Sebastian likes being a sheriff’s deputy.

He started working at the station right after high school, where he mostly just mopped the floors and filed things when the actual deputies wanted him to. He took his time though and paid his dues; he did well in the academy, graduated at the top of his class, and was hired straight out.

He likes being a deputy, and he’s good at it. He doesn’t like that Vic, arguably his best friend, if he wasn’t counting his mom and sister, which he wasn’t, works at the coffee shop right by the station and is constantly dropping things off for whoever’s on duty.

Okay, actually, normally Sebastian really likes that. His best friend and a good cup of coffee, pretty much any time? He’s not crazy enough not to love that.

The look that Vic is currently giving him however, one big black eyebrow raised and a smirk spreading across his face so his teeth shine bright like a threat—he does not like that look.

Sebastian pretends to ignore him and takes a drink of the coffee Vic just handed him. It’s delicious. He squirms under his friend’s gaze.

“Okay, okay,” Vic plucks out a cup of coffee and takes a sip. The rest of his carriers are empty, and he sets the cardboard cup holders in the middle of Sebastian’s desk, grabbing the nearest chair to throw himself into. “Now, my man, I made you a double vanilla cappuccino, on the house, when every other one of these fuckers got a plain black joe.”

“Um,” Sebastian looks down at the cup and then back at Vic. He furrows his eyebrows. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” Vic waits a beat. “Now, I know that you’re not looking all woe is me because of my delicious coffee. So what is it?”

Sebastian huffs out what would be a scoff if he wasn’t smiling. “No, your coffee is great.”

“What’s not great?”

“Nothing. Everything is great.”

“Bullshit,” Vic sings the last part, drawing the word out. Sebastian laughs and downs another large gulp of his drink; it burns a little on the way down, and he winces.

The truth is, Sebastian can’t stop thinking about what his mom had said yesterday. He’d pushed it out of his mind and had a good evening but now that he’s back at work, he can’t stop thinking about how his mom thought he’d been mean to Matt Collins back when they were kids.

It grates on him. He curls his hands tighter around the to-go mug before setting it down. Vic stares at him expectantly for a few minutes before eventually giving up and pulling out his phone.

Sebastian grabs a few of the files on his desk and thumbs through them, looking at the traffic report that Carlisle left on his desk that morning. He’s halfway through it and Vic is typing away furiously when he breaks. “Do you remember Matt Collins?”

Vic’s thumbs trip and he swipes on the phone, frowning at his cell before looking up. He blinks at Sebastian, frown deepening. “Matt Collins?”

“Matt Collins,” he repeats. “He’s, um, a few years younger than us. Went to high school with us.”

Vic thinks for a second before shrugging. “Why?”

“No reason.”

Vic leans forward. His legs are spread and his hands fold, arms across his knees, while he grins at Sebastian. “He Clarissa’s new beau?”

“Hey,” Sebastian snaps on instinct. “Gross, she’s a kid.”

Vic laughs and holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just joking.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes and closes the file on the desk, the pages making a satisfying lump. “We went to high school with him,” Sebastian presses.

“We went to high school with a lot of people,” Vic says.

Sebastian raises an eyebrow. “No, we really didn’t.”

“Fair point,” Vic concedes. “Okay, so, narrow it down. We clearly didn’t stay friends with him after school.”

He and Vic didn’t really stay friends with anyone after high school. They had friends, sure, but their high school friends were all the dicks and jocks because, well, they were dicks and jocks, too. So, during the academy, and when Sebastian had to step up and help his mom with the house and Clarissa, he cut ties with the majority of the people he’d hung out with at that age.

Vic was the nice exception.

“We weren’t friends with him in high school either.”

“Then why are we talking about him?” Vic asks.

It’s a fair question. Sebastian brushes it off. “He was like, quiet and stuff.”

Vic frowns again, looking down at his lap. Then his head snaps up and he nods. “Yeah, yeah. I think I remember. Real tall, lanky guy? Smart?”

Sebastian doesn’t know if that’s technically right but he nods anyway. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, what about him?” Vic cocks his head. “You sure he’s not dating Clarissa?”

“Ugh, stop,” Sebastian wrinkles his nose.

