SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
“Fuck you, Derek,” I attack the instant the door swings open on me to reveal his expectant smirk.
“Sure you’ve got any of those left to give?”
“He’s still here?”
“Still in my bed.” Derek quicksteps aside as I storm in by him. “Sleeping. So, shush.” He shuts the door at my back and follows me through to the flat’s compact living space, immediately collapsing down onto the plush leather sofa. His hand pats the cushion beside him, but I don’t sit.
Other than a few more framed band shots on the walls and a new rainbow throw covering the armchair, the room seems little changed in the year since I was last here. His drum kit is set up prominently in one corner, and the bedroom door beside it is firmly closed. Crossing the floor to block his view of whatever action flick is playing on the enormous flatscreen, I fold my arms and stare him down. After my run-in with Gary Tinwell, this is not a place I have enough spare patience to be.
I’d almost decided against coming. Probably, I should have sacked off the hunt from the get-go and just stayed home with Dobby. But hey, why change the pattern so late in the day, right?
“I do so hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Derek says, kicking his bare feet up on the coffee table. “Because that’d be an insult not only to both me and him, Davis, but also to yourself.”
I cock a brow at him and bite down hard into my bottom lip, his grin continuing to goad my blatant ire. As if he has the first clue.
Delving a hand in behind his back, he fumbles to retrieve the remote and shuts off the TV. “Just so we’re crystal clear on this, okay? For jealousy is such an ugly colour. Your boy did not hop out of your bed only to immediately be wooed into mine; I give you my word.”
A sharp taint of copper flavours my tongue. “I’m not jealous. Craig’s not my boy. And it’s not your words I’m here for.”
“Okay, great. Care to stop radiating tension through my flat, then? That’d be super.”
“Didn’t realise you and he were friends.”
“Looked like he needed one,” he shrugs. “I volunteered.”
“To what end?”
Derek's amusement finally begins to fade as he takes a proper moment to study my expression. Once again, he slaps the sofa seat beside him. “You want to stay and wait on him? Take a load off, make yourself comfortable.”
I dart another glance toward the bedroom door, and I give my head the slightest shake.
“Let him sleep awhile, Davis.” His feet drop to the floor, and I’m conscious of him straightening from his slouch, the expansive stretch of his arms riding his vest up from his low-slung sweatpants, but I don’t look. “Bas,” he amends, voice softening as he leans forward, “believe it or not, I’ve no desire to be your enemy.”
It’s the voice I used to think he reserved for me and me alone. It’s not the voice I want to hear right now. Turning my back on him, I stalk around the breakfast bar to his fridge and help myself to a bottle of water from it. Craig’ll likely need it. “What’s he told you?”
“More than I was prepared for. Enough to suspect you’d be giving yourself a hard time.” His gaze keenly tracks me as I move away from the kitchenette and closer to the bedroom on the pretence of checking out his bookshelves. “Guess I was right.”
Panning over the tidy row of spines without really seeing, I roll the bottle between my restless hands. My ears are on alert for any slight sound from behind the wall. When I don’t offer anything further, Derek groans in exasperation.
“I never have been able to get much of a read on you, Bas.” Again, with that silvery tone. “You give so little of yourself away, always so careful.”
My spine tingles. What the hell kind of game am I being coaxed to play here? I almost turn. Instead, I only roll my eyes. Not that he can see.
“In all honesty, that is perhaps what first attracted me to you most. The mystery: the challenge,” he continues talking at me, undeterred. “I tried to write a song about you once, you know, way back when. Managed all of two lines. Compared you to an iceberg or some such cheesy shit. Not my best work. Lawton, though—”
The fine hairs on the nape of my neck bristle at the sensed return of his smirk. “—Lawton’s a whole other kettle of gremlins entirely. A volcano ever on the brink. All simmering chaos and too many fissures to contain himself, hard as he might try. A challenge of a very different kind, yet not without its own appeal.”
“Please stop.” My nails gouge deep crescents into my palms, and the bottle is clenched like a weapon in my fist. “Stop inserting yourself into this, Derek. You’ve got no part in it.”
“Except,” he says without missing a beat, “this is my home, and Lawton is my guest. I don’t recall inviting you in. Now you’re standing there, seemingly intent on glaring Dorian Gray to dust, being rude beyond insult. And, seriously, all I’m trying to do, here, is gauge what lyrical masterpiece this potent vibe between the two of you could inspire me to pen.”
Curse him; his irrepressible need to toy with me is maddening in a way that’s long since lost its charm. Of all the places to go, Craig, of all the people to confide in... But curse me tenfold for rising to the bait.
I swerve on him, a match struck. “You think it’s worth the sacrifice of my goddamn pride to be with someone who’ll hate themselves for being with me?” The regret is instant.
A beat of dead silence follows. Derek’s steely gaze doesn’t flicker as a sting of frustration pulses through my chest with such force that I clamp my mouth shut. I focus on the small blue and purple Koi tattooed at his ear.
“I think you just might be stubborn enough to die on that righteous hill.” His retort is smooth. “Yet, even so, you’ve come after him.”
It could nearly be funny, coming mere moments after he labelled me such an enigma. My jaw working against the arch look he’s giving, I half-turn back around to the wall.
