"She is," Elias answered immediately, and so quickly that it almost overlapped the boy's own impertinent question. Never mind that Elias hadn't specified a time or date as to when he would pay a visit to Charlie; he had told her that he would. And therefore, in his mind, she wasexpecting him. But the immediacy of his answer was driven not from certainty but from irritation. From his stone expression broke a single indication of mood: over that icy stare, his left eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. It was eloquent in the absence of any other emotional clue.
Elias, meanwhile, was reading the blond in front of him very thoroughly. The shoulder roll looked like more than defensiveness; it could have been preparation and warning. Clearly, the boy was thinking about a brawl, and this spoke to his youth. Elias digested this carefully and stored it in his mind's growing construct of who this person truly was. The way he narrowed his eyes, the way he straightened -- both an attempt at intimidation and an indication of being intimidated in the first place. Elias reconsidered the response he'd given to his question. Charlie and he were, to his estimation, "...very close," which sounded closer to a romantic interest than to a friend.
And then Elias smiled.
If this spikey-haired blond thought he was good enough for Charlie, Elias imagined he was in for a very rude awakening. Still, the kid was doing his best to hold his own. That was something. "I am certain," he said as he raised knuckles to the door, "That she will be pleased to see you."
And Elias wanted to watch them together as well, for however long he stayed. The boy wasn't off the hook by a long shot. But if he really cared about Charlie, that would go a long way, too. As he knocked on #103, Elias didn't even stop to consider why he was being so protective over this girl he'd met but once. He had made his peace with it. The fact of the matter was that he was.