9. Chapter 9 Freddy
Chapter 9: Freddy
D amn. Between travel issues, storm damage, and all his other worries, Freddy completely forgot the bag of goodies he’d picked up in Seattle. Hopefully, the garage kept them cool enough to avoid congealing into one big, gooey blob. Now was a good time to unload the vehicle anyway. Sabrina would need the trunk space for groceries, clothes, and whatever else she bought.
Freddy popped the trunk and pulled out his duffle while Sabrina grabbed stuff they’d brought from her place. She carried her boxes up to the office while he dropped his duffle in the living room before going back to unload more. There wasn’t much. Once the car was empty, Freddy did a quick mental inventory. Sabrina suggested they mount her TV in the office as an extra-large monitor they could share. Her computers, printer, speakers, and various accessories all went in the office as well. They put her books on the open shelves in the office, since Freddy’s mom had carefully arranged bric-a-brac and tchotchkes in the living room. Her gaming console went beside Freddy’s in the cabinet under the downstairs TV, along with her controllers.
Suddenly, there was nothing left to put away.
They hadn’t made a single trip into Sabrina’s room.
Four boxes and a TV was everything she had, and it physically hurt Freddy.
He taunted her with the surprise bag of goodies he’d brought back from his trip but refused to show it to her until she got back from town. Handing her a bag of candy right now felt wrong, and he planned to spend the time she was in town doing better than that, even if it meant calling his mother.
As soon as he handed her the car keys and shooed her out the door, Freddy grabbed his phone and called Katrina.
“Freddy?” she answered in a panic. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Sorry, Mom. I know you just left here, but I uh—“
“What? Your father was just telling me how I need to respect that you’re an adult and stay out of your business and your house, but you know I only want to help.”
“Yes, exactly.” Crap, this was a terrible idea. “I uh, was thinking about something funny and, uh,” Shit. Shit. Shit. He needed to backpedal. Inviting his mother back into the fray right after demanding distance was a terrible plan. What could he say he needed that wouldn’t mess up the progress he’d made by talking to his dad?
“You can ask me anything, Freddy,” Katrina encouraged him.
“I know, but this one’s silly. I can’t remember how old Veronica was the first time she kicked me in the nuts.” It was a terrible lie, but it flew out of his mouth before he could come up with anything better.
“Oh, are you telling Sabrina stories from your childhood? That’s so sweet. You should bring her to family dinner tomorrow night. I know she says she likes to do her own thing, but it’s been a rough week. A homecooked meal around a table full of family would be good for her.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I’ve gotta run now, but thanks.” Freddy made a mental note to remove his mom from the top of his contact list. If he was going to make changes, one of them needed to be not calling his mom for help.
“Of course. I love you, Freddy. Tell Sabrina I love her too, and I’m glad she’s okay.”
“Love you, too,” Freddy said and disconnected the call.
He needed a new plan.
Freddy returned to the office to connect computers and set up the systems while he thought about how he could help Sabrina make her room her own again, even though she didn’t have any of her things anymore.
He wanted to turn the entire house into her personal sanctuary, so she’d never miss the things she lost. That wasn’t realistic, but browsing Amazon felt so far removed from what he wanted to offer, he struggled to reconcile them. Still, it was the best he could do for now and would allow him to pick out everything from soft throw pillows he knew she favored to posters and art prints he’d seen her admire.
Then he headed upstairs to work on the last of the updates to the tech manual that was due. Patrick had confirmed pushing the delivery to next week, but all that was left was proofreading. Freddy couldn’t write for shit, that was why they’d hired Sabrina, but he could read well enough to spot typos.
That was how Sabrina found him yanking on his hair and swearing at his screen sometime later in the evening.
“Freddy?”
He whipped around, surprised to see her at the top of the steps. “I didn’t hear you pull up.”
“Your Audi is quiet. Why do you think I startle every morning when you arrive?”
Huh. He hadn’t thought about it, but now that she mentioned it, that did explain the regular coffee splatter and occasional shriek of surprise.
“I’m trying to finish up proofing this,” he explained as she walked up behind him and peered over his shoulder. Unlike when Renner had done the same thing, with Sabrina it felt comfortable.
“Oh.”
Freddy wasn’t sure if it was possible for a human to verbally wince, but if it was, Sabrina had just done so. “I’m messing it up that bad, huh?” he asked.
“Um, I appreciate that you’re trying,” she said politely.
She was never polite. That was weird. Freddy spun his chair to look at her. “Why are you being nice?”
Her face shifted to the affectionate annoyance he was used to, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Excuse me? Are you saying I’m rude?” She stuck out her jaw in defiance. “Why are you smiling about this?”
