SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
It’s late Sunday morning before Mum answers the phone to me. She was hesitant in agreeing to my invitation to dinner, but it’s almost a month since we last saw each other, and despite everything, I know she misses me.
I arrive at Citreena’s Bistro first, a good ten minutes early. The place isn’t fancy, but it’s popular, and I’m shown to one of the few empty tables by a skittish blond kid who looks vaguely familiar somehow. Big, dark eyes dart over me and then away; he flashes a quick smile as I take my seat beside the window and accept a couple of menus from him. ‘Mikey’ is the name on his tag. I think, maybe, it’s a name I’ve heard Ashleigh mention.
“Can I get you anything to drink while you wait?” He asks.
“Just water, thanks.”
“No problem. Be back in a few.” Watching him weave his awkward way through the tables back toward the counter, I almost feel bad for his misfortune of serving us. He seems exactly the kind of boy Mum will delight in playing with. She’ll have his life.
Judy’s made me promise to be on my best behaviour tonight. I’m to hold my tongue in check and keep my temper securely leashed. Easier said than done, I’m sure she realises, but I understand just as well as she does that if I lose my shit, I’ll lose my mum. Hence the public place.
My resolve, however, feels sorely tested from the very instant Mum steps through the door.
“There’s my strapping young man!” She calls out with excessive enthusiasm. Her entrance attracts most of the room, one arm raised high and waving above her head. But it’s her other arm that immediately arrests my notice, cast in plaster and cradled to her chest. “Hello, gorgeous!”
I take a deep, bracing breath and stand. “Mum,” I manage simply.
Mikey’s halfway back, my glass of water in hand, as she busies her way toward me with a smile for each staring diner she passes. He quickly steps around her to reach the table first. Taking the drink from him with a nod of thanks, I inwardly groan, dropping back down on my seat, when he then makes the unwitting mistake of courteously drawing out the chair across from me.
Mum covers his hand with her own uninjured one before he has the chance to step back. “What a perfect gentleman.” She sidles in close, invading his personal space.
“Um…” I swear there’s a slight blush on his cheeks as he hastily straightens and extracts himself. “Drink?” He clears his throat. “What can I get you to drink?”
And so it begins. The poor kid has doomed himself right there.
I can hear the mischief in her voice. “Oh, orange juice would be wonderful. Thank you so much.”
“Okay, yep, no problem. I’ll be back in a bit to take your food order.”
He’s still well within earshot when Mum picks up her menu and stage whispers, “Yum!” She shamelessly side-eyes him across the full floor. “Everything here is so delicious.”
“Orange juice, huh?” I refuse to humour her.
And I can sense, rather than see, the fractional dimming of her manic grin. “Well, I wouldn’t want to invite your disapproval, now, would I?”
Like that’s ever stopped you , my good sense curbs me from saying. Instead, I lift my glass of water and sip.
The light flutter of her fingers over the tableware betrays her nerves as I lean back and force myself to properly take her in. “You’re looking well, love.”
I wish I could say the same in return. She’s as immaculately preened as she ever is, but the gloss of her auburn hair and rich crimson lips don’t fool me. I’m no less distracted from the hurt masked behind her cheery hazel gaze than I am from that which the plaster cast makes glaringly apparent. All I’m able to reply is, “Yeah, I’m good.”
A conspicuous silence then flourishes between us. We fill the time pretending to study the menus, even though I can predict at first glance exactly what we’ll each choose. The unrelenting background chatter gnaws at my nerves.
However, when our young server makes his return to the table, Mum pounces all too eagerly back into form.
“Finally!” She exclaims too loud, swift to pluck her juice from his tray. “Did you squeeze the oranges yourself?”
It does not escape my notice that he retreats a half-step safe from her as he fumbles a notepad from the back pocket of his trousers. “Ready to order?”
“You bet your mighty fine derriere we are.”
“Okay.” He readies his pencil over a blank page and gives us a nod.
“I’m ravenous for some prime steak.”
“Oh. Kay. And how would you—”
“I like my meat pink and tender and oh-so-very lightly seasoned.”
“With the peppercorn sauce?”
“Absolutely,” she purrs, “smother it.” And for bonus squirm points, she hooks on a wink.
“Yep. And, um, what side dish do you want with that?”
“You.”
His splutter is actually sort of adorable in a way that incites me to take pity. I dart Mother Dearest a significant look she doesn’t see. Credit where it’s due, though, he recovers himself rather admirably. “The choices are chunky chips, sweet potato fries or salad and coleslaw.”
But, of course, Mum’s not quite done toying with him yet. My eyes narrow as she lifts her glass to her lips, slow and deliberate. One tiny sip and her face breaks into a grimace. “Is there vodka in this?”
“What? No, I—”
A melodramatic sigh breaks him off. “Didn’t think so.”
His head snaps across to me, and I wince an apology. “She’ll have the sweet potato fries. And the chilli for me, with rice and nachos.”
“Got it, thanks.” He bobs his head once and spins on his heel.
Leaning into the table, the arch of my brow makes short work of killing Mum’s private little chuckle.
