Chapter 12 Sev
Sev
“Oh, shoot,” Mom says when a knock comes from the front door.
“What’s the problem?”
She gets up from the couch, pulling a hair tie around her hair and bringing it into a messy bun. “It’s Betty from next door. Guarantee it. Coco digs under the fence sometimes, and when Betty finds the dog in her yard she kind of flips out.”
“Let me handle this,” I tell her.
I pause Cheers on the TV and follow Mom toward the front just as the doorbell goes off again.
“I got it, sweetie,” Mom says.
“I can also reinforce the bottom of the fence so Coco can’t dig through it. You should tell me about these things, Mom. Let me help you.”
I get to the door before she does and swing it open, steeling myself to deal with a very angry elderly woman.
“I’m sorry, Betty,” Mom’s already calling out from behind me as the door opens.
And I see two people who very much aren’t elderly women.
I see Weston first and for a moment I think I must be dreaming.
“What the fuck?” I say under my breath.
“Hi,” Weston says, looking up at me with bright eyes.
He’s holding four stacked glass Tupperware containers, each filled with something different. In a tight white T-shirt out on the front porch, he practically looks like Captain America, buff and golden and earnest.
Niko is walking up behind him, carrying more shit. It looks like he has a couple of board games in his arms as well as a pink box of donuts on top.
“Who’s Betty?” Niko asks as he steps up next to Wes.
“Niko! Honey,” Mom calls out from behind me. She pushes past me and goes to give Niko a hug. “Is this Oliver? I’ve heard about you—”
“This is not Oliver,” Niko protests immediately. “You think I’d date this guy? Hell no. This is my half-brother from my dad’s side. Weston.”
Weston gives her a sheepish smile. “I’d shake your hand, but I’ve got all this stuff.”
“Sevan, honey, you should have told me you were having people over. I’d have changed out of these rags.”
Niko rolls his eyes. “You always look stylish, Angie. Sweatpants are fine.”
“Come in, boys, come in.”
I’m still standing there like I have whiplash.
Dumbfounded.
Why the fuck is Weston Knox standing on my doorstep with a bunch of food?
Niko walks in past me and follows Mom into the kitchen, where she’s already offering him various beverages.
Wes steps inside and I gently close the door behind him, staring at him a little longer.
“What the fuck is all of this?” pure confusion in my tone.
Wes looks down toward the Tupperware. “Oh. Well, I’m not really good at cooking things.
Other than my own sugar-free granola recipe, and grilled chicken, I guess.
But I wanted this stuff to be actually good.
For a normal person’s palate. I made mac and cheese, because Niko told me you love that, and I used extra cheese.
Oh, and for the chicken I used more salt than usual, and added lemon and real butter.
There’s also brownies, but they’re from Betty Crocker, I’m not going to lie.
Niko said the box mix is pretty good, and I don’t know shit about baking, so… ”
“You made a bunch of home-cooked food and brought it here?”
He nods, as if it’s an obvious thing to do. “For you and your mom. Where should I set it down?”
I still feel like I’m in a dream as I lead him into the kitchen and he lays out each of the big containers. It all looks incredible. Gourmet, practically.
For the past few days I’ve been feeling awful and precarious, and I feel like someone’s shattered right through it. I’ve been here, worried about Mom, trying to keep her company and not seem overbearing.
But now the house feels alive.
They even brought cinnamon rolls, the kind that come in a can that I always used to love making with Mom when I was a kid. I can’t remember the last time anyone did something like this for me.
“So you weren’t digging, Miss Coco,” Mom says as Coco bounds inside through the doggy door like a chocolate-colored mop, and she seems particularly happy to meet Wes, jumping on his lower legs while he bends over to pet her.
“Your house is incredible,” Weston tells my mom, looking all around. “Do you make all of the crafts yourself?”cin
“It’s my main hobby,” Mom confirms. “Embroidery is my first love, but I sew dresses here and there. And I like stained glass, if you can’t tell.”
“That window is incredible.”
Wes is looking back at the little window on the back wall that mom replaced with full, homemade stained glass a few years ago. Her work is incredible, but she always downplays it.
“Everything’s better handmade,” Mom says with a smile.
“I wish my childhood home had anything close to custom,” Wes says. “It was kind of like a museum.”
Never in my fucking life did I think Weston Knox would be in my tiny childhood bungalow of a home, complimenting it.
Weston undoubtedly grew up in a mansion.
Certainly with hired help and pristine surfaces.