He was, too. He didn’t mean to, but it was hard not to grin when she turned into her usual self. His best friend had survived a near death experience, lost everything, kissed him and rejected him, but she was still ‘Rina. She was still the best friend he’d ever had. “I’m grinning because you went back to being you. So now you can yell at me for being a horrible writer, lecture me on my bad grammar, and then fix it while I do whatever else needs done.”
“Is that your way of offering to unload the car, put away the food, and make us dinner?” she asked.
“If you’ll fix this shit, then yes. One hundred percent, yes.” He hesitated, but if Freddy wanted them to be their usual selves, he needed to do his part. “Well, so long as you got pizza rolls,” he added.
“I did not,” she said while pointing her nose up toward the ceiling in mock formality.
“Cheese sticks?” he asked. “Chicken tenders? Pizza?”
She looked back down at him and smiled. “Well of course I got all of that. The only pizza rolls they had were combination.” Sabrina made a face of disgust. “Those ones are gross.”
Freddy agreed. “Good call.”
He stood up and stretched. “Here, you take over this, and I’ll go deal with other stuff. I’ll holler up when dinner’s ready.”
“Okay. Oh, but I also got Caesar salad, so mix that up too, please.”
“Of course, your majesty.” He fake-bowed and started to back away with his eyes still on the ground.
“If you fall down the steps, I’m calling your mother instead of nine one one,” Sabrina teased.
It felt good to have her here. Freddy missed her while he was gone. The clack of her mechanical keyboard trickling down the steps made his house feel a little less like someone else’s place where he stayed, and a little more like home.
A while later, Freddy heard someone calling out about something, but he couldn’t make out the details. “What?” he screamed in response as he moved closer to the steps.
“Do you want me to send this to Patrick?” Sabrina shouted down to him.
“Yeah,” he yelled back.
“Even though you told him to push the delivery to next week?”
“Yes.” Screaming up and down the stairs was hurting his throat, but he was in the middle of rotating the pizza so it would cook evenly. “We need to start the new beta tests tomorrow.”
Silence reigned, but it was followed by footsteps thumping down the stairs. Sabrina’s voice came from right beside him as Freddy dumped the salad mix into a bowl.
“I heard the yes and sent the updated manual to him using your security token, since mine seems to have gone the way of my cell phone. But I didn’t catch what you said after yes, so I hope it wasn’t important.” She reached into the bowl and snatched a crouton.
“Hey,” he complained. “You know those are my favorite parts .”
“Carb-monger,” she accused.
“Damn right.”
“What else were you saying?” she asked again.
“Tomorrow, we need to start testing Wils newest code. He thinks we should be able to give the bots subjective commands, now.”
The oven timer dinged, and Sabrina turned to pull it from the oven. “That’s right. I saw his email about that. It doesn’t feel like that was this week,” she added thoughtfully.
“It was Monday, but considering the events since, I can forgive you for losing track of the last forty-eight hours.”
Freddy pulled bowls and plates from the cabinets while Sabrina got them each a fork. “You’re so magnanimous,“ she said sarcastically.
They both grabbed food and moved to the table to eat. “What all do you need to do tomorrow?” Freddy asked. “I’ll handle the testing, and since you sent off those updates, we’re ahead of schedule. You can spend the day making phone calls or whatever.”
Sabrina had a piece of lettuce hanging half out of her mouth and held up one finger, telling him to wait a minute, before shoving it the rest of the way in and finishing chewing. Some of the creamy dressing was left on her lip. Freddy liked to think he was modern and civilized, but he was still a guy. He couldn’t help wondering what Sabrina would look like with other creamy fluids on her lips. Stopping himself by remembering this was his best friend, Freddy pulled back from the thought. If he’d been less tired and stressed when she kissed him, he might not have blown it. If he were braver, he might try kissing her again. But neither of those were reality.
“I called my mom as soon as I got into town.” Sabrina’s response to his forgotten question jerked Freddy back into the moment.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Good. She was freaking out about the tree, but when I told her I was staying here, she forgot all about it and went into a full-blown panic over me shacking up with a guy who only wants me for sex.” Sabrina sighed.
It made Freddy smile, though. He knew he had issues with his mom. Seeing that Sabrina had her own version of them was somehow reassuring. “I promise I don’t want you only for sex,“ he told her solemnly.
She chucked a crouton at him and laughed when he caught it in his mouth. “Mmm, thanks!”
“Anyway,” she said, shaking her head. “I also called my insurance and have an appointment with them on Friday, so tomorrow will be a normal Thursday at work for me.”
“Thank fuck. I hate working without you around. It’s so much,” he struggled to find the right word before giving up and going with, “work.”
“Not having you around for the past week has made my days a lot less fun as well,” Sabrina agreed.