10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
I t doesn’t take long for things to go back to normal after our dramatic interlude. My subconscious can’t decide which it wants to worry about more—Kasia or Tobias—so it settles for doing both in excess.
I’m running on autopilot as I open the bar and start serving. Because it’s later than we usually open, Wednesdays tend to start with a rush instead of a trickle, and within half an hour we’re pretty busy. Kasia is focused, as always, but I keep an eye on her, anyway. None of this stuff with her ex is new. That doesn’t mean it isn’t awful every time it rears its head.
Sav left, because tonight is one of his nights off before the weekend and he only comes in to clean if he wants extra money. So, between the two of us, we’re at least not given the space to get too deep into conversation.
Instead, I let myself keep tearing apart the problem in the back of my mind while I work. How we could convince the courts he’s a piece of shit without having any new evidence. Or how we could convince him to drop it without doing anything super illegal. Nothing comes to mind, but I’m determined.
I’m so focused on it, instead of what I should be focused on, that I don’t see him until it’s too late.
“I’m hoping you can help me find something I lost.”
Eamon managed to walk in and push through the crowd until he leaned against the bar and spoke to me, all without me noticing.
Idiot .
I’m not sure what my face does. Several variations of shock, if his quiet glee is anything to go by. He always seems to look happiest when the people around him are freaking out.
My first instinct is to tell him to get the fuck out and call the cops. I can already feel the anger rising in me, and the words are on the tip of my tongue. But then I remember the most important thing.
He still doesn’t know where Tobias is.
He might suspect, but he doesn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t be in the bar, he’d be upstairs. The angrier I act, the more it’s going to confirm that I know exactly what he did to Tobias and, at the very least, know where he is. Which would probably lead to him beating the information out of me.
I have to remain neutral.
My favorite .
“What can I get you?”
Pushing out the words in a flat tone is excruciating, but I manage it. I even look him in the eye. And it’s not like we were buddies before, so at least my general air of contempt is nothing new.
Eamon orders the same overpriced whiskey he normally does, and for a minute, I think I’m going to get away without a conversation. But once his drink is poured, he starts at me again.
“Like I said, I lost something recently. And this was one of the last places I had it. Do you feel like pointing me in the right direction?”
If I were better scripted as a human being, this would be the moment I pulled out a lost and found box and put it on the bar in front of him.
But we don’t have a lost and found box and I am so far past finding any of this funny, even in the darkest possible way. I am completely out of patience for his bullshit.
“You know what, Eamon, if the boy ran away from you, I really hope he ran so far you’ll never be able to touch him again. Because you’re a scumbag and he doesn’t deserve any of it, and I’m sure I only see the tip of the iceberg when you’re dragging him around here and getting him suspiciously wasted off one drink. But no. If that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know anything. So we can skip to the part where you threaten me and then I’ll continue to not know anything. It’s actually a very important part of a bartender’s job to not know anything. As long as you want to stay alive, that is.”
I hope I hit the right tone. It’s entirely possible that mine and Tobias’s lives both depend on it. Eamon has to believe me.
“You’re pretty rude for a customer service worker. Did anybody ever tell you that?”
“I’m only rude to people I loathe.”
He’s leaning on the bar and so am I. We’re roughly the same height, so we’re eye to eye, and he seems completely calm, while I’m trying not to vibrate with barely contained rage. The weird staring contest goes on for way too long, and I imagine all the ways he’s thinking up to stalk and kill Tobias right now.
“I can’t help you, Eamon. I’m just a bartender.” He hums a little, but continues to stare at me. “Can I get you anything else to drink?”
“One more,” he says, before draining the glass.
I pour him another one. Generous, in the hopes that it’ll make him slow and weak. Although who knows if it’ll have the opposite effect? Just when I think he’s about to start the whole thing over again, he silently pushes back from the bar and walks away.
Of course, I don’t get away with it that easily. He finds a small booth in a corner and sets himself up in it, sipping the second whiskey slowly and not moving from the spot for the rest of the night. The crowd thickens and then finally thins while he sits there through all of it.
