His smile felt a little less forced upon hearing her joke. “Several steps above a zombie, I’d say. They don’t even give a shit if they even wake you up. Just eat whatever the fuck they want and go on their way. Rude bastards.”
He’d never been good at subtle. Hell, he’d never been good at being one hundred percent honest. The latter he’d been working on, though. Old habits were hard to break, especially when it was a habit he’d had since youth. But he was getting better about the honesty thing. It helped that Rae was more or less non-judgmental. “I know I’m definitely in for a good time when you’re not subtle.”
Seeing her reaction to his honest answer made him want to rewind time and change his answer. Lie. Tell her he was perfectly okay with the arrangement; that it wasn’t weird as hell sleeping in the same room — hell, the same bed — that she’d shared with her now dead boyfriend. He didn’t want to let it bother him, but it was hard to ignore sometimes. Especially times like these when Rae was having nightmares about Elliot. It was just a reminder that she wasn’t over him yet. That Silas was just the willing replacement.
And just like all the other times a serious conversation had to include him (or, rather, involved him), Silas wanted to avoid the issue altogether. “It’s workin’ fine for me,” he said. “It’s just… weird… bein’ with you in the place you shared with him.”
He glanced up from his feet when she offered to put the medic’s things in the closet. He didn’t know if that would help much. “You don’t have to do that.” He glanced down again. “But answer me somethin’…” He fell silent again, wondering if he should even ask. “Do you think about him while we’re fucking? Or doing other things?” Maybe it was an unfair question, but part of him really wanted to know. And, depending on her answer, it had the potential to put things further into perspective for him.