Chapter 39 Eliana
ELIANA
in·gre·di·ent dec·la·ra·tion: /in?ɡrēdē?nt ?dekl??rāSH(?)n/: noun
Bastian launches himself off me, stumbling backward so fast he nearly trips over the coffee table. I yank my sweatshirt down and try to tame my hair. My swollen lips are unfixable, unfortunately.
The boy in the wheelchair—Bastian’s brother, I’m assuming, based solely on the fact that he looks like a younger, scruffier copy-paste of Bastian—just sits there grinning.
“Don’t mind me,” he says cheerfully. “Pretend I’m not even here.”
“Sage,” Bastian warns.
“What? I’m just saying, you two looked really comfortable.” His grin widens. “Should I come back later? Give you some privacy to finish whatever that was?”
My face is on fire. I’ve achieved a shade of red that doesn’t exist in nature. Pantone, call me.
Bastian runs a hand through his hair, which does nothing to improve the situation and instead makes it stick up at odd angles. “This isn’t— We weren’t—”
“Oh, you totally were,” the boy, Sage, interrupts. “I’ve seen movies. I know things.”
I want the couch to swallow me whole. Or the floor. Or literally any surface willing to open up and consume me. I’m not picky.
“I fell,” I blurt out, gesturing at my bandaged knee. “On the sidewalk. Bastian was just helping.”
Sage’s eyebrows climb higher. “Tripped and fell on a sidewalk? That’s a new one. I thought the expression was tripped and fell on a—”
“Sage,” sighs Bastian. “Please don’t.”
Bastian looks paler than I’ve ever seen him, so I do my best to intervene. I meet Sage’s amused gaze and attempt damage control. “Seriously. I was walking down the sidewalk and I tripped on some buckled concrete. Bastian happened to be nearby.”
“Uh-huh.” Sage wheels closer, clearly enjoying this. “And the nearest hospital was… the couch?”
Bastian pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sage—”
“Did you knock yourself out when you fell? Because it looked like Bash here was giving you some very intensive mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“SAGE—”
“I’m just saying, bro, if you’re gonna have a girl over, maybe text me first? Give a guy some warning? Put a sock on the door, at least?”
“I wasn’t planning—” Bastian stops himself and sighs. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“You sure? ‘Cause it looks like you were about two seconds away from—”
“SAGE!”
At long last, the warning in Bastian’s voice finally registers. Sage holds up his hands in surrender, but the smirk shows zero signs of fading. I shouldn’t be surprised that a blood relative of Bastian’s enjoys twisting the knife when he has an obvious advantage.
Bastian takes a breath and straightens his sweater with as much dignity as a man with sex hair can muster. “Eliana, this is my brother, Sage. Sage, this is Eliana Hunter. She works— She’s my project manager.”
I try to smile and pat down my hair again, though it’s as much of a lost cause as Bastian’s. “Hi, Sage. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” His grin hasn’t dimmed one watt. “Any girl who can make my brother lose his cool like this is alright in my book.”
At my side, Bastian looks like he’s contemplating fratricide.
“Oh!” I say brightly as something pops up in my memory. I turn to Sage. “Bastian told me about when you guys were kids and he got locked in the walk-in freezer. That must’ve been so scary.”
It’s an immediate record-scratch moment. Like watching ten cars pile up on the highway, twisted metal, screaming engines, smoke and fire as far as the eye can see. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but it’s beyond doubt that, whatever it was, it was bad.
Sage’s grin disappears, replaced by brow-wrinkled confusion. “What?”
Bastian, meanwhile, goes very, very still beside me.
“The walk-in freezer,” I continue, already sensing I’ve made a terrible mistake but unable to stop myself. “When you were playing tag at the restaurant and the door locked…?”
Sage shakes his head slowly. “I… I don’t remember that.”
“You must’ve been pretty young,” I say weakly, trying to backpedal. “Maybe you just—”
“Eliana.” Bastian’s voice is frozen and dead. “Sage wasn’t there.”
The humor drains from the room like someone pulled a plug.
Sage looks between us. “What restaurant? What are you talking about?”
Bastian takes a long time to answer. “It was nothing,” he finally says. “Ancient history.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” Sage wheels closer. “You got locked in a freezer? When?”
“I was seven or eight.”
“Where was I?”
“You weren’t born yet.”
Where is a sinkhole when you need one? Where are aliens to abduct me and carry me to a galaxy far, far away?
Sage nods slowly. “So it was you and Aleksei?”
Bastian’s entire body tenses. “Drop it, Sage.”
“Did he lock you in there?”
“I said drop it.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, goddammit.” Bastian’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “Yes, he locked me in there. He was trying to protect me from seeing something I shouldn’t see. Happy now?”
Sage’s face has gone pale. “What were you not supposed to see?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Bas—”
“Enough, Sage!” he roars.
Just like that, any playfulness that might’ve been left in the air is gone. We all sit silently, wasting away in the awkwardness.
Eventually, Bastian forces out a long exhale. His hands come unclenched, one knuckle at a time. “I’m going to make lunch,” he announces. “Everyone hungry?”
I nod mutely. Sage just shrugs.
Bastian disappears into the kitchen without another word, leaving me alone with his brother in the most awkward silence I’ve experienced since…
the time I walked in on Bastian changing clothes in the office.