When it finally gets to closing time, I’m worried I might have to kick him out. But as soon as the last few patrons are on their way out the door, so is he.
Slowly. Like he’s not in a rush and is making sure I know it. He leaves, though. I see him get into his car in the parking lot, but he doesn’t turn the engine on yet.
I could call the cops and have him trespassed. Technically, the parking lot is privately owned commercial property. But part of me thinks that might be what he wants me to do. If I start something, he’ll keep one-upping me until shit gets violent and if that happens, he’s the one holding all the cards.
Instead, I decide to act like everything is normal. Do nothing to arouse suspicion. Close like normal, go upstairs like normal, and then have my freak out where he can’t see me. Where I can see Tobias is safe with my own two eyes.
That only leaves Kasia. We continue to move around the space like nothing is wrong as we clean up and close. Maybe a little slower than normal, but nothing that someone would clock through the window as unusual. Nothing that looks like we’re huddling together, talking out of concern. But every time we pass close enough, we exchange a few words.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
“Nothing. I don’t want to give him any reason to think he’s got our scent. I’ll close, go upstairs, lock every door and window, and then wait.”
“Okay. So what am I gonna do? What do we think the over-under is that this guy follows me halfway down the highway and then runs me off the road or something?”
I grimace.
“Yeah, I’m not crazy about the odds. I would take you home, but there’s no way it wouldn’t look suspicious. Don’t go out to your car at all. Especially because he might not know that it’s yours if he hasn’t watched you before. I’m gonna have Sav come pick you up.”
Kasia doesn’t say anything for a while, because she hates feeling like a burden to people and it’s easy for this all to seem like an overreaction.
It isn’t, though. We both know that. “Yeah, okay.”
I step into the kitchen quickly to call him and explain the situation, and he agrees to come over. He lives close. It won’t take long, so we go back to our very slow and steady cleaning.
Part of me is almost too scared to take the trash out like normal, but then I really do feel ridiculous. The dumpster is right by the door. I don’t even have to step outside.
All in all, we make it through without incident. By the time Sav shows up and I’m ushering them out, the ratio of embarrassment to fear has tipped in the favor of embarrassment. But then the lights are off, the security system is on and the doors are locked, and I’m heading upstairs.
The sinking, twitching fear I felt before is back in force. I practically race up the stairs, desperate to get to Tobias now that there’s nothing standing in my way. I knock, like usual, before I let myself in. So he knows it’s me.
Like always, the TV is on and the lights are off. But Tobias isn’t on the couch. The fear gripping me squeezes tighter, and I almost call out. He has to be here. If Eamon did something, he wouldn’t still be sitting in my fucking parking lot like a ghoul.
No, screw it, I can’t see him anywhere.
“Tobias!”
There’s a sound. A rustling; then the bathroom door opens and Tobias steps out, making my entire body sag with relief.
“Yeah?” He looks me up and down and his face falls. “Oh shit, are you okay?”
My hands are on my hips, and I take a few seconds to concentrate on just breathing and releasing all the irrational thoughts that have been buzzing around my head for the past couple of hours.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I got freaked out and overreacted.”
I take another deep breath and make a point of looking him in the eye like a normal human.
Which is the first time I notice that he’s not dressed. He is, in fact, only wearing a towel. His hair is so wet that the dark curls are dripping onto his face, and his skin is flushed from the shower. Well, the parts of his skin that aren’t still covered in bruises.
I’ve always thought of Tobias as small. Not in a metaphorical way, but just like someone who I could fit my hands around. As much as I’ve tried to suppress that thought. But I think it’s actually a combination of the fact that he’s several inches shorter than me and has a tendency to wear baggy clothes he drowns in, even before he was borrowing from my wardrobe. As well as the way he often huddles over and makes himself smaller, shrinking into the background of any room he enters.
The night he first showed up, everything was so chaotic that actually looking at him was the last thing on my mind. Especially considering how swollen and bloody his entire body was. But now, apart from one huge, angry looking bruise covering most of his ribs on the left side, the rest of his chest looks mostly normal.
