SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
"You didn't have to do that, you know," Craig says as I re-enter the shed, Dobby at my heel. He doesn't lift his head from under the bonnet of my ancient Ranger, his hands busy in the grimy guts of its engine. "I would have come back another time."
I set the two mugs of coffee down on a clear patch of the cluttered workbench and prop myself against its edge, folding my arms. "Perhaps. But it's tonight you didn't want to go home."
The flex of his shoulder blades pauses momentarily, the only sign he gives of hearing me.
I'm choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt that his eager offer to check over my motor came from a sincere place, just as I'm willing to believe that he knows what it is he's doing. Because faith stands to gain me more than I can lose. I don't currently have a working truck, and the rusting bucket isn't worth what a mechanic would charge to fix it. If I'm still without a working truck tomorrow, then so be it.
On one point, though, I am entirely sure: When we'd arrived at the farmhouse, and Craig climbed out of his car with us, his reluctance to leave was palpable.
Ashleigh had suggested that perhaps our 'emergency' required his help. I've now fulfilled my part of the ruse, informing his parents that his extended absence from their game night was of the utmost necessity.
My vehicular trouble, however, was not the excuse I gave them.
"You heard Dad tonight, right?" Craig raised an objection, shaking his head. "He has this whole philosophy about well-honed wits saving hands from the dirty work. He barely tolerates me tinkering with Roxy."
The reminder of Philip's sour face at noting the callouses on my hands and the dismissive way he turned from me had chafed a sore spot raw. There's not a chance Uncle Kye would've let that go unchallenged. I shouldn’t have either. "You start tinkering with Dolores -fucking- Sue ," I’d said, provoked and stupid. "I'll handle your folks!"
I cannot claim to have handled them well. I also cannot claim to have gone into that phone call with a solid handle on myself.
"Your mum hung up on me," I admit as Dobby looks balefully up from his place at my feet, the only witness to my tumultuous performance. I flick my gaze away to the cobwebbed rafters. "According to your dad, I'm an insolent deadbeat."
"What?!" Craig thwacks his head off the bonnet in his haste to straighten. It sounds painful, and my teeth nip the inside of my cheek as I flinch. "Christ, ow! What the hell did you say?"
"A bit of cursing felt right, given the urgency of the situation I was selling, but—"
"Brilliant!"
"I never once directed it at them."
"Just brilliant. Thanks, Bastian. Knew this was a moronic idea."
"Not half so moronic as the need to lie."
"I should go."
"Yeah?" My eyes drop, cutting sharply to his. "Okay then, fine," I call his bluff. And it's not even because of the trouble he's already put me through for this. "If you're ready to scurry back home with your tail between your legs, I won't try to stop you." At my thumb jab toward the door, I see his jaw muscle twitch. "You've more purpose here than there tonight, Craig. In both the reality that you don't want your folks knowing and the fiction I've just spun. But if you'd rather disappear somewhere else and busy yourself with something entirely more destructive, I can't stop you from doing that either."
He holds my stare for the count of six slow breaths before he sighs and blinks away. "Quit acting like you get it, Bas."
Dobby sighs too, a gruff rumble that suggests he's done with this farcical disturbance I’ve brought upon his peaceful night. He curls himself into a furry bagel as I reply, "I'm simply intrigued to see if you can figure out the problem with my truck."
"You're so smart; I’m shocked you’re considering any chance that I might figure out what you can’t." He's in my clothes again, worn willingly on this occasion; my work overalls protecting his designer togs. Already, they’ve served him well, the faded-green sleeves streaked black.
As he lifts a defiant hand to the buttons down his front, though, with the clear intent to strip back out of them, I pick up one of the coffees and step toward him. "You talk in your sleep, you know?"
The turnabout has his fumbling fingers instantly stilling. And when I thrust the mug out, he automatically takes it from me. "What?"
"Every time," I continue. "I thought it nothing but amusing nonsense, really, except now I'm not so sure."
"You've watched me sleeping?"
That's a creepy interpretation of it. "Checked in on you," I amend with a shrug. "While you were blazing drunk and passed out. Someone had to."
His eyes dip to the steaming drink like he's only now registering its presence in his hand, the white mug now thickly smeared with his oily prints. "Learned of my deepest darkest secrets, did you?"
"So many. That you're not Rapunzel, for starters. Who knew? Locked away in that classroom when you didn't have the hair… "
"Curse my loose tongue."
"Magpies are the real villains."
"True. Spread the word on that one."
"And something about a green-eyed demon. It won't let you think straight? "
Craig barks out a humourless laugh, the sound abrasive enough to rouse Dobby to his feet. We both take a moment, watching as the dog circles my legs before padding sulkily away from us across the shed to settle himself on a pile of old sheets in the corner.
My tone sobers, flattens. "Then, just when I thought you were done, you scared me halfway out my skin, screeching." I don't mock him by imitating him. " Let me breathe ."
The narrowed strike of his glare jolts me like an electric shock, an acute flash of panic twisting his face that he's swift to mask. He presses his lips tight against any more of a reaction, and I can't help myself from wondering what deep, dark secret he fears he might have unconsciously let slip.
"You've mumbled Chrissy a lot. Alex , too. You also—"
"Yeah, Bas, alright." He's let me push him farther than I anticipated he would, overstepping a nebulous line, it seems. "You were totally right, okay? You do get it. Obviously, it's all utter nonsense. Because, I mean, I'm a spoilt brat. I'm rich, and I'm entitled, and my life is so fucking perfect that, of course, the only troubles I could possibly have are those I create for myself."
"That isn't—"
"It is. It's exactly that. You've made your opinion of me very clear."
I inhale, exhale, and turn away from him, moving back to the workbench to collect my own coffee.
Reading into dreams is Ashleigh's wheelhouse, not mine. She keeps a journal for hers and has a small collection of books. If I dream at all, I don't ever remember them. And whatever profound significance there might be to the snippets Craig vocalised of his, I lack the insight to decode it beyond an understanding that he's not at peace with himself even in sleep.
Cradling the mug, I once again prop my butt against the bench's edge before returning my attention to his unmoved stare.
He hasn't made another attempt to leave, which is something. And my aim genuinely isn't to goad him more. But now that we're into this, "I'm not invalidating your issues, Craig. Nor do I envy you." Especially not after this evening. "It's your choice of taking the easiest escape route around the rough, and your adamant refusal to notice it won't ever lead you anywhere good; that's what I despise."
"What, because I drink a few too many once in a while?" His rasp is scornful. "Big deal. Who doesn't? It's not all the time. Not like I'm an alcoholic or anything!"
"Yet maybe. But—"
"Yet?"
"But I've seen more than enough falls down that slippery slope to recognise the signs of you teetering."
" Yet , as rough as tonight's been, here I am, sober and steady on my feet."
"True," I concede, “and surprisingly, here I am, finding you almost tolerable for it.”
“Wow. Gee. Thanks.
A smile ghosts my lips that feels wholly contrary when he lifts his coffee and takes an emphatically deliberate gulp, grimacing at the burn. "Still, though.” The truck-ward jut of my chin is no less pointed, steering his gaze down to the exposed engine beside him. “It’s early, and you think you should go..."
He’s enticed to stay. That much is plain. His body hasn’t turned more than halfway from the Ranger since I disrupted him from it. But whether he’s feeling a greater draw to follow through on leaving just to spite me, I’m unable to tell. "You're an absolute dick, Sebastian."
“I couldn’t be an insolent deadbeat if I wasn’t.”
Bringing up his free hand, he flips me the finger.