Then, thunk!
My head snaps up. The noise is dull, only registering because I’m straining so hard. I almost think I’ve imagined it, until a muffled curse sends the bottle dropping from my grip and bouncing off the wood floor.
“You don’t—” Derek starts up again. But he’s already lost me.
I’m at the bedroom in two strides, throwing the door wide. “Craig?”
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The first I see of him is the glint of his stare, over by the shadowy bulk that I know to be Derek’s bed. He’s perched on the edge of the mattress, cradling his right arm against his chest like it’s hurt, and an irrational trickle of relief seeps at discovering him to be fully clothed — dishevelled though he is. He stands as I take a step closer, but it’s impossible to read much of anything from his face.
“Craig,” I repeat.
“Sebastian.”
The light switch is right by me, at my shoulder. There’s also a lamp within arms-length of Craig. Neither one of us makes a move. A garish orange glow splinters through cracks in the blinds from a streetlight directly outside the small dormer window, and cars rumble past on the busy road, their beams bright.
Behind me, Derek shifts, and I instinctively tense at the creak of the sofa. But I don’t get the sense of an imminent intrusion. For now, at least, it seems he’s content just to eavesdrop.
My throat, all of a sudden, feels clogged. So much for knowing what to say once I saw him. “What are…” I abort and change tack. “Are you alright?”
“Smacked my elbow off the side table. I’ll likely feel it tomorrow.”
When he’s sober , I acknowledge what he doesn’t add. No matter how well-braced I thought myself for hearing it, the hoarse slur to his voice grates a raw nerve. “Yeah, that’s not really what I’m asking.”
“No?”
“You walked out on me without a word. I’ve no idea what’s going on in your head.”
“Ah, okay, so you’re asking how bad I’m hating on myself, then?” My eyes have become accustomed enough to see the wry kick of his lips, a smile that’s all bitterness and no mirth. “Trying to determine if I’m about ready to erupt?”
I flinch. Drawing in a further foot toward the bed, I carefully temper my tone to keep the shake from it. “You weren’t sleeping? That whole time? But you didn’t mean to give yourself away to me, did you?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t meant to even know this is where you’ve been hiding?”
His head dips and shakes, the barest of motions. He drops back down on the bed and sucks in a breath, swallowing it thickly. As I close the remaining distance between us, he’s swift in pulling up his legs and scooting himself across the mattress to reclaim some.
“So that’s it, then?” I ask. “You’re shutting me out?”
“You said you were sorry, Bastian.”
The quiet words root my feet to the carpet. “Just come back to the farm with me, please?”
“You said you were fucking sorry about what we’d done.”
“Sleep this off there, okay? We can talk in the morning?”
“But it’s alright, I get it.” He doesn’t remain quiet. “I’m sorry, too. So truly, deeply, very sorry.” His voice rises over mine, his slate-blank stare devastating. “I made the stupid mistake of falling for you. And it’s my own fault you’ve burned me!”
“Craig—”
“Keep your goddamn pride, Bas. Go home.”
It’s a wholly unique kind of ache, the convoluted knot my heart ties itself into when he rips his gaze away and puts his back to me.
I could touch him by reaching out a hand. I could climb onto the bed beside him, press my body against his, and coax him around. I know it, but I don’t make that move.
Instead, watching as he pulls a pillow to his chest and curls himself around it, I give ground. My retreat to the door is convincingly ignored. Little imagination is needed to see a literal brick wall blocking me out.
“I’ll, uh… call you tomorrow.”
He doesn’t respond.
I turn from Craig at the threshold only to find Derek standing where I last was, by his shelves with my abandoned water in hand, looking all too ready to pick up where we left off.
“Don’t bother,” I warn. Refusing to meet the analysing frown he’s fixed on me, I cut a direct path past him.
I’m caught before I make it to the front door.
Seizing my elbow, Derek presses the bottle into my unsuspecting grip. My fingers reflexively curl tight around its cool neck. “It may be the whiskey doing his talking,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper, “makes it no less his truth.” A brusque tug staggers me back half a step. “If you’re not sure how you feel about him, Davis, I’d strongly advise you take some time to figure it through.”
But that’s the thing he’s got most wrong. My glare is scathing, and for the second time this visit, he causes my teeth to draw blood. Because he doesn’t understand me well enough to understand my conflict. As far into the loop as he believes himself to be here, his perception lacks depth. He hasn’t the faintest clue of that feeling of impotence I bear, wrenching as a punch to the gut at seeing the toll my stepdad’s toxic self-loathing has wrought on the woman who cares for him too damn much to stay away.
No, it’s not a doubt of my feelings for Craig I’m having issues with.
It’s that I know precisely how I feel about him, and it’s scaring the shit out of me. It’s knowing we can’t work. Knowing Craig can’t be who I need him to be for this not to hurt us both.
I yank my arm free, snatching hold of the door handle, and Derek flashes his palms up in surrender.
“Not the enemy, remember?”
He’s whip-sharp on the catch when I toss the water back at him. “You won’t be thanked for this,” I disabuse him. “Fair warning.”
I’ve never felt so burnt raw in my life.