chair with an air of concentration, and he sipped his coffee.
“Now hold the fuck on,” Eli said, a bit of the British dropping away. “I wouldn’t call it making out.” And dammit if his gaze didn’t go straight to Preston’s lips.
With a studied air and a mild tone of suggestion. “What would you call it?”
“Snogging,” Eli insisted. “Kissing.” And he didn’t look away from Preston’s mouth, so he couldn’t see the studied expression on his face and, really, the tone of suggestion didn’t quite filter through either. “Making out would have involved less clothing.” And maybe that hadn’t been the best thing to say, because his attention went to the thin shirt on those broad shoulders, and then down to those too-long legs.
“Ah,” Preston said, as if he wasn’t hearing any of the blood moving through his ears, “Then we just have different definitions. That’s what I meant. I think all my clothes stayed on in the elevator.” This tone was deeper, a definite tease. He tried not to squirm under the assessing gaze.
“You think,” Eli said, and he was stuck somewhere between noticing the change in tone and being outraged at the notion of Preston forgetting. “If I took any of your clothing off in an elevator, I promise you would remember,” he said, voice matching the gaze that flew up to meet Preston’s in intensity.
Preston put a bare ankle on his opposite knee. “How reassuring.” He swallowed and then met Eli’s eyes with a carefully mild gaze. “You’ve thought more about that?”
“I can’t remember a blasted thing, and you know it,” Eli replied, pushing himself to his feet and walking to the window, the movement an unthinking one. He looked out at the dark, and he listened for movement behind him. “You’re the one who said you weren’t certain,” he said, going for casualness, “about the clothing.”
Preston reminded himself about the distance he’d just told himself about. “No, not really. I was just talking.” He turned and looked over his shoulder. “My memory isn’t as bad as yours, apparently,” he added dryly.
“I was drunk,” Eli reminded him, and he looked back when he heard the movement behind him, eyes catching Preston’s and holding it. “My memory, on the other hand, is perfectly fine.”
“I was drunk too.” Preston very carefully and deliberately blinked, and then dropped his eyes to his coffee cup. “I meant,” he said, bringing the conversation back to where he’d intended it to go, “whether or not you decided if that was who you are.”
“No, no,” Eli said, turning around and leaning back against the window frame. “We were talking about your interest in women. Not who I am.” He sighed. “I’d never thought of a boy in that way, before high school,” he admitted, because saying before high school was easier than saying before you. “And I’ve only dated women since. We’ve discussed this.”
“And you only want to date women hereforth?” Another mild sip of the coffee. He kept doing that, as if this was the most casual, sociable conversation anybody had ever had.
“As I am a straight male, yes, that is my intention,” Eli insisted defensively. He was, however, blatantly watching that coffee cup move to Preston’s mouth, his gaze almost glued to the movement, and then lingering on Preston’s mouth. “I wouldn’t have the slightest notion of how to begin-” He cut himself off, thinking of how that was going to sound if he actually finished his sentence. “Attraction does not always lead to dating.” Which sounded completely idiotic, and well he knew it.
“No, it doesn’t. So, then, logically...” Preston sat back in his chair so not even the profile of his face was directly visible, but rather the outline of one cheek and his jaw as he spoke, “...then logically, you don’t want to be attracted to me.” He tried to distill the emotion out of it, and he did a passable job.
“Dammit.” Eli hadn’t meant to curse, and he hadn’t meant to cross the room in three long steps, either, and he blamed the fact that he couldn’t see Preston’s expression from where he was. Or, rather, he would have blamed it on that, but he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to do it. No, the reaction to that almost-emotionless statement was to stop in front of Preston’s chair, and to look down at the other man for a split second before reaching for a handful of shirt and dragging him to his feet - or trying to, at the very least.
Preston, who had been waiting for sudden movement for the past five minutes, started quickly and turned in the chair, a bit too quickly, as it turned out, because the cup came loose in his hand. The coffee wasn’t scalding any more, fortunately, but it was still damn hot as it spilled down Preston’s shirt. He swore and jumped back, shoving Eli away from him. “Damn you, Eli. Make up your mind!”
The words registered, as did the shove, but not as much as the coffee did, and Eli found himself staring, even as Preston jumped back. He’d been trying to keep his eyes away from Preston’s body since he’d climbed through the window, and this was almost tempting fate. He didn’t answer Preston, and he didn’t look up into his face, either. No, he grabbed that damp fabric and he ruched it in his hands roughly and shoved it upwards, baring a stomach that was wet through from the coffee and pale, fine blond hair.
To be honest, Preston’s relationships up until this point had been one of two things: careful and civilized, or completely out of his control. In the latter, he let the other person dictate almost everything, simply because it was a lot easier, and in both cases he didn’t make very many decisions and he felt safer that way. This was different, and there was far too much baggage that Eli brought with him for Preston to take the whole thing passively.
Preston stepped back again, ran into the armchair, regained his balance, and then put one elbow between himself and Eli’s chest. He shoved him again, hard.
Eli was slighter than Preston, shorter, too, by a few inches, and the shove did its job and knocked him off balance enough that he let go of the fabric of Preston’s shirt in a move to steady himself against the arm of the chair. His nostrils flared with anger at the shove, at the adrenaline coursing through him, and he hated Preston right then for giving him enough time to think about what he was doing. Reacting was easier; it didn’t require excuses or justifications.
He stared at Preston. Stared long, stared hard, and then he stepped back and put a proper amount of distance between then, all without saying a word.
“I’m not sixteen anymore,” Preston said. He stared back, and neither his voice or expression were mild anymore. He looked down at the ruined shirt and took in a deep breath, chest rising and falling, and then he looked back up again. “You can’t just... turn this on and off, like a light switch.” He turned his head toward the window, then brought it back. Maybe it was best to leave through the front door, even if it required going around Eli. Preston took a step forward, at an angle, testing that look on Eli’s face.
Eli was man enough to know he was responsible for this, sober enough, too. When Preston took the step forward, however, he held his ground, and he did not back away.
I’m not playing some blasted game,” he said, defensively through clenched teeth.
"Good," Preston said, for lack of anything better to say. "Because I don't want to play with you, Eli. Not like that." Another breath. The coffee was just cold now, and he felt foolish and vulnerable, in disarray. He'd never managed Anton's knack for besmirched confidence. "Thank you for the coffee." Preston stepped around him.
“And if I’m curious,” Eli said, no small feat in saying the words, not turning, not looking over his shoulder, unable to meet Preston’s gaze with the question, feeling the familiar heat at the nape of his neck as Preston stepped around him.
"Then," Preston said, after he unclenched his teeth, "find someone who will play." He pulled at his shirt to unstick the cold material from his chest as he crossed to the door. "And who won't regret it."
“And if I’d rather you?” The question didn’t come until Preston’s hand touched the doorknob, and still Eli did not turn.
"Then you're going to have to ask yourself why." Preston pulled open the door and stepped out into the bizarrely familiar hallway. "Let me know when you figure out the answer." He shut the door solidly behind him.