Chapter 6 Sebastian
He wasn’t going to survive the week. That’s all there was to it. She’d somehow, on first sight, robbed him of his ability
to be civil. Not friendly or kind. Just civil. That was all he’d needed to achieve. He was the son of a man with diplomacy
running through his veins. Civility should not have been too much to ask.
At first, as he loaded the bags into the back of the Bronco, he’d told himself it was Orly’s presence that had thrown him
off. And it was true. Seeing a familiar face had rocked his equilibrium a bit. In the six years he’d called Adelaide Springs
home, he hadn’t welcomed a single visitor. Hadn’t experienced a single tourist staring at his eyes in the rearview mirror
of the Bronco, trying to figure out where they knew him from.
For a long time, he’d expected it. Not just from the tourists but from the locals too.
It was just a matter of time, right? It wasn’t like he’d been a low-profile personality in his former life.
Surely, sooner or later, someone was bound to ask, “Hey, aren’t you that news guy?
I thought you were dead or something.” But no one ever did.
And eventually he’d relaxed into the anonymity.
Whether it was because he looked like a completely different person than he had when he was clean-shaven and professional, or because he’d aged about twenty years since the last time he was on camera six years ago, or maybe just because no one really cared who he was as long as he minded his own business and stayed out of their way.
Whatever the reason, he’d clearly begun taking for granted that no one was ever going to say, “Sebastian Sudworth? What in the world are you doing here?”
So, yeah... Orly saying pretty much exactly that had been a shock to his system.
Truth be told, he’d somewhat been bracing himself for Brynn Cornell to recognize him. She was, after all, employed by the
same news division of the same network he had spent most of his career with. It had never made sense to him that the morning
entertainment shows were under the news division, but so it was. Had she never heard his name? Had the history of his existence
in that world been consigned to oblivion? Or was it just that if you’d never appeared on a red carpet with Zendaya, Ms. Cornell
didn’t bother to take note?
Regardless, he couldn’t even use any of that as justification for his lack of decorum. He’d been rude to her beginning with
the very first words out of his mouth, before he even saw Orly. Before she had a chance to prove she was exactly the delightful
little ray of sunshine he’d suspected her to be.
“Hey, Orly?” Sebastian motioned for him to step aside for a second as his other passenger pushed the front bucket seat forward
and hoisted herself into the back of the vehicle. As she attempted to, anyway. Twice her foot got caught in the seat belt,
and twice the seat rocketed back onto her hip as she moved to get in, causing her to fall back onto her freestanding leg,
which was just barely able to reach the ground.
His natural instincts had never been to deride people. He’d never been a bully. But this week was going to be tough.
“Yeah, man, what’s up?” Orly’s back was to the symphony of motion that was Brynn Cornell climbing into a Ford Bronco.
Sebastian sighed and held up his finger. “Be right back.” He took the three steps over to the Bronco, pushed the bucket seat
toward the front, and hoisted up Brynn’s bottom using his shoulder. She fell back onto the bench seat, mouth agape and eyes
ablaze as he reached down, pulled her aqua shoe with easily a three-inch heel off her foot so she could free it from the tangled
seat belt, and handed it to her. Then he took a little too much delight in slamming the door shut.
The outraged expression on her face through the backseat window assured him he had done the right thing—for enjoyment if not
civility.
“It’s really good to see you, Orly,” he said as he walked back over. “It’s been... what? Seven years?”
Orly looked over his shoulder at a fuming Brynn, still staring at them, and then back to Sebastian. “You’re not doing yourself
any favors there.” Orly was just managing to keep the smile off his face. “She’s really not so bad, you know. Admittedly,
she didn’t show you her best side back there.”
Laughter erupted from Sebastian. First because he initially thought Orly was referencing the graceful climb into the Bronco.
He quickly realized Orly was talking about their time on the plane, but not before he had to acknowledge to himself that the
side he’d hoisted into the vehicle with his shoulder was far from her worst.
“Not so bad, huh?” Sebastian glanced at her again. Little Miss Thang was growing impatient in the back seat, and she began
tapping against the window with her fingernail. “If you say so.”
Orly smiled and shrugged. “She’s always been nice enough to me.”
“Sure. You’re the one who makes sure her warts don’t show.”
“Yeah. Well, we all kind of let her down in that department on Friday.” He looked down at his feet and then seemed to catch
himself from looking back at her again. That was probably a good move, since she was still throwing eye daggers in their direction.
Ahem... Sebastian’s direction. “It really wasn’t her fault. The whole day was a disaster. She had every reason to believe
she wasn’t on camera.”
Why did anyone believe that was justification to make it all okay? The public backlash and the pain the citizens of Adelaide
Springs were facing didn’t stem from disappointment that she wasn’t as good at the job as they had thought. They were disappointed
that she wasn’t the person they’d thought she was. Truth be told, based on the stories he’d heard through the years, he didn’t
understand why they’d carried around such faith and pride in her to begin with. Maybe it just hurt less that way. It seemed
to Sebastian that her entire career had existed between the bookends of being disloyal and disrespectful to every person in
the world he counted as a friend.
“If you say so,” he repeated with a smile. They might have to agree to disagree on Brynn’s culpability, but in that moment
it wasn’t her notoriety he was particularly concerned about. Sebastian looked around unnecessarily to verify no one else was within earshot.
Roland Cross’s truck was still parked beside the Bronco, but he probably wasn’t going anywhere soon. Not when the airport
had a satellite dish, and he could catch the WWE Royal Rumble without any interruptions from his wife and four kids.
