Chapter 10 Sebastian #2
She stared at him, and if she was feeling any regret or conviction whatsoever, it sure didn’t show on her face. “Do what?”
“‘Do what,’” he muttered. “Do you even know you do it?”
She looked to Orly as if to say, “What’s he going on about?” What appeared to be genuine confusion etched across her brow.
Alright. That’s it. No more talking to her. There’s no point.
“I’ll be right back.” He faced Orly. “I have to drop off my dog.”
Orly nodded, and as far as Sebastian was concerned, that was the end of it. But Brynn leaned up between the seats with a panicked
expression on her face.
“No, you can’t. I’m allergic to dogs.” She looked at Orly and then back to Sebastian with enough genuine concern that he couldn’t
even give her a hard time about this one. “Can’t someone else drop off your dog, wherever you need to take it?”
“I think you’ll be fine.”
“No, seriously, Sebastian. I won’t be. I’m really not trying to be difficult. I know you don’t like me very much, but please
don’t—”
“Hang on.” What sort of Disney princess life did this woman lead? “You think that not liking you very much would be reason
enough for me to intentionally send you into anaphylactic shock?”
Her face was red—not in anger or embarrassment, he was pretty sure, but in sincere panic that he would do exactly that. Wow. And I thought I had trust issues.
She spoke softly. “Well, it’s not that bad. But I get really itchy...”
He laughed. “And are you itchy now?”
She studied him. “No. Why would I be?”
Sebastian shut the door, went to the back of the Bronco, and opened the gate. Brynn’s eyes followed him every step of the
way until she’d turned completely around in her seat, just as she had the night before. And there was Murrow, curled up in
his bed, which was pretty much always in the back of the Bronco. As soon as he became aware of his human’s presence, he jumped
up, put his front paws on Sebastian’s chest, and began dishing out some excessive love and excitement.
Brynn, of course, jumped back in surprise and, he supposed, mortal fear of getting really itchy. Orly, meanwhile, undid his seat belt, jumped out of the vehicle, and ran to the back in about four seconds flat to pet the dog.
“He’s a Havanese. It’s a hypoallergenic breed,” Sebastian clarified as Murrow took less than four seconds flat to sniff and size up Orly and decide he, too, was worthy of his love.
Brynn had backed up as far as she could, between the two front bucket seats. “See, that’s a myth. There are no truly hypoallergenic
dogs.”
“And yet... you’re still not itchy?”
She scratched at her neck. “I’m a little itchy.”
Sebastian tilted his head and smirked at her. “He’s leaving. Don’t worry.” He swooped Murrow up in his left arm and began
closing the gate with his right. He stopped at the last minute and bent over to look in at her. “Should I bring you some calamine
lotion or something? An EpiPen, maybe?”
Brynn squinted at him, and Sebastian almost felt guilty. Once the idea of being itchy was planted in someone’s head, it was nearly impossible not to feel the itch. That
was legit.
Of course the guilt he felt wasn’t enough to keep him from adding, “Better not scratch too much. That will just make it worse.”
As she turned to face front and covertly scratched at her collarbone, he only felt guilty about having so little guilt.
Sebastian patted Orly on the shoulder as the older man gave the tiny dog one last rub under the chin. He took a quick peek
at his watch. Eight eleven. As if it mattered. As he’d told Brynn last night, he was running this show. “Be right back.”
Pulling his key from his pocket, he stepped up onto the front porch and set Murrow down as he crossed the threshold.
He looked around his living room, which was also his dining room and makeshift office, and thought how it probably would have been nice to invite them in.
But he didn’t intend to be there very long.
And he wasn’t sure he was in the mood to hear whatever superficial remarks Brynn would make about his home.
Murrow picked up his favorite squeaker toy and began wrestling with it as Sebastian surveyed the room. It wasn’t that the
place was a mess, that was for sure. There wasn’t enough stuff in there to make a mess. A little table by the door, a couch
and recliner, a coffee table, a bigger table for eating, and a couple of dining room chairs... What more did a person need?
There was a television, of course, but he rarely even turned it on anymore. Most of his viewing took place on his phone or
his laptop when the internet signal was strong enough. And he read a lot.
When he first started living on his own, after Erin left, he’d tried playing the role of messy, carefree bachelor. Messy had
only lasted a couple weeks. It just wasn’t who he was. Even when everything in him—everything in his heart, mind, and soul—was
in complete and utter chaos, he just couldn’t see any reason not to put his socks in the hamper at night. And, of course,
carefree had been just a fleeting aspiration. He was pretty sure he didn’t have a truly carefree bone in his body.
“But we’ve come a long way, haven’t we, boy?”
Sebastian plopped down on the couch next to Murrow, who had settled in with his little squirrel friend—a gift from Doc. He
pulled his phone out of his pocket in response to the buzz he had felt. He’d been waiting for a text from Andi, and there
it was.
Yeah, feel free to bring her by the Bean whenever you want. The usual suspects are here.
He smiled as he typed his reply.