“Oh, stop it. I’m having a bit of harmless fun, that’s all.” She holds my eye for only a moment longer before dropping her head back down to the menu. Her following words are delivered to the list of mains. “Please don’t be difficult all night, Sebastian, will you?”
Difficult? I work to direct all my irritation to my fist, balling it until my knuckles blanch before I dare answer. I’m still working on it when a fresh arrival at the bistro disturbs my efforts. And the moment my gaze instinctively flicks to the entrance, my day is made complete.
Because, naturally, it would be Craig Lawton making yet another impromptu appearance in my life.
Mum looks across at me through her thick mascaraed lashes, imploring as I watch Craig step inside. Cheeks flushed from the chill evening air, a charcoal beanie is pulled low on his head, covering his ears. He has one hand shoved deep inside the front pocket of his hoody. His other hand is pressed against the heavy wooden door, holding it open. It then remains, allowing the cold to bluster in behind him as his foot stills midstep and his attention locks.
But it’s not me that he’s caught on.
Two tables beyond ours, almost directly in front of me, Mikey has slammed himself to a halt with near-beat precision.
In the stagnant moment that follows, my brain connects the two dots.
Mikey is the guy I saw with Derek outside the pub. That night of the best-forgotten date debacle. Craig had been glaring at him then, too. His ex’s new beau is the explanation Ashleigh gave.
“Who’s that?” Mum asks, swerving in her chair to track my line of sight. “Friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Love interest?”
“Absolutely not!”
The first to break, Mikey jolts his feet into action and scurries away through the kitchen door.
It’s then that Craig spots me. No sooner do his eyes snag on mine than he’s turning on his heel and storming straight back out.
“Interesting.” Mum remains angled toward the door as it swings shut after him, her smirk reinstated. “A lover scorned, then?”
“Seems so,” I instantly snap her back around. “But not by me.”
“Shame,” she sighs. “That, there, was one beautiful specimen of a man. Wealthy, too, if the cut of him’s anything to go by.”
“Seriously, Mum?”
“What? You could do worse is all I’m saying.”
I sip some more of my water, but it does me no good this time. Nor does clamping my jaw. As much as I appreciate her complete acceptance of my sexuality, her ability to jump the line never ceases to astound me. “Right. Because, of course, nothing defines a prize suitor quite like arrogance, money and a distinct lack of conscience!”
Her face falls, the glint fading from her eyes. She’s not dumb to the double edge of my words, just as I’m not dumb to the move her good arm makes to shield her broken one from me. “I’d very much like to enjoy our meal together, son.”
“Yeah, I want that, too.”
“So, let’s leave Clark out of it, alright?”
If only that was an option. Except, despite Mum’s deliberate efforts to conceal and distract, all I see when I look at her is the damage that Viper has caused us.
Drawing in a steadying breath, I lean forward in my seat and reach my hand out to her. “Then tell me.” She recoils as I slide the menu from beneath her folded arms. “Convince me that this,” a finger grazes along the coarse surface of her cast, “in no way, shape or form has anything to do with him, and I’ll gladly move on.”
Head slowly shaking, her expression is an unsettling mix of plea and warning. “Sebastian…”
“What happened to your arm, Mum?”
“It’s not what you think.”
I hate the ease with which she lies to me. How can she not yet know that I recognise her tells? “Sure.”
“There really isn’t any need to make a big issue out of something that’s not.”
“Bull,” I call her out.
Her cherry lips press tight, and she turns away from me. But not for long.
As expected, and as disappointing as it is, she whips back around with her defences fully raised. “You’re being unreasonable! Clark’s a good man.”
Unreasonable? I fall back away from her.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for me, torn between my two favourite men in the world? Why can’t you just give him a chance?”
Out the corner of my eye, I spot Mikey returning across the dining room with our food. I bite hard into my cheek as I wait for him to fumblingly serve us our heaped plates, my foot tapping in agitation beneath the table. The food looks and smells fantastic, but my appetite has shrivelled.
“Thank you,” Mum flashes him a quick smile, not a hint of tease lighting her face this time.
“Enjoy.” His relief is palpable as he makes his hurried escape without a backward glance.
Neither one of us makes a move for our cutlery.
Then, “Why?” I repeat her question, failing to keep the sharp surge of anger from my tone. “Because I love you.”
With her back straightening and eyes slitting, Mum wastes no time playing her hand. “Just not enough to stay with me, right?”
“Mum, don’t you dare pretend like you don’t understand why I couldn’t!” I play my own.
Except, she’s now stoked herself up for a fight. “Oh, I understand,” she snorts. “I understand that the bond you and your uncle Kye had was more than I could ever compete with.”
“That’s…”
She’s stopped listening. “Right from the moment you first laid eyes on him, as a tiny baby, you took to him. Growing up, it was all Uncle Kye this and Uncle Kye that . I once gave you a choice: your sixth birthday: spend the day with him out on the farm or with me at the theme park. Guess which you picked? You were my son, and he was my twin, but there was never any space for me between the two of you. I understand all too well that I’d lost you way before Clark came along.”
“There’s not a single choice I’ve made that’s been about Uncle Kye over you, Mum.”
“You left me! The both of you did!”
My head drops, defeated. “No. You shut us out.”