“Look, Orly, I don’t really mention my past around here. There are only a few people I’ve ever talked with about my old job.
Even fewer who know why I left.” Doc. Only Doc. “It’s just not part of my life anymore. You know?”
As he stood with Orly, who had been a camera operator in the nightly news studio at the time, he was surprised by how much his mouth dried out and how all that moisture made its way to his palms, even all these years later.
It had been a long time since he’d spoken to anyone who had their own firsthand knowledge of his previous life.
Who’d ever worked with him. Who understood that Sebastian had been at the top of his game one day and essentially persona non grata the next.
Even if Orly didn’t have any knowledge of what had caused the change, it was unrealistic to believe he didn’t experience the network whiplash that must have taken place in the aftermath.
“They certainly won’t hear anything from me. Truth be told”—Orly shrugged—“I don’t know why you left either.”
Sebastian felt his shoulders relax. Nondisclosure agreements were one thing. Knowing they had seemingly been honored was another.
“It was just time to get out.”
“But the people around here know who you are, right?”
Sebastian chuckled. “I really don’t know. If they know, they sure don’t seem to care.” And that was what had helped turn Adelaide
Springs from a refuge into a home.
Orly nodded. “Got it.” He dared to turn his head enough to glance back at Brynn, who at that moment was wiping away the fog
her breath had left on the window as she gawked out of it. “Pretty sure she doesn’t know.”
“And that’s probably for the best. I’m stuck being the chaperone for the week, but I think if I can stay low-key—”
“And off camera,” Orly completed. “Not a problem.”
The passenger-side door of the Bronco creaked open as Brynn leaned forward and her head popped out. “I don’t want to be rude,
but are you two almost done gabbing? It’s freezing and I’m starving, and I’m just not sure how interested my viewers are going
to be in a week’s worth of footage from an airport with two flights a month.”
Sebastian knew he had tortured her as much as he could for the moment. Not that torture had been his intent. Just an added bonus. Now, he suspected, it was time for his torture to begin.
***
Five minutes later Sebastian was thinking of all those people in Adelaide Springs who made up that group of “every person
in the world he counted as a friend” and contemplating the cost of a little disloyalty and disrespect of his own.
Doc would eventually forgive me if I dropped her off on his porch.
Andi might, if I bribed her with free manual labor.
Cole already has his grandfather to contend with. No one deserves to be saddled with Old Man Kimball and Brynn Cornell.
“Oh my goodness, would you look at that?” Brynn gasped and leaned up between the two front bucket seats where Sebastian and
Orly sat. “Orly, are you getting this?”
Orly lifted his head from the headrest and opened his eyes to look at her. “You mean... with my camera? Should I grab it
from the back?”
Brynn laughed loudly. Obnoxiously close to Sebastian’s ear. “Oh, sorry. I thought you had it. You should probably keep it
with you all the time from here on.”
“Of course. Sorry about that.” Orly turned and attempted to look out the window at whatever had caused Brynn to gasp. “We
can come back later and get some footage. What was it?”
She sighed. “Nothing, really. Just memories.”
Jo might not forgive me, but we’re not all that close anyway.
Sebastian slowed down as he steered the Bronco onto Main Street.
Slowing down was the last thing he wanted to do, but the main quarter-mile thoroughfare through town was pretty much the only stretch where you actually had to watch for people.
Everywhere else you had to be alert for deer.
Elk. Even the occasional bighorn sheep or cougar—and he wasn’t just referring to Maxine Brogan, who sashayed like Blanche from The Golden Girls toward his pancake line to show him her latest cross-stitched quote every Saturday when he served breakfast at the senior
center.
“So tell me more about you, Sebastian,” Brynn ordered as she relaxed back into her seat. “What do you do? What brought you
to our beautiful little mountain oasis?”
She was insufferable. Completely intolerable. Since the moment he and Orly had climbed into the vehicle, she had been dripping
with sickly sweet fake adoration of her hometown. She couldn’t help herself from being overtaken by “waves of emotion” with
every building, tree, and mile marker they passed. Waves of emotion. Surfing enthusiasts waited their entire lives to encounter the quality and quantity of waves she had supposedly been overcome
by in the last five minutes. Everything was “cute” or “charming,” and not even Gollum overused the word precious as much as she did.
And while he certainly didn’t want to talk about himself, he knew he’d be a fool not to step in and rid the air of her grating
effusions, at least for a few seconds.
“I do lots of things. City council, of course. Sometimes I’m a driver. A bartender. I’m trying to get the local paper started
up again—”
Another gasp. “The church is still there! With that precious little prayer garden in the back!”
Sebastian muttered under his breath. “On weekends I run our local house of ill repute, and of course there’s that black-market
trading ring that’s really starting to take off.”
Orly chuckled. Brynn was oblivious.
“So where are we heading? Are there any big happenings tonight?”
He looked up and caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. “What sort of big happenings?”
“Town gatherings? Parties? Maybe a bonfire somewhere?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just want to be where the action is.
I’m so excited to see everyone. To reunite.” Her gaze broke away and returned to the side window. Sebastian’s eyes probably
should have been on the road, but he was driving so slowly as he approached the inn that he was able to catch the nearly indiscernible
moment when she began chewing on her bottom lip. “That’s the moment I’ve been waiting for.” Those seven words were quiet.
Her enthusiasm was muted. There hadn’t been a “precious” or a perky grin in sight.