Vic laughs, shaking his head. “It’s just a joke—obviously he’s not dating your sister.”

“Yeah, she’s a kid.”

“Yeah,” Vic agrees. “And he’s gay.”

Sebastian blinks. “Um.”

“Is he in town or something?”

Mutely, Sebastian nods. His head swims a little.

Matt Collins is gay. Which, okay, first of all: doesn’t matter. Sebastian doesn’t care. He doesn’t even know Matt.

It’s just that, if Matt is gay, and Vic knows that he is, then, he was probably gay—or, out, or whatever—when they were kids. That’s probably why he was picked on so much.

Sebastian feels faintly ill. “Mom was saying that I was always kind of mean to him.”

Vic considers that for a second. “Um, I mean, sure, but no more than the other guys.”

Sebastian knows that’s a piss poor attempt at comforting him, but it falls flat. His stomach churns. “I didn’t know I was. I barely even remember the guy.”

“Yeah, I mean, he was like a freshman when we were seniors or something,” Vic says. He picks up his coffee cup and takes a long pull of it. The motion reminds Sebastian that he hasn’t finished his yet and he grabs the cup again.

“Yeah, I don’t really remember him.”

Vic shrugs. “So, did you run into him?”

“Pulled him over,” Sebastian explains. “He’s a bad driver.”

Vic laughs. “Well, that’s something, then. Oh, hey, did I tell you that Amber is thinking of adding smoothies to the menu?”

Vic launches into a rant about his general manager and how incompetent of a job she does, and Sebastian tries to pay attention. He listens to Vic’s moaning but he can’t shake one horrible, loud thought out of his head.

He straightens up, slamming his cup down on his desk. A little of it sloshes out of the small hole in the lid, dribbling down to fall on his papers. “People didn’t make fun of Collins for being gay, did they?”

Vic looks startled by the interruption. “Um, what?”

“In high school. People were mean to him,” Sebastian does not say I was mean to him but it sits just beneath what he did say and both men hear it, “and, like, it wasn’t because he was gay right?”

Vic pulls back, leaning low in his chair. “Jesus, Seb, I don’t remember. This was over a decade ago.”

“Yeah, but.” Sebastian cuts himself off. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to say; he’s sweating and his head pounds.

“I mean, probably,” Vic continues. “He was the only kid out at that time, and you know, he was just—I don’t know. Probably. What’s it matter now?”

“Well, it’s wrong,” Sebastian’s hot. He can feel the sweat prickling at his forehead and arms, and he wants to right some wrong that he didn’t know was committed.

Vic nods slowly. “Yeah, of course. No one would do it to him now. I mean, it’s a different time now, plus loads of people came out after high school.”

“I didn’t make fun of him because he was gay,” Sebastian blurts. “I didn’t even know he was gay.”

“Dude,” Vic places both of his palms on Sebastian’s desk, leaning close and raising his eyebrows. “Chill. No one’s saying you did.”

Sebastian opens his mouth to say god knows what, he’s not thinking, just panicking and blurting a lot, when a file slams on his desk in between him and Vic.

“Hey, Anders,” Billy folds his arms across his chest, a bushy eyebrow raised. “You planning on doing any work this morning or are you just gonna gossip all day?”

Vic startles and stands up. “Sorry, Chief, I’m just going. I was dropping off coffee. Did you get your coffee?”

Billy cracks a smile. “Victor, how is it that you’re this afraid of cops and your best friend is my best deputy?”

“I heard that,” Carlisle calls from across the room. No one pays him any mind.

“I’ll just be leaving, sir.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, go back to work. Good luck with the smoothies.”

Vic darts out of the sheriff’s station, and Sebastian picks up the file, flipping through it while flickering his gaze between the file and Billy.

When Billy seems satisfied that Sebastian is actually going to get back to work, he nods firmly and makes some little harrumph sound in the back of his throat that the deputies long ago learned meant “you’re doing adequately, and I won’t be yelling just now.”

Sebastian throws himself into the paperwork and offers to dig into Carlisle’s as well instead of going out patrolling when they hit mid afternoon. At least if he’s drowning in small town bureaucracy, he won’t be running into people that he doesn’t want to.

