Chapter 8 Sebastian
“Hey, pal.” Sebastian greeted Murrow after turning the key in the knob of his front door and walking inside. “Where’ve you
been all day?” He threw his keys on the table by the door and then bent over and picked up his ever-faithful and desperately-in-need-of-a-haircut
eight-pound Havanese. He responded to Murrow’s yaps with a quick chin rub before grabbing his leash from the same table where
his keys now sat and clipping it on his collar. “Okay, come on. You must be about to burst.”
He set Murrow down and watched his tiny little legs scamper under him for a moment, reminiscent of the Road Runner preparing
to take off in an old Looney Tunes cartoon. Rather than go back out the front door he had just come through, he allowed Murrow
to lead him to the sliding glass door across the room—which was also on the complete other side of the house.
He loved his strange little cabin sitting on two acres.
Well, it wasn’t his yet. It was one of several rental properties owned by the Olivets, all of which had been available when he moved into town.
He’d certainly picked the ugliest of them all.
Part prefab modular, part stick built, part log cabin, part log sided .
. . Various owners and tenants through the years had made well-meaning attempts to turn it into something.
Sebastian was determined to finally finish the job before he took Larry up on his offer to let him buy it.
He knew Larry would sell it to him for a dime, but he wanted to make it actually worth something and then give Larry the chance to get a better price for it, if he would.
He was pretty sure Larry still wouldn’t let him pay what he was owed, but Sebastian would cross that generosity bridge when
he came to it.
For the first couple of years he’d lived in Adelaide Springs, the idea of purchasing property and putting down long-term stakes
would have sent him running for the hills. It was all supposed to be temporary. Temporary was all he’d ever known, after all.
Adelaide Springs was meant to help get him back on his feet. A little time of rest and self-reflection. A little time of healing.
He’d chosen his patchwork cabin because it was the sort of place no one would ever want to settle down in. But it hadn’t taken long to figure out that the place
offered so much more than Larry had been able to communicate on the flyer he’d picked up off the counter at the Bean Franklin
that first time he went in for coffee, after the first night he spent at the inn.
His isolated piece of land, less than three miles from Main Street, had allowed him to discover the stars again.
He’d never seen them very much, growing up in an early-nineteenth-century Georgetown row house.
He’d fallen in love with them, years later, when he traveled to Afghanistan and Darfur and Ukraine, but somewhere along the line he’d stopped remembering to look up.
Realizing, when he arrived in Adelaide Springs, that they were all still there, and seemingly pleased to see him again—they must have been, because he couldn’t remember them ever putting on such an elaborate show for him before—had been the first time he’d felt like he was home.
It may have been the first time in his entire life.
“Would you please go pee already, Murrow?”
It wasn’t that Sebastian was in a hurry to get back inside. Not at all. He’d have gladly stayed out there until the wind turned
his fingers numb. But he’d promised Cole he would help out at Cassidy’s. He wasn’t due for almost an hour yet, but he was
more anxious than usual to get there.
Truth be told, he’d come to love the evenings tending bar while Cole ran the kitchen and Laila waited tables. Most Sunday
evenings, they were the only ones on duty. It was usually the most fun he had his entire week—apart from the weeks when he
also got to attend city council meetings with Cole’s grandfather, of course. What a party that was.
But Sunday evenings at Cassidy’s were borderline joyous. After 7:00 p.m., when his shift started, hardly anyone came in for
dinner. If tourists were passing through, they were sure to be there. There wasn’t anywhere else to be, really. But otherwise,
it was just the same group of regular locals who drifted in and out—some of them to grab a drink, some of them to see what
gossip they could pick up while others drank.
Tonight, he was hoping no one came in. He could hardly wait to talk to Cole and Laila and see what insight they could impart
to try to help him understand the town’s vain, fake, and obnoxious visitor before he had to be in her presence again in just
over thirteen hours.
***
“There he is!” Laila called out when the door swung open at Cassidy’s.
She had a tray tucked underneath her arm and was wiping down tables.
The place was empty except for Roland Cross sitting with his wife and their two youngest kids at a table, finishing up dinner, and Fenton Norris, sitting at the bar, downing a beer and reading the captions from ESPN on the muted television on the wall.
“Hey, Laila, can I get another one, please?” Fenton asked over his shoulder, holding up his freshly emptied mug. “Hey, Seb.”
