SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
"Is Bas home?" I hear from the front door, and the unmistakable voice draws me to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the stairs.
"Come on in, honey, come on in," Judy responds. "He's around here someplace. Are you alright? You're not in college today?"
I groan at the sound of the door clicking shut, and well, there seems little point in me hiding now that he's inside.
"I, uh, felt a little sick, so I've given myself the afternoon—" Craig cuts himself off, his attention hooking me the instant I turn the corner into sight. "Hey."
"If only there was some way you could check in ahead of trekking all the way out here," I say in place of a greeting.
"Figured you'd probably not want to see me."
"And yet here you are anyway."
"Yeah." His gaze flicks to Judy and away as she flashes him an encouraging smile. He seems especially on edge today, antsy fingers tapping an erratic beat against his thighs, and his following words confirm it. "I need to work on your truck."
"Need?"
"Please."
"Little bit dramatic, Craig, don't you think?"
"Oh, Sebastian! Leave the boy be," Judy lightly scolds me. To him, she offers, "Cup of tea? Coffee? Cocoa?"
"Um, I'm good, thanks," he gives his head a slight shake. "If I could just grab the key to the shed, I'll get out of your way."
There's a peculiar smile curling his lips that's not really a smile at all, just a way of holding his face in check. It does nothing to mask his unease. I fix on the rapidly thrumming pulse at the base of his throat, taking a moment's petty pleasure in feigned deliberation as he stares, his eyes crystal sharp.
"Okay, then. Sure," I shrug.
"Really?"
"My truck's currently in worse shape than when you started, so—"
"Great!" The clap of my aunt's hands briskly full-stop me. "I'll stick the kettle on, then. Shut away in that draughty old shed; you'll be wanting something warm." She doesn't wait for a response from either of us before she bustles on past me. "Lovely seeing you again, Craig."
"You, too," Craig belatedly calls after her.
The moment Judy disappears around the corner, I make to walk away, too. "I'll get you the key."
And, "Bas," he seizes my arm, wrong-footing me. "Thanks." A look of apprehension pinches his brow at my startled glance down to his hand like he’s worried that any slight foul might screw him. But it's gone in a blink, and I'm released. "For not turning me away."
"What's this really about, Craig?"
"Just, I need to get out of my own head for a while."
"I gathered that much."
"Figured I had two choices. Figured you'd appreciate me coming to you now far more than inevitably finding me later on, somewhere else, doing something entirely more destructive."
A snort escapes me because that is not the admittance I had any mind to expect from him. "Well, okay. That's…very considerate."
He tips his head, letting slip a crooked smirk. "You're welcome."
And, not for the first time, I wonder how the hell I managed to get myself so entangled in his mess. "You're something else."
After sending him back out the front to wait for me at the shed, I follow Judy to the kitchen. There, I find her standing by the window, cheerfully humming. She's adding heaped teaspoons of coffee to two mugs on the counter while the kettle shrilly boils a little further along.
"What on earth are you so happy about?" I ask her as I collect my coat from its peg and slip the shed key into its pocket.
"Oh, no reason," she smiles across at me.
"Aunt?"
"Honestly, it's nothing. After the little chat Craig and I had last time he came by, I'm glad to see him back, that's all."
"The chat?"
"Yes, Sebastian, the chat."
"You mean the test?"
"I most certainly do not mean the test," she chuckles, reaching for the kettle as its button pops up. But she does. Because she can't help herself from shielding us against prospective animosity. "If it had been, though," her shoulder bounces, relenting, "this return of his shows promise, don't you think?"
I'm frowning, bemused, as she fills and stirs and then slides the two mugs across the worktop in my direction. 'A promise of what?' is not something I'm about to ask. It’s not as if his appearance is without self-serving motives, and he sure as shit doesn’t seem any less on edge. I’d wager it’d only take a mention of his previous visit for him to turn right back around and flee. "Ash put the full blame on me for that."
"Why? What did you do?"
"Oh, like she hasn't already told you."
"Of course she has. But I'd much rather hear it directly from you."
Puffing out a sigh, I collect the brews, and she hastens to the back door to open it for me. "I think you and I will need to have a chat of our own later, dear Judy."
"I'll look forward to it, my love."
Dobby’s at my side before I've even put one foot over the threshold, rushing the door like he dares no chance that I might leave him behind. He races ahead only to swerve immediately around on himself at my whistle. I don't hurry my stride.
Craig straightens up off the shed wall as we approach, not quite fast enough to hide his flicker of relief.
"What?" I ask, passing both mugs over to him before drawing the key from my pocket. "You thought I might just leave you hanging out here?"
"It had crossed my mind."
Releasing the padlock for the first time in almost a fortnight, I unhook the latch and creak one door ajar. "After you," the sweep of my hand motions him forward.
He holds off, slanting me a suspicious glance, and it's not until Dobby takes the lead, nipping through the gap, that he assents to move.
"Because, yeah, there'd totally be a point to me locking you inside." I follow in, slapping the key down on the workbench as his rough yank of the switch cord casts a harsh light on the space.
Handing one of the coffees back to me, Craig sets his own down beside the key and surveys the untouched disarray. "It's more your hovering that concerns me, Bas. There's no need for you to supervise."
It's only now, watching him shirk it from his shoulders to the floor, that I realise he's acquired a backpack during our brief parting of ways. The thud it causes on impact suggests a significant weight to whatever it contains, and Dobby hastily scurries away from his tentative investigation to the shed's furthest corner. Craig casts an apologetic glance after him, but he doesn't crouch to unzip the bag. Instead, he reaches for the overalls dumped in a heap an arm's length off to his left.
