Throughout the boy's tirade, Elias remained the same stony presence as before -- unmoving and unmovable, still and strong and unyielding. When Rylee stepped up, and then did it again, Elias relinquished no ground in response. Rylee's voice was loud enough now to rebound off the wall behind Elias and back again -- not quite an echo, but something like it. Never once did Elias let his eyes leave the kid. It wasn't wariness that kept him so attentive. It was something far more meaningful.
The kid was right about a great many of the things he snarled. Elias didn't know much about Charlie. He didn't know she was a veteran, didn't know she was an ex-Marine, didn't know that she was celebrating her birthday. And Rylee was right that it was presumptuous of him to have tried to secure Charlie's apartment. So much about Charlie was unknown. But one thing he did know - without understanding - was that she was very important to him. It was disturbing, when he thought about it, or at least it should have been. But where alarm should have lived instead there was a sense of right. He couldn't explain it.
When Rylee stepped back again, when Rylee stopped his speech, Elias stayed silent. He was processing, weighing the words, weighing the actions, weighing everything. The appertaining anger to Rylee's outburst was washed away wholly by the process. Strong and illogical outbreaks of emotion typically made it far easier for him to detach emotionally from the situation and analyze it instead. It had always been the way he handled such things, and he was wholly unaware of how unnerving it seemed. Logic was the highest king in Elias' mind -- or, it had been, until Charlie appeared in his office building.
Charlie. It was Charlie's birthday.
Immediately, Elias flat-out grinned.
"I had no idea," he answered truthfully. Rather than look offended, he actually seemed to be pleased. The pleasure colored the remainder of his analysis. The boy was passionate enough to stand up for Charlie, to defend them to Elias. And that strength was admirable. If he was true to his word, then Charlie was indeed in good hands, and although Elias struggled briefly with the idea of someone else watching after Charlie, he was mollified that it was an ex-Marine. And an old family friend.