UNMASKED

#01

Eli watched—unimpressed—as a crappy, grainy picture of what was supposed to be the local crime fighter was displayed on the screen at a corner of the coffee shop. He liked to think it was crazy enough that they even had a local crime fighter, but sadly, that wasn't the strangest part of his life.

"The Vigilante was spotted just south of downtown . . ." the newscaster was saying. She looked almost gleeful, which wasn't unexpected.

In general, the media seemed to think of Vigilante as some sort of divine gift. He was their go to story whenever they had a slow newsday. From the criminal dealings he uncovered to the latest gossip about who he was dating—last Eli heard, it was the weather girl from channel five—the news covered it all. As long as Vigilante was even vaguely involved, the news would cover it.

Eli was really starting to get tired of it.

"You'd think they would be over it. The guy's been around for long enough."

"He's popular," Michael said with a shrug. "He even has a fanclub."

He had several, but Eli wasn't going to be the one to tell Michael that. It was already enough of a miracle that Michael wasn't the leader of any of those fanclubs. Half the time he spent in the shop was just wasted exchanging gossip with customers and watching the news. The rest of the time he spent annoying the hell out of Eli.

"You'd think you'd have stopped hating the guy after all the times he's saved your scrawny butt."

"I don't hate him. I just think he's a stupid show off and shouldn't be encouraged." Eli thought that was reasonable. Michael just snorted.

Before they could keep on arguing about Eli's supposed hatred for Vigilante, the door opened, and in walked their best customer. Coincidentally, he was also their most annoying customer, and the guy Eli was currently dating.

"Oh look, your boyfriend's here," Michael couldn't help but point out. Eli shot his boss a glare that went completely ignored.

"Hey honey," Matthew greeted Eli with a smile as he sat at his usual table. As he always did, Matthew looked tired, dark circles under his eyes and dark hair a mess. His face still lit up as soon as he saw Eli.

"What are you doing here?" Eli asked, exasperated. He'd been expecting Matthew to stay home and get some rest, considering he looked like he was about to drop dead from exhaustion. That would have been the most reasonable thing to do. Eli should have expected Matthew to do anything but that. "I thought you were going to stay home to rest."

"Well, I was, but then I got bored and I figured I'd drop by." The way he said it made it clear he thought it was a brilliant idea. Eli strongly disagreed.

"What do you want?" Eli asked, resigned to Matthew annoying him for a while longer. He figured the best he could do was try to get him out of the shop and back home as quickly as possible.

"Coffee would be nice," Matthew said. "And one of those chocolate muffins."

"We're out of muffins," Eli told Matthew.

"Eli ate the last one," Michael added with a grin.

"I did not." He had, but Matthew didn't need to know that.

"Oh, well, I guess just the coffee then." Eli thought Matthew sounded more disappointed over that than a grown man had any right to. With a roll of his eyes, Eli headed off to get Matthew's drink, missing the fond smile that was pointed his way.

"So, how's life with an angry ginger?" Eli heard Michael ask and didn't even bother to look back. He might have glared at the coffee maker a bit too much.