There’s more muscle to him than I would have expected. Not bulk, but definition. The same water droplets that were rolling down his face are also dripping off the curve of pecs and abs and biceps. Proportional to his body and still slender, but all giving a real impression of strength that I wasn’t expecting.
What other parts of himself does he hide away from everyone?
It’s a long, convoluted train of thought that careens me completely off course from what I was supposed to be focusing on, and as soon as I realize that, all the fear rushes back in.
“Shit,” I say, for lack of anything better forming in my brain. “Your ribs look terrible.”
Tobias squirms, and I immediately feel bad for drawing attention to it.
“You look good, though. Overall, I mean. It’s just that bruise.” The words spill out like I can somehow walk this whole thing back, but it definitely makes it all more awkward.
Tobias continues to stand in the doorway to the bathroom, half-naked and seeming caught between wanting to run away and move closer.
“I’m sorry. I’m apparently only capable of putting my foot in my mouth whenever you’re around.”
That gets a little smile out of him. He leans his head to the side, clearly agreeing with me, before moving a few steps toward me.
“So, why did you come in here looking all pressed?”
“Is there any chance you’ll let me not tell you, and accept it’s for your own good?”
“If you want me to put your dick in a blender,” he deadpans while I flinch at the imagery.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Get dressed and then we can talk about it.”
He shifts his weight from side to side, his unease obvious. The windows are covered, like always, but his gaze still flits toward them.
I realize I have to rip off the Band-Aid.
“Eamon came to the bar tonight.” Tobias doesn’t move, but I can hear the uptick in his breathing, so I move slowly and steadily toward him as I continue to talk. “Don’t be scared. It’s okay. He was looking for you, but I think I convinced him I don’t know anything. He stayed until close and then went and sat in his car in the parking lot. I did everything exactly like I normally would—locked everything, set every alarm, and then came upstairs.”
Tobias wraps his arms around himself, hunching in. His face is impassive, though. I think I can see a faint tremor in his hands, but he’s not letting any of it travel to his face.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s not, I mean. But it was always going to happen. Thanks for taking care of it.”
My brow furrows. I don’t know exactly what reaction I was expecting—shock, fear, even anger at me for trying to baby him. This blank stoicism wasn’t on the list.
“It’s okay to be scared. It’s only me here. You can be whatever. I don’t care.” I watch him, but he doesn’t respond. “As long as you don’t put my dick in a blender.”
Tobias snorts, shaking his head at me and bringing back that ghost of a smile. I think a little hint of a tear slips out, because he quickly swipes at his eye and sniffs a little, but I pretend not to notice.
“Alright. Bet. I’m fine, though.”
“Okay,” I nod. “Do you wanna watch a movie? I’ll let you traumatize me.”
“Sure.”
He walks into the bedroom reluctantly, I’m assuming to get dressed. I let myself do a very quick, silent sweep of the room, double-checking the windows are locked. Not that you could get to them easily, anyway. I know I’m being paranoid.
I make sure I’m on the couch before he gets out, because I don’t want my anxiety to set off his own. He walks over to me but pauses before sitting down.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
He shakes his head. Then he looks at the couch, and I realize that this couch has kind of become a minefield for us. It’s entirely my fault, because I’m the one who keeps changing the rules. But as much as I don’t want to overstep, I want to deprive him of something he clearly needs right after I just freaked him out even less.
“Do you wanna sit with me?”
I lean back as I say it, trying to look relaxed and inviting. Tobias doesn’t speak, but he nods. Once the offer is out there, he doesn’t hesitate to make himself comfortable. He climbs into the narrow space between me and the arm of the couch, so most of his body weight is on my lap and he’s half-facing the TV, half-leaning against me. Then he works his way closer and closer against my chest until he finds the spot that apparently works for him.
The whole process sinks into me like a weight, filling me up and tying me to the spot. As I hand him the remote, I realize how completely laughable it was that I might ever have been able to stop myself from having this.
Not that I have any idea what this is. Not that it should ever be more than what it is right now. But even that is already too overwhelming to be something I could possibly give up.
Hopefully, Tobias will sleep again. I’ll sit, and wait, and watch for Eamon. So he can sleep safe.