"Don't you have plenty of other things to be busy with?" His question has a definite edge.
I ignore it and ask my own. "I'm curious; why did you come back?"
"I told you already."
"Hardly."
He shoves his foot through a trouser leg, and his eyes finally catch back on mine, pointed, as he pulls the dingy green cloth up over his torso. "I told you that my aim was to escape my head, right? Not delve into it."
"And that's fair enough."
"Good."
"But," I shrug, continuing over him, "I'm not concerned with what happened. I'm concerned with what brought you to my door."
The show he makes of buttoning himself into the protective suit and turning toward my truck is apparently as much of an answer as he intends to give.
I clear a space on the workbench, perching on it, and take a sip of the too-hot coffee while he ducks his head under the bonnet. Arms straight, he leans on both fists and stares hard at the semi-dismantled engine, and I get the distinct impression he's stalling, holding out for me to leave him to it.
It's all the encouragement I need to stay put and rattle his cage. "Took the better part of a year for me to save up the few hundred quid that truck cost me," I muse aloud. "Uncle Kye was adamant that I did it for myself so that I had something of my own, you know? Something worked for and not inherited."
A grunt is all the acknowledgement I'm granted.
"Most I've ever spent in one go, and it was a piece of shit even then. Probably worth no more than your pocket change in scrap now."
His jaw ticks, provoked.
And I carry on, undeterred. "It's been patched up more times than I can count. Never lasts long, though." The huffed expulsion of his breath doesn't evade my notice. "Honestly, Craig, I think this may be a lost cause."
"You asked me to fix your truck, Bastian," he caves, whirling around on me. Stalking to his backpack and squatting down, his fingers aggressively fumble the zip. "I'm fixing your damn truck, okay?"
"True, and your resolve is admirable. But if this—"
On a curse through gritted teeth, Craig wrangles a sizable contraption of dull metal from the bag and effectively renders me mute. He's quick in resuming his blind eye to my scrutiny as he sets aside the bulky lump and pulls out a further three smaller pieces. Checking over each and selecting one, he crosses back to the truck before I manage to recover my voice.
"What in holy hell have you gone and done, Craig?"
He lifts a stiff shoulder but not his head. "Only what's necessary."
"Oh, really?" I snipe, splashing coffee onto the bench as I slam my mug down and jolt myself up. "Because I could swear I've been very clear that the only necessary part of this endeavour is to do as much as can be done with what's already there!"
"Except, there's nothing that can be done with what's already there."
"Well, then, you tell me that, and I scrap it for whatever return I can get, for fuck's sake!" Dropping to the stone floor, I bend in for a closer look at the engine parts he's left behind. "How much am I indebted to you here?"
"A simple thank you would suffice," he says quietly, half to himself.
"Oh, great. Sure."
"You weren't ever supposed to even know."
"Until it suited you."
"No!"
The affront in his denial cracks like a slap, instigating a sharp yip from Dobby's nest of sheets in the far corner. Contrition gnaws at me for a split second. I punt it to the side. Because, "What other motive could you possibly have?" I glance up to see his whole body become abruptly taut. "I mean, come on! I'm under no illusion you're purely doing me a good deed with any of this. My truck's a distraction for you, a stopgap release. Your cash injection has to count for something."
Craig's spine straightens slowly, and he turns to face me. His knuckles are white around a coil of thick metal. "You still really don't think much of me, do you?"
"I think there isn't anything you'll do without a price tag attached."
"Except, as you said, your truck's scrap worth is likely no more than my pocket change," he retorts. Propping his butt on the truck's rusting bumper, he points with the part he's clutching toward the other three by my feet. "And, here, the money spent is of just as little consequence to me. Because I've never had to work for a single penny my whole life."
I blink at him, incredulous, and shake my head. "Wow. Okay. So—"
"So, Bas, the only value that sets Roxy apart from all else I have is the care I've doggedly committed to her. And the only value that I stand to gain from my stake in this is the accomplishment of a task you're convinced I'll fail."
Where the actual hell does he get off? I'm livid, and I have the profound desire to hurl his empty backpack at his arrogant face. "Don't you dare chuck your trust fund at my shit and then make out like it's no big deal."
"How's it any different to you chucking your shit at me as if the distraction of it is enough of a fucking band-aid for mine?"
"I've been entirely upfront with you, Craig."
"You sure have," he scoffs.
"You weren't in any way misled."
"Nope."
"It's like you just can't help yourself from crossing the damn line!"
I don't get an immediate comeback this time, and so my bitter words hang in the charged silence between us. I become acutely aware of the pulse drumming in my ears.
And it's like a switch trips in him, his expression flat-lining. That odd non-smile twitches his lips again. Then, in an act of wilful defiance, he takes five controlled steps to the rack of tools on the shed wall and grabs a wrench from it as innocuously as a wrench can be grabbed.
"But here's the thing, Sebastian," an eerily subdued undercurrent has crept into his tone, "if I was to just give this up as the lost cause you think it…" No glance is cast my way on his return to the truck. "Then what would that make me?"
I think my mouth has dropped open. If my brain planned for me to reply, though, it took too long. Craig’s toned shoulder muscles flex, hooking my thwarted glare as he leans in over the engine and abruptly sets to work.
Minutes tick away. He continues to ignore me, mumbling expletives to his busy hands, and I continue to gawp, coming up blank on anything more to say. Eventually, I push up from the floor and return to my perch on the workbench, where Dobby comes to join me, settling by my feet.
I'm not sure what I even feel about it, watching Craig defy me, beyond a tiny seed of something foreign and thorny taking root in the pit of my stomach.