15

tabby

 

I don’t know what I’d expected from Sebastian’s house. I guess, if I really thought about it, I’d pictured an embellished bachelor pad. Leather and leopard print everywhere. Maybe a stripper pole or two. Beer on tap. Something I might’ve seen on MTV’s Cribs back in the day.

But this? This was a modest home with a small gourmet kitchen and a mahogany dinner table. High-backed dining chairs and tasteful, yet masculine, wall art. This wasn’t at all what I would’ve pictured. Not by a long shot.

I didn’t imagine he’d decorated himself. On several occasions now, he had mentioned a mother and sisters. As I cut a piece of steak, I wondered how much they’d helped to furnish his house, and I hated to admit, the thought was endearing.

“How’s the steak?” Sebastian asked, as I slowly chewed, watching him and trying so hard to figure him out.

“Very good,” I complimented. “You cooked?”

“Mm,” he nodded, swallowing a bite of baked potato. “I almost always cook at home, unless I’m going out to eat with my family.”

Greyson’s face shadowed with disbelief. “Always?”

Chuckling, Sebastian bobbed his head. “Always. You gotta understand something, okay? When I’m on the road, it’s a pretty even split between home-cooked meals and grabbing shit on the run. And that’s only been since I started cooking and Kylie joined us. Before that? It was all room service and fast food. I get so freakin’ sick of fried crap, it’s not even funny.”

It made sense, looking at him again and the definition of muscle cut along his arms, flexing and shifting as he cut his steak. Nobody could look like that and survive off a diet of fast food and chain restaurants. But knowing he cooked meals himself, and ones of this caliber, impressed me beyond reason.

Again, not what I expected.

“Tomorrow, Mom said she’d bring over a lasagna,” Sebastian informed us with the smallest hint of a smile.

“Your mother?” I asked needlessly. Of course he was talking about his mother. Who else would he refer to as Mom?

Nodding, he stabbed a piece of asparagus. “Yeah. I kinda told her about Greyson and she, uh, wants to meet him.” Awkwardly, he shoveled the asparagus into his mouth, diverting his eyes and clenching his fist around his fork.

Sliding my eyes to Greyson, I detected just the slightest bit of apprehension on the surface, clouding something that might’ve been excitement. He never did have much of a relationship with my parents—his grandparents. By the time he was older and could remember them, they were old, crabby, and in poor health. Knowing he had another shot at having grandparents that might hold an interest in him was a good thing. I hope he understood that.

“Is your father alive?” I asked Sebastian, and he nodded.

“Oh yeah,” he replied with enthusiasm. “He’d come by tomorrow too, but one of their sows just gave birth, so—”

“Sows?” Greyson asked, raising a brow.

“Yeah,” Sebastian laughed. “My parents are farmers. They have pigs and cows and chickens and all sorts of shit.”

This man and all his surprises. “You were raised on a farm?”

“Don’t look so shocked, Thumbelina,” he chuckled. “I look fucking amazing in a pair of overalls.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” I replied sarcastically.

“Anyway,” Sebastian continued, eating more of the asparagus, “Dad’s tending to the piglets. So, he won’t be by tomorrow. He’s—”

“Well, maybe we could go over there on Sunday,” I suggested, offering a surprise of my own.

Both Sebastian and Greyson turned to me, startled.

“Seriously?” Sebastian asked, thrusting a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think you’d want—”

“I think it’d be fun to check out a farm,” I offered, when really, I was just curious about the people who had raised him.

Letting it settle in, Sebastian nodded. “Well, we can definitely do that, if Greyson’s cool with it. I’m sure my sisters would be there too, and their husbands and kids.”

Propping my chin into the palm of my hand, I asked, “How many kids do they have?”

“I’m an uncle times nine.” He puffed with a noticeable amount of pride before sipping at his beer.

“I thought you didn’t have much experience with kids,” I reminded, eyeing him with skepticism.

“Yeah, I don’t, really. I don’t see my sisters all that often these days. They’re so busy with their own lives, and I’m so busy with mine …” A rueful look clouded his eyes as he shrugged, and I wondered how someone like him could be so lonely.

 

***

 

Greyson turned down Sebastian’s offer to jam in his drum studio, and instead, immediately headed downstairs after dinner. He was playing Street Fighter 5, he said, and wanted to get back to it. The moment he closed the basement door behind him, I was so aware of how alone Sebastian and I were, as we cleared the dinner dishes.

“So,” he began, closing the dishwasher, “it’s just us. What the hell should we do?”

“Um, well, I should probably prepare for my meeting with Roman tomorrow,” I informed him, wiping my hands on a dish towel.

“Do you do anything but work?”

The accusation pricked at my nerves. “Of course I do.”

“Really? Because I’ve known you for several days now and I’m not sure you pay attention to anything that isn’t work.”