Or, wait, since Patricia catching me with my boobs out post-elevator disaster.
Or maybe since walking in on Yas and Zeke doing the nasty?
God, it’s been a bad couple weeks.
Sage wheels over to the entertainment center and picks up a controller. “You play?”
“Play what?”
He gestures at the massive TV. “Video games.”
“Oh. Um, not really? I mean, I’ve tried a few times, but I’m terrible.”
“Perfect.” He tosses me a controller. “I could use an easy win after that disaster.”
I catch it clumsily with my bandaged hands. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
We settle into an uneasy rhythm. I die repeatedly while Sage racks up kills with an ease and glee that’s honestly a little frightening.
“So,” he says after my fourth death in as many minutes, “you and Bastian, huh?”
I fumble the controller. “We’re not— It’s not—”
“Relax. I’m not gonna make a big deal out of it.” He glances at me sideways. “Though you should probably know he’s been in a way better mood lately. Like, suspiciously better.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Usually, he’s all broody and asshole-ish. But the past week or so?” Sage shrugs. “Still broody, but less… I don’t know. Less of the barking.”
“Oh. That’s, uh… That’s nice.”
“Anyway,” Sage continues, “if you’re the reason for that, then cool. Just don’t hurt him, okay? He acts all tough, but he’s actually kind of a softie.”
I snort-laugh. “Bastian? A softie?”
“You’d be surprised.” His avatar executes a perfect headshot. “He pretends he doesn’t care about anything except work, but that’s bullshit. He cares too much. It’s his whole problem.”
From the kitchen comes the sound of chopping, steady and rhythmic. Maybe a little bit intense, too, though I might just be projecting.
“So you have to work with him, huh?” Sage asks. “What’s that like?”
“Nightmarish, most of the time.”
Sage coughs out a pleased laugh. “An honest woman. I like that.”
“Honest to a fault, unfortunately.”
“That’s better than the opposite,” he says as he puts several bullets through the head of my player on-screen. “I hate liars.”
I’m about to respawn when Sage abruptly pauses the game. He turns to me. “Go ahead and ask. I know you’re wondering.”
I blink at him. “Ask what?”
“Ask how I ended up in a wheelchair.”
My stomach turns itself inside out. “I wasn’t—I mean, I don’t—”
“It’s fine.” He sets his controller down in his lap, never looking away from me. “Everyone wonders. Most people just stare and pretend they’re not curious. You’ve been pretty good about not doing that, actually.”
I set my own controller down carefully, suddenly very fixated on my bandaged hands. “I really wasn’t going to ask. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Car accident,” he says simply. “Eight years ago. Black ice on the highway. Car flipped.”
The chopping sounds from the kitchen have stopped. I wonder if Bastian can hear us.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, at a loss for more eloquent words.
Sage shrugs. “It is what it is. Could’ve been worse. Could’ve died.” He picks up his controller again. “Bastian blames himself, obviously. Because he’s Bastian and that’s what he does.”
“He was driving?” I ask quietly.
He nods. “Yep.”
Bam-bam-bam. More bullets, more blood. I’ve died once again.
“He’s a good driver, too,” Sage adds. “It really wasn’t his fault. Try telling him that, though.”
Out of nowhere, I have a sudden and un-asked-for glimpse into a waking nightmare.
Weeks upon weeks of dark hospital rooms, beeping monitors.
Cold sweat beading on Sage’s forehead as he struggles to shove himself upright in bed.
Bastian’s jaw clenching so tight that teeth crack and muscles lock up as he sits by his brother’s side and waits, watches, useless, helpless.
It all hits like a fist to the gut and leaves me reeling on the couch. On screen, my character dies again and again. I don’t bother moving.
Bastian emerges from the kitchen carrying three bowls of ahi tuna over jasmine rice. He hands one to Sage, then sets mine on the coffee table within reach.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
He nods silently as he settles into the armchair across from us with his own bowl. We eat in silence. It’s delicious, of course. Tangy soy sauce, a chili oil sprinkled on top, tuna with a perfect brown sear and insides as pink as sunrise.
I sneak glances at Bastian between bites.
His face has returned to its usual resting scowl, but there’s a tightness around his eyes that wasn’t there before.
When we finish, he collects the bowls without a word and disappears back into the kitchen.
I hear water running, dishes clinking. He returns a moment later, hands shoved in his pockets. “I’ll take you home now.”
Sage looks between us, clearly wanting to say something, but wisely keeps his mouth shut.
“Okay.” I push myself up from the couch. My knee protests, but it’s bearable now. “Bye, Sage. It was nice to meet you.”
He waves goodbye without looking.
We ride the elevator down silently. We get in the car silently. We drive across town silently. And when we pull up in front of my building, we do it silently. Bastian puts the car in park but doesn’t kill the engine.
“Thanks for lunch,” I say. “And for the first aid. And for, you know, not leaving me bleeding on the sidewalk.”
His lips twitch. But he says nothing.
I wish he would. An I’ll always protect you would be amazing, because no one has ever said that to me before. Even a simple, gruff You’re welcome would be enough, as long as it felt like he meant it.
He doesn’t give me any of that, though. He just nods and stares out of the front windshield. He leaves me to open the car door all on my own.