Chapter 20 Sebastian #2
He’d put it back on as he drove away from Brynn and Laila, but with the sun beating down on him, it was another of those strange,
wonderful Colorado postcard sorts of days. Sunshine and snowcapped mountains. “So why do they like me so much? You’re much
more of a catch than I am.”
“That’s the problem with small-town life. Those ladies either grew up with me, in which case they saw me with zits and braces,
or they were older than me, in which case they remember me as the obnoxious kid who used to prank call everyone in town pretending
to be from the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. A lot of people in this town had a fortune dangled in front of them,
only to have it cruelly stolen away, my friend. A lot of people.”
He smiled as he leaned the broom up against the screen door and then walked over to the thick wood railing of the porch and
hoisted himself up onto it. “Laila ran into town to get the pies from Andi. PTA Night is such a strange cacophony of appetites.”
“I saw her. I think she may be a while.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She and Brynn bumped into each other.”
Cole looked down at his feet and released a deep breath. “Good. She’s been looking forward to it and dreading it, all at the
same time. At least it will be out of the way now, no matter how it goes.”
“I can’t imagine how weird it must be for you guys.” Sebastian pushed himself up onto the railing a few feet down from Cole
and leaned his back against the massive log column so he could face him. “Are you going to try to see her?”
“I don’t know. Lai and I talked about it a lot this morning.
I still don’t know where I stand.” Cole seemed to keep considering it for several moments, and then after all that consideration, added a shrug.
“Yeah . . . it’s just . . .” He copied Sebastian’s position, leaning back against the other column and pulling his knee to him.
“I’ve never really watched her on TV. Ever.
I hear things from others—the good and the bad, I guess—but I’ve never wanted to see her that way. ”
“‘That way’?”
“Just... however she is now. You know? Anything other than how I remember her.” He stared off into the direction of the
forest Sebastian had burdened with his unleashed frustration a couple hours earlier.
“I think...,” Sebastian began and then thought better of it. But he had Cole’s complete attention, so he blurted it out,
figuring Cole was probably the most objective person to share his thoughts with. “I think being back here is good for her.”
Cole reached over and scratched at a rough patch in the wood beneath his foot. “So what happens when she leaves again?”
The unanswerable question.
Sebastian rested the back of his head against the log column and stared up at a sky so blue and clouds so white that they
had always reminded him of the way a kid would draw them. “It’s crazy for me to try to imagine what it must have been like
for you all, growing up together. Like, the way you all knew each other and were part of each other’s lives. I just can’t
wrap my head around it.”
“I know our town is smaller than most, but it’s not that weird, is it? How many kids did you go to school with?”
Laughter burst from him. “Well, that depends on which school.” He lowered his head and met Cole’s eyes.
“The high school I graduated from, in DC, was the fourteenth school I was enrolled in. Military schools, private, public, arts, math and science . . . Went to a Quaker school for a few months.” He smiled in response to Cole’s laughter.
“I graduated with a class of 742. And there were probably eight or nine kids who knew my name and I knew theirs. Not even one I would have counted as a friend.”
“Okay, that is a little different from what we had here.” Cole stepped down onto the planks of the porch. “I heard you yelling
at a bighorn sheep or something earlier. Want to talk about it?”
He appreciated the offer. But his state of mind was so far removed from where it had been after that phone call with his mother,
he really didn’t see the point in going back there.
He followed Cole’s lead and hopped off the railing. “Why would we waste time talking about my deep-seated emotional defects
when we have the place to ourselves?”
Cole groaned and began walking toward the door. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes, my friend. Oh yes.” Sebastian stepped in front of him and grabbed the broom, then opened the door for them both.
“The ladies won’t be here for another”—he looked at his watch—“six hours or so, and there is a perfectly good karaoke machine
through these very doors.”
Cole’s groan morphed into laughter, but the eye rolls didn’t go away. “You are the only person I have ever known who is perfectly
content singing karaoke in a room by himself, one hundred percent sober. That’s so messed up.”
“It’s great therapy! You have no choice but to relax and let go and think about nothing except the melody and the lyrics—”
“And what a dork you are?”
Sebastian pulled the door shut behind them. “Just for that, I’m pulling it out tonight.”
“No! You can’t. Not on PTA Night.”
“Are you kidding? PTA Night is the perfect time. You think those ladies love me now?” He tipped his ball cap as if it were
a Stetson. “Just wait until they get a load of me sharing the gift that is the musical stylings of one Mr. Glen Campbell.”