Anger flared in my gut. “I care about other things. I care about Greyson, and—”

“I didn’t mean that you don’t care about Greyson, or anything else,” Sebastian defended himself, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the refrigerator. “Of course you do. But when was the last time you did anything with him?”

“Um … we had dinner last—”

“No, that doesn’t count,” Sebastian interrupted, shaking his head. “Tabby, I don’t know much about kids, but one thing I do know is that they’re not going to respond to you if you don’t make them feel important. That’s just basic human shit.”

The nerve of this man. I gawked and sputtered before spitting out, “I do make him feel important! Are you kidding me? I didn’t have to take him in. I didn’t have to ruin everything for—” My voice stopped abruptly as I realized what I was going to admit. What nobody else knew.

Sebastian shook his head, smirking with intrigue. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, reaching out and gripping my shoulders, before steering me into the living room. “You don’t start saying some shit like that and not get to finish.”

Hands still on my shoulders, he pressed until I sat on the couch. From a mini bar, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, and I shook my head adamantly.

“No way,” I told him as he began to pour. “I don’t drink whiskey.”

“You do tonight,” he smirked.

“No, I really … I can’t handle whiskey. It gets me really drunk, and it gets me drunk really fast.”

“You ever think that you could benefit from getting really drunk, really fast?” He handed me one of the glasses and when I refused to take it, his gaze softened. “One drink, Tabby. Just one.”

Sighing, I relaxed and took the glass from him, tipping it to my lips. The whiskey was smooth, warm, and tasted like sin.

“So, you owe me a story,” Sebastian declared, leaning back against the couch.

I didn’t need to ask what story he was talking about; I knew, remembering our conversation from the other night. The night when he found his old band’s album on my shelf.

Turning the glass in my hands, I gazed into the amber liquid like a reflecting pool. “I don’t … I don’t know if I can talk about it,” I admitted with a rueful chuckle. “I’ve never told anybody.”

Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, he nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Before this week, I had never told anybody else about what happened with Sam.”

Startled, I turned to him. “Really? Nobody?”

“Nope. I didn’t think I had a reason to. I thought she had gotten an abortion, so what was there to tell?”

My throat constricted around the realization that maybe Sebastian and I weren’t so different. For a long time, we’d both harbored more than one person should have to carry.

“But you were practically a kid, and having to handle all of that by yourself? You didn’t even tell your parents?”

Shaking his head, he rolled the glass between his hands. “Why? So they could mourn what never was, too?”

Taking a deep breath, I nodded, understanding. And then I began to tell my story.

“I asked Sam to go to the Fist Fest with me. She wasn’t the biggest fan of metal—I was—but we went to concerts together all the time, regardless of music genre. I was mostly going for Heavy Chains—do you remember them?” I lifted my gaze to find his, and he nodded. “I was a huge fan of theirs. But anyway, the band that went on right before them was awesome and I knew I wanted their record. But, since Heavy Chains was playing right after, I didn’t know when I’d get the chance to run out to the merch table. So, Sam offered.”

I took another sip of the whiskey, letting it roll around on my tongue to dissolve my worries before swallowing. “I was sixteen years old,” I felt the need to clarify, to emphasize the next part of the story, “and Sam didn’t come back to me for an hour.”

Sebastian’s brows lowered. “Those festivals get really fucking crazy. She left you alone for that long?”

The irony made me chuckle bitterly. “Yeah, no shit. And I knew the second I saw her what had happened, because that’s what she always did. Sometimes it felt like she couldn’t go anywhere without hooking up with some guy. I never faulted her for it, you know, she was young and having fun. But that night, I was pissed because she’d told me she would be right back. I couldn’t even enjoy the band I went there for because I was too busy worrying about where the fuck she’d gone.”

The guilt that blanketed his face surprised me, as though it was somehow his fault. “Tabby … that’s … that’s fucked up.”

I shook my head, not wanting to hear it from him. Not wanting him to take the blame for something he was clueless about. “I got over it. I mean, I was pissed that she didn’t even bother to get my album signed by the band,” I laughed bitterly, “but I got over it. Until a couple of months later of course, when she found out she was pregnant, and then it all changed.

“Nobody was surprised that Sam had gotten knocked up. I think we all knew that it was only a matter of time,” I explained. “She told my parents she didn’t know who the father was, but she told me that it was a guy from Saint Savage.”

“So, you had to carry that weight for a long time,” Sebastian chimed in, and I nodded.

“I thought about trying to contact the band, but I didn’t know how. And even if I did, what was I supposed to say? I didn’t know who she had slept with. She never gave me a name or anything,” I said, feeling the need to explain why I’d never tried to find him sooner.

Tipping his eyebrows with understanding, he shook his head. “I never said I blamed you.”