“I’ve got it,” Sebastian said to Laila in greeting as he passed her and ducked behind the bar. “Can you give me a minute to
get my coat off and wash my hands, Fenton? Or is the need a bit more urgent than that tonight?”
The old man smiled at him. “Depends on how good you want your tip to be.”
Sebastian laughed and unzipped his jacket—slowly and deliberately—before walking back over to the door and hanging it on one
of the hooks. Then he made a point to very noisily excuse himself to the kitchen to wash his hands.
Fenton Norris had never tipped in his life.
“Hey, man,” Cole greeted him from the fryer, where he had just dropped some onion rings, by the look of it. “How goes it?”
“Pretty good.” Sebastian turned on the water in the sink and began scrubbing his hands like he was prepping for surgery. He
would have wanted to be sanitary regardless, of course, but Cole Kimball ran a tight ship. At least once a week they all got
told that just because Cassidy’s was a little hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere, that was no excuse to slack off in
their pursuit of excellence. “How’s it been around here? Much of a dinner rush?”
“Eh. Typical Sunday.”
The fact was, Cassidy’s was a great little restaurant.
It didn’t look like much, and the building was in desperate need of renovation, but the more Old Man Kimball had backed out of the day-to-day over the years, the more his grandson had been free to turn it into something that deserved more attention than it got.
Every ingredient was fresh, Cole’s take on dishes was trendy and delicious, and the customer service was top notch.
Especially when Laila was on duty. Pretty much every person who ever walked through the door knew each other, but they probably would have been made to feel that way even if it wasn’t the truth.
Cole slung a perfectly juicy burger from the grill and attractively plated it with all the fixings before adding the onion
rings. “Order up!”
“Is that mine?” Fenton asked through the serving window as he stepped behind the bar.
“Fenton, sit down,” Laila called. “I’ve got it.”
“Okay,” Fenton agreed before stepping around the doorway into the kitchen and adding, “I’ll get the ketchup.”
“It’s already on there.” Cole crossed his arms and smirked at Fenton. “What? Do you think I suddenly forgot after preparing
the exact same dinner for you at least once a week ever since I was nineteen years old?”
Fenton shrugged. “You forgot last time.”
“I did not forget last time. You just want something to complain about.”
Fenton grumbled, and Sebastian thought he heard him mutter, “What’s wrong with that?”
“Is it going to snow more tonight, Fenton?” Laila asked. Fenton loved being asked about the weather.
“Higher up. Not here. And then we’re in for a few days of the unseasonably warm stuff before the next storm blows in.”
“Another storm, huh?” Laila indulged him.
“Hopefully they’ll get the mudslides on 285 cleaned up before it hits. Otherwise they’re gonna be shut down awhile. When I
was your age, we didn’t even have highways. But kids today don’t know how to get anywhere unless it’s fast.”
“Come on, let’s get that beer.” Sebastian ushered him back to his seat and then returned to the tap.
Fenton reached out for the new icy mug he filled, but Sebastian backed up, out of reach.
“Andi’s on call for Valet Forge, right? I’ve got to be here tonight, so I can’t cover for you.
” That wasn’t even entirely true. He could probably drive a stranded tourist from one side of the county to the other before anyone who wasn’t comfortable serving themselves walked through the door, but someone had to keep Fenton in check.
“You know I don’t work when the Broncos are playing.”
It was strange to realize it, but yes, he was aware of that fact. Fenton didn’t do anything but sit right there at that bar
when the Broncos were playing football, the Rockies were playing baseball, the Nuggets were playing basketball, or the Avalanche
were playing hockey. But the NFL season had ended more than a month ago. Sebastian glanced over his shoulder at the television
just in time to see Rod Smith catch an eighty-yard pass and run it into the end zone at Super Bowl XXXIII.
“Oh, come on,” Sebastian said, handing Fenton the mug with a laugh. “Your work schedule now takes into account replays of
games from 1999?”
“I didn’t appreciate Elway enough when he was on the field. It’s a gift to be able to relive the golden days. Andi understands
that.” Fenton took a sip and turned his eyes back to the excitement of a game that would hold no surprises—apart from how
far the world had come from being a society that once thought to team up Stevie Wonder, Gloria Estefan, and Big Bad Voodoo