If his mind slips a little every half hour or so and he argues with himself that he definitely didn’t mock Collins for being gay, well, that’s hardly his fault. At least he can kind of switch it off.

Sebastian makes it to the high school just in time to see his sister climbing off of the bench and stepping onto the court.

The bleachers erupt in a booming ferocity, everyone there cheering so loudly that Sebastian is momentarily deafened and surprised. He shouldn’t be; he’s been going to Clarissa’s games since she was old enough to hold a basketball, and he hasn’t missed a single one since she made the high school team last year.

Somehow, though, he’s always a bit stupefied by the response she gets. It almost rivals the intensity he feels when he watches her do anything she’s proud of, and it’s a nice reminder that his sister isn’t going to ever wonder if she’s special—everyone, including but not limited to him and his mom, will make sure she knows it.

It’s the first game of the season and the crowd definitely shows it; there are people with signs and their faces painted and generally, a whole lot of school and town pride that will dwindle before shooting back up at the end of the season, when they’ve made it to the finals.

Which, they will...if Clarissa Anders has anything to say about it.

The rest of her team is called up and they circle with the coaches after the cheering stops, getting ready for the first quarter.

Sebastian takes this break in cheering to find his Mom on the bleachers. She shifts her purse onto her lap when he takes the seat she’d saved him.

“Hi, honey,” she says, not tearing her eyes away from Clarissa’s form in the little huddle. “How was work?”

“Slow,” he answers.

His mom grins at that, eyes flickering just a bit. “Always makes me feel good to hear that the sheriff’s station had a boring day. Safety.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes and claps loudly, just shy of obnoxious, when the game starts.

He never was a fan of basketball, but Clarissa’s loved this since the day she watched her first game. He and Mom blame Dad; his father loved watching NCAA as much as he loved them, which was a dumb and heartwarming amount.

When Dad died, Clarissa had only been about six. She didn’t have a lot of memories with their dad and the few that she did revolved around the sport. Mom and Sebastian didn’t have it in them to point out that Dad was terrible at the sport and she was more living his dream than following his legacy.

The game flew by, as it always did when Clarissa was allowed to be in for the majority of it. She was only taken out twice throughout the entirety of the game and both times just long enough for her to have a break and drink some water.

When the game ends, Sebastian wraps Clarissa in a sweaty hug on the edge of the court, lifting her in the air and spinning her twice. She slaps his arms to get him to let her down, squealing that she’s embarrassed, but she’s grinning and bright when he deposits her back on the floor. Sebastian can’t help his answering grin. They both roll their eyes when Mom tearfully tells her she was a superstar.

“Go shower,” he says, leaning away from her dramatically. “You stink.”

Clarissa laughs and makes to hug him again in a threatening way, but some other player calls her name from the edge of the court where the locker rooms are. She yells, “See you at home! I’ll catch a ride with Jenny!” before bouncing off and sprinting towards the locker room.

They watch her go before Sebastian turns to his mom. “I think we’ve been dismissed.”

Mom shakes her head. She has the number 23 painted on her left cheek in red. “Remember when we were the ones she liked?”

“We’re chopped liver now,” Sebastian agrees.

They wind their way out of the busy gymnasium and through the high school’s halls. By the time they make it to the parking lot, it’s so busy that Sebastian begrudgingly takes over traffic duty and sends his mom on her way, knowing he’ll be standing at the intersection for at least a good half hour to direct the cars safely.

He’s still standing there when Clarissa leaves the gym with another girl’s arm thrown across her shoulder. Sebastian thinks that must be Jenny Coleman, Clarissa’s current best friend. His sister flits around into various social groups, too much of a starlet to feel satisfied with one group of loyal friends. Instead of the way that he did it back when he was in high school however, she does it on purpose and kindly; Clarissa genuinely just gets along with everyone and likes them all. She even likes the ones that aren’t in sports or popular, which, now that Sebastian thinks about it, were probably the only people in high school that he actually hung out with.

She sees him, eyes narrowing and feet tripping. She shrugs Jenny’s arm off of her and says something to the other girl before waving goodbye and walking to his side.

“Big brother,” she says, nodding. Her hair is wet and hangs