Chapter 25 Eliana
ELIANA
soft opening /s?ft ?ōp(?)niNG/: noun
And thus, we end up in a nondescript brick house in Skokie that we’ll be calling home until this ragtag crew finds a way to topple a mob king.
The place looks like a kindergartener drew it and then a genie brought it to life.
Red front door with two matching windows on either side, white picket fence, off-kilter chimney made of brick.
Everything is built just sloppily enough that I really start to convince myself that it was in fact designed in crayon.
The five of us are crammed in like sardines, sharing one and a half bathrooms between all of us. But hey—we’re all alive and we’re all together. Surely that counts for something, right?
Bastian did not go quietly into that good night.
Not by a long shot. In fact, when he came home and Sage laid out the ultimatum, he went fucking apoplectic.
His blue eyes went black and his voice went feral and he marched around the room, roaring, bellowing, hissing, making every frightening sound his vocal cords are capable of producing.
In the end, it changed nothing. Sage confirmed that he is indeed related to Bastian, because he refused to back down until Hurricane Bastian finally ran out of gusto.
“You’re serious,” Bastian said when he at last realized that none of us were budging. “You won’t go.”
“We’re very serious,” I’d agreed. “We will not go. If I were you, I’d save your breath.”
“Fucking hell.” He buried his face in his hands, let out a long, weary sigh, and that was that.
So here we are, three and a half weeks later, settling into our cozy little safe house like the world’s most dysfunctional family.
Yasmin claimed the master bedroom immediately and none of us were brave enough to argue. Zeke, predictably, slunk along after her like the lovesick puppy he is, though I’m pretty sure Yas is gonna make him sleep at the foot of the bed, also like a lovesick puppy.
Bastian took the smaller bedroom at the end of the hall, the one with a window overlooking the backyard and, more importantly, a clear sightline to both the front and back doors.
Sage got set up in what was once meant to be a home office.
It was the only room where his new wheelchair could fit in the space between the wall and the twin mattress.
That leaves me on the lumpy pullout couch in the living room, which is exactly as comfortable as it sounds.
The springs poke into my spine every time I change positions.
My lower back has filed a formal complaint with the management.
The baby is no happier with the arrangement than I am, if the constant nausea is anything to go by.
But I’m not complaining. Much.
Okay, I’m complaining a little. But I’m complaining silently, which is practically the same as not complaining at all. Someone alert the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
The first morning in the safe house, I wake to the smell of coffee. I can tell it’s Bastian’s work, because no one else moves around in such ninja-esque fashion. I lie still on the pullout couch, listening to the coffee maker sputter and his intermittent sighs.
“I know you’re awake.”
Bastian’s baritone comes from somewhere close by. I didn’t hear him approach, which is either a testament to his stealth or further evidence that my other senses haven’t quite compensated for the loss of sight the way all those inspirational pamphlets promised they would.
I struggle upright. The springs protest loudly. “Do you just lurk around watching people sleep? Is that a thing you do now?”
“I made you tea,” he explains. “Ginger. For the nausea.”
“Who said I’m nauseous?”
“The bags under your eyes say you didn’t sleep, so I made an educated guess. Drink it or don’t, I don’t care.”
“Chivalry lives to see another day, I guess,” I mumble as I accept the cup from him.
Our fingers brush as he passes it to me.
Unlike in the movies, though, there’s no spark of romantic connection, no sizzle, no a-ha, they do still love each other moment.
There’s just Bastian’s hands on mine, for a moment, a brief moment, before it goes away and we both retreat to our separate corners again.
“You can sit, if you want.” I point vaguely in the direction of the armchair. “It’s better than you hovering over me like a ghoul.”
I’m sure he’s going to refuse me in his tough, manly man, I-must-always-remain-on-guard kind of way. But he does sit. I hear the chair whimper as it takes his bulk.
“But if you’re gonna sit here,” I warn, “you gotta cool it with the huffing and puffing.”
“I’m not huffing and—”
“Oh, yes, you are. We’ve already got one moody teenager in the house. The last thing we need is another one of them sighing broodily at all hours of the day and night.”
“Someone woke up on the sassy side of the bed,” he remarks.
“Fate may have taken my home and my eyesight, but it will have to pry my snark out of my cold, dead fingers.”
I’m pretty sure I’m being hilarious. But, contrary to my warning from two seconds ago, Bastian sighs broodily. “That just might happen, if you fools insist on this plan.”
The ominous way he says that makes my hair stand on end, but I defiantly raise my chin high in the air.
The last thing I intend to do is sell out my collaborators to the man who insists on trying to talk us all out of this.
“‘Insisting’ is exactly what we’re doing.
” Then I lower my chin and lose some of the insolence.
“You know it’s the only way, Bastian. I actually think you know that better than all of us. ”
I wish I could see him, because I’m sure he’s scrunching his face into a scowl that acknowledges that what I’m saying is true.
“Maybe” is all he mumbles, though. “Doesn’t mean it’s not stupid.”
“My mom always used to say that stupid is as stupid does.” I pause, then admit, “That usually preceded her doing something stupid, but the point stands, even if she did steal it from Forrest Gump’s mama.”
“From who?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never—” I stop, pinch the bridge of my nose, and tell myself to calm down. “Never mind. I’m not even surprised. I bet you’ve never seen, like, Home Alone, either.”
“Was I supposed to?”
This guy. Ugh.
“I’m starting to think you were created in a laboratory, not raised amongst normal humans,” I say. “I’ve never seen such a lost cause.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t one.”
“Still.”
“My God.”
“Yes?”
I wrinkle my nose. “It’s way too early for you to be this annoying.”
“My talents are not constrained by the clock.”
I’d squint at him suspiciously, if I could. Since I can’t, I just scowl up at the ceiling. “You’re in a strangely good mood for someone who was frothing at the mouth with rage just a couple days ago.”
That observation deflates whatever joy might’ve been in the room, like I stuck a needle in a balloon. “No,” he mutters, “I’m not. I still think this is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. None of you have any idea what you’re proposing.”
I drain the last of my tea and start to look for a flat surface to put the mug down on. Before I can find one, I feel Bastian gently pry it from my fingers. “Let me,” he murmurs.
I let him take it, both because fighting over a coffee mug seems like a waste of the precious little energy I have left, and also because it really is very early and I slept like a baby—a.k.a., waking up every few hours and crying.
I hear him move to the kitchen, the clink of ceramic being lowered into the sink, the swish of the faucet. I have to pee, so I force myself up and start tottering down the hall toward the bathroom.
“You should eat something,” Bastian says as I pass by the kitchen.
“I’ll eat when I’m hungry.”
“You’re eating for two now.”
“Wow, thank you for that groundbreaking medical insight. I had no idea,” I say sarcastically. “Next, you’ll be telling me to get plenty of rest and avoid stress. Because that’s been going so well.”
“Funny enough, I was actually gonna say—”
I close the bathroom door on whatever he was “actually gonna say.” I pee for what feels like several hours, then wash my hands, brush my teeth, arrange my hair into some semblance of a bun, and step back into the kitchen.
The sink has stopped, but I can still feel his presence simmering in the room, wintergreen mixing with coffee.
“You missed a piece.”
His voice comes from way closer than I expected. I didn’t hear him move, but suddenly, he’s there, all up in my grill in a way that my conscious mind revolts against, but several traitorous, tremulous below-the-belt parts of my body greet with an excited mmm.
His fingers graze my temple, brushing a stray lock of hair away from my face. The touch is feather-light, barely there, barely anything at all, but it sends a shiver cascading down my spine nonetheless. He tucks the strand behind my ear.
Sighs. Lingers.
Neither of us moves.
I should say something. Redraw those boundaries. Where’d all that snark go, hm? I was just saying how proud I was that my essential, innermost sense of fight hadn’t been overwhelmed by the crazy circumstances we’ve found ourselves in.
But my lips don’t open and my breath doesn’t breathe.
Breathing means you’re safe, Eliana.
So if I’m not breathing...
… does that mean I’m in danger when he touches me like that?
“Bastian…”
His fingertip traces the line of my jaw. “Yeah?”
“I think—” But I don’t know what I think, and neither does he. So the path down which the end of that sentence might have led us disappears.
I step back. He does, too, with an uncharacteristically heavy thud of a step.
“I’m going to take a walk around the neighborhood,” I announce. “I’m getting claustrophobic in here.”
“No,” he says flatly, “you’re not.”
“Actually, I am.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Wrong.”