“I know, but …” I sighed, sipping again. “I felt so guilty. About that, and that our parents had no idea, and … I don’t know. The whole situation was fucked up, and it was around that time I realized I had to grow up. I couldn’t keep hanging out with her like that. I think part of me was afraid I’d end up like her. And she never did grow up, you know. She was always hooking up with guys—less frequently, because of Greyson, but she still did it. She held down a couple jobs waitressing, but it was a revolving door, and she and Greyson were moving in and out of apartments while she treated him more as a friend than her son, and—”

“And so, you’ve always had to step in as the authority figure,” Sebastian interjected, an understanding sparking in his eyes.

I nodded. “Yes. I had to, to be there for Greyson when she decided she needed one of her dates. And that’s … that’s how she fucking died, too. She was drunk, coming back from sleeping with someone else, and wrapped her fucking car around a telephone pole.” Without warning, I gasped, sharply inhaling my sob. “And it was just … the last fucking thing I needed.”

It sounded so selfish, I knew that. I hated myself for saying it out loud, but when I looked to Sebastian, I was surprised to find not an ounce of judgment or sympathy in his gaze. All there was, was understanding.

“Did you know I was engaged?” I asked him, searching his eyes and wondering how it was possible for someone’s irises to never end.

“I didn’t,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” I nodded, sniffling. “I was marrying this accountant from Harrisburg. His name was Brad.”

“Brad and Tabitha,” Sebastian mocked with a hoity-toity lilt to his voice. “That doesn’t even sound right.”

“Nothing about us really was,” I admitted with an ounce of shame. “I liked him a lot. He was a really good man, and he stood by me through the deaths of my parents and my sister. He helped with everything and I really thought I’d hit the jackpot with him, even if we never felt quite right. I thought it was just the stress of everything I was going through, you know? But then, when he realized that Greyson had moved in and wasn’t leaving …” I pressed my fist to my lips, holding in another sob. A burst of anger. The vile disgust.

“He ended things because of that?” Sebastian guessed, a dash of his own anger tinting his words.

I nodded. “We never wanted kids.”

“Neither did I,” Sebastian fired back, angry at a person not sitting there, “but plans change.”

“Yeah, well,” I sighed, clutching the glass and knocking the rest back, “I didn’t get a choice in the matter. But he did.”

Snickering, Sebastian finished his own drink and poured another. “Well, you’re better off now,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “Piece of shit. Better to happen before you were legally bound to him.”

“This is true,” I nodded solemnly. “That’s what I’ve tried telling myself, and at least we hadn’t started planning the wedding yet, but it did suck.”

“Well, of course it did.” He sank further into the couch, holding the glass between his legs. “You thought you had everything planned out, and then something dropped into your lap and changed it all. I get that.”

It was as simple as some unseen person changing a lightbulb in the room, but with that statement, I saw Sebastian in a different light. Maybe he had chosen to remain perpetually in band t-shirts and leather jackets, while I’d stuffed mine in a closet, only to be worn on weekends. Maybe he was unashamed of his painted skin, while I kept my one tattoo hidden. However, in other ways, we were very much the same—both of us living a life we thought we had sorted, only to find that there was so much out of our control.

“Well,” he said after a few moment’s silence, “I’m sorry you’ve had a shitty year, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad it brought you my way.”

Rolling my lips between my teeth, I propelled myself into overanalyzing every word and inflection of that statement. The way he said it, without an iota of sympathy, made it seem that he really wasn’t sorry, because it brought me here. And then, there was that … I’m glad it brought you my way. What did that mean? Was he generalizing you? Did he mean Greyson and me? Or …

I licked the whiskey from my tucked-in lips, finding some semblance of courage in the lingering remnants, and with them, I acknowledged the tension between us. Had it been there since we met? I was attracted to him—that was for damn sure—but had I known it immediately, or had it taken its time settling in? It was only days ago, but I couldn’t remember anything other than my irritation. Had there been something else, underneath all that? Had my attraction derived from a place of disgust and I wanted him simply because of how angry he made me? Or was it that he reminded me of everything I’d been denying myself over the years, in my frantic determination to grow up?

“It’s too quiet,” Sebastian announced, drinking from his glass and standing up. “Let’s go.”

“W-where are we going?” I stammered, following orders as I pulled myself to my feet.

“Upstairs.” Grabbing the bottle of whiskey, he headed toward the stairs. “Bring your glass,” he glanced over his shoulder and winked, “just in case.”

His room was across the hall from mine. I still wasn’t sure he hadn’t done that on purpose. He could’ve set me up in the basement. He could’ve given Greyson his room and taken the couch himself. Instead, I was on one side and he on the other, with an entire floor between us and responsibility.

And funnily enough, it wasn’t Sebastian I didn’t trust.