Might as well get it out of the way. Can’t wait to share her with you all.
The smile slipped from his face as he stared at the words he had just typed, and then with a groan he deleted them rather than sending them. He looked at Murrow for guidance.
“That’s not very nice, is it? Do I need to be nice?” Murrow diligently chewed on the latex squirrel’s tail, but Sebastian
read the look in his uplifted eyes as scorn, judgment, and urging his human to be better. “Yeah... I should be nice.”
I’m hopeful there can be some healing to come from people seeing her again. Maybe you can encourage everyone to be on their
best behavior?
He chewed on the inside of his cheek while he contemplated the new words. He replaced “hopeful” with “hoping”—he wanted to
be nice, not tell bald-faced lies—and then hit Send.
Andi sent back a thumbs-up emoji, and he let out a deep breath. Now if only he could somehow compel Brynn to be on her best behavior.
Leaning back until the vehicle was visible through the curtain covering the window behind him, Sebastian saw that Orly had
climbed back in, and he and Brynn seemed to be engaged in conversation. She was leaning back, doing most of the talking, from
the looks of it. That wasn’t surprising. Sebastian imagined that a great deal of Brynn’s life was probably spent trying to
talk her way out of whatever foot-in-mouth thing she had most recently said by mistake.
He knew he should get back out there and share the burden with poor Orly, but he wasn’t quite ready to sacrifice his moment
of peace just yet. Even for the sake of poor Orly.
“Murrow, come here,” he said softly, and the little guy abandoned his squirrel and all projected hints of contempt and hurried over to Sebastian.
“We’re doing okay, aren’t we, pal?” He lifted Murrow up onto his lap and combed his fingers through the silky tan fur on his ears as the dog curled up and settled in.
And for just that little bit of attention, Sebastian was rewarded with all the love a dog could communicate in those chocolate, almond-shaped eyes.
If you’d told him anytime prior to Murrow’s arrival in his life that he would ever be the kind of guy who would sit around
his empty house alone talking to a dog—a tiny dog that he had to be careful not to lose in the snowbanks and who couldn’t
go outside untethered owing to the very real risk that he would get carried off by a hawk—he’d have thought you were crazy.
His dad had never allowed the Sudworth boys to have dogs growing up. They would have even settled for cats (though he shuddered
at the thought now), but they, too, were deemed troublesome, dirty, and unnecessary. Besides, his dad reasoned, people tended
to form bonds with those types of animals—heaven forbid—and when they died, all you’d done was invite in unnecessary heartache.
His middle brother, Xavier, had once argued that if that was the case, they probably shouldn’t have allowed Sebastian into
the family. Someone was bound to get attached to him eventually. It had been a joke, and everyone had laughed—including Sebastian,
since Sudworths were trained to have extremely thick skin—but he couldn’t deny that it had all impacted the emotional attachments
he allowed and didn’t allow himself to make through the years.
Wasn’t it funny how the most insignificant words could make the biggest impact?
It had taken a whole lot of counseling, self-help books, and prayer—not to mention dabbling in a few things that didn’t help at all—for him to be able to put a lot of words and actions from his past into perspective.
His and those of others. And it had taken Doc Atwater talking on the phone with his former therapist in London and deciding to prescribe him a dog , of all things, for Sebastian to open himself up to an emotional connection for the first time in longer than he cared to
admit.
So, yeah... he talked to his dog. In some ways, he felt he owed his dog his life. At the very least, he owed him for his
quality of life. He owed him for making Sebastian see that he and Lorenzo—the large, blue three-spot gourami fish that far
outlived his life expectancy and had to move to Chicago with Sebastian when he started college—had not truly reached the pinnacle
of pet-human relations. And he owed him for the peace, joy, and contentment he felt.
He and Murrow both jumped as they were startled out of that contentment by three sharp honks of the Bronco’s horn.
“What’s taking so long?!”
He peeked out the window again and saw that Brynn had climbed halfway into the driver’s seat and was stretching her neck out
the open window. Poor Orly was just sitting there with his head buried in his hand.
“That’s Brynn Cornell,” he said to Murrow with a sigh as he lifted him off his lap and set him back down on the couch. “Now
do you understand why ‘nice’ wasn’t my first instinct? She’s just a delight, let me tell you.” He stood from his seat, and
Murrow’s little legs took the leap off the couch and followed him. He swooped Murrow up before opening the door, then leaned
out and yelled, “Hold your horses, Brenda!”
Her eyes and mouth flew open, but she remained silent as Sebastian shut the door again and set Murrow down. He pulled out
his phone and typed up another quick text to Andi.
I got the impression from Jo that Brynn’s real name is Brenda? Everyone should call her that. I think it will make her feel
more at home. Be there in ten.
He looked down at Murrow and shrugged. “I tried.” He grabbed the leash from the table by the door and clipped it onto Murrow’s collar as he began chuckling to himself. They walked to the back door. “Come on, boy. I’d better let you use the bathroom so I can resume thy ladyship’s bidding.”