I look around the kitchen here and notice all the shit that I wouldn’t usually notice. A floorboard that’s a little loose. The scuffs along the doggy door that Coco gets dirty. I’d assume Weston’s tidy, proper, rich-boy attitude should be flipping the fuck out in here, but…
He seems to genuinely like it.
And I still can’t fucking believe he is in our house.
Niko’s already breaking off into a chat with Mom about the latest season of some show they both watch, and I take the moment to pull Wes aside.
“Hey,” I say, giving him a nod. “Come here for a sec.”
I push open the door to the back porch. The sun just went down and the sky is still purple on the horizon, and the low clicking of the sprinkler fills the back lawn.
He pulls in a long breath as he steps out.
His blue eyes look big and sweet as he looks at me, not quite bashful, but tender in a way I don’t know how to handle.
“What’s up?” he asks.
“Why are you here?”
“Niko mentioned that you were at home with your mom. Keeping an eye on her. I thought you could use some extra help.”
“I don’t need help.”
He blinks at me. “Okay.”
“I’ve never needed help. I’ve been taking care of things for myself, and for my mother, for my entire life.”
He furrows his brow. “So you’re pissed that Niko and I brought you food and some company?”
“I’m not pissed, but I don’t understand your motive. It’s completely unnecessary, and unplanned, and I’m used to doing things on my own, Weston. My mother doesn’t even know you.”
He puffs out a breath. “She seems a lot more thankful and welcoming than you are.”
I breathe deep, looking up at the darkening sky. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick. I just don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. All you have to do is realize that some people actually do want to help. There is no other motive. I heard that your mom struggled in the past with painkillers, and that’s brutal, Sevan.”
I frown. “Niko told you?”
He nods, looking out at the horizon, then back at me. “Yep. So maybe my dark, sinister motive is that I just have some goddamn empathy. Okay?”
The storm raging inside me begins to subside, just a little.
I listen to the sprinkler as it slows down and then stops, and the air around us turns serene.
“The mac and cheese looked very good,” I tell him.
He lifts an eyebrow. “It better be good. I’m about to break my strict diet by eating it with you.”
I let out a long sigh. “There’s no one else like you, Weston Knox.”
He cuts me a glance. “Good. I don’t want to be like everyone else.”
“Trust me. You’re better than most people could even pretend to be. Let’s get inside before Niko convinces Mom to rewatch some reality show about housewives.”
Coco greets us as we walk in again, and for one night, I try to accept what’s happening.
Other people do just want to help sometimes.
It makes me feel selfish, almost, accepting help from people who are going out of their way to give it. Wes and Niko are probably missing out on whatever raging party Onyx is throwing tonight, all just because they were worried about me.
And I don’t know how to act when people are worried about me.
It makes me feel like I’m not on an island of my own. Like I’m vulnerable. Like if I get too used to the feeling of having others around, it’ll all blow up in my face when something inevitably goes wrong.
But a while later, when I see Weston laughing in the living room with my mom and my cousin, I can’t actually find anything wrong about it.
Don’t fucking make me like you, Knox.
I can’t hate Weston anymore. Not like I used to. Even when he infuriates me, and even when he shows up in my life unannounced.
But I’ll never understand why you’re being this nice to me.
I crack a bottle of wine and Niko and I end up being the only people who have any of it. As the night wears on, all the edges around me seem to soften, and I’m regarding Wes like he’s actually meant to be here.
When it’s time for bed I set up my old bedroom for him. I tell him that Niko and I can each take one side of the big, L-shaped couch in the living room, but the moment I lead Wes into my childhood room I realize I’ve made a grave mistake.
“Stop looking at everything,” I tell him.
His head is on a slow swivel, looking around my room like it’s an art exhibit.
“Give me a fuckin’ break, Sev,” he murmurs.
His eyes scan across the far wall, which is still covered in the punk band posters I put up when I was in high school. Every inch of that wall is postered, and the other ones are painted dark navy blue with framed hockey jerseys and a few hanging hockey sticks.
“If you make fun of my Clash posters, I will knock you out,” I tell him. “Joe Strummer is still my favorite front man of all time.”
“The Clash are cool. I love ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go.’”
I raise my eyebrows. “Mr. Sheriff-Frat-Dad knows a song by the Clash? I can’t believe it.”
“I’m not as lame as you think I am,” he says. “Although I will admit I know more music from what they play in the gym than anything else.”
I puff out a laugh despite myself. “Cute.”
“You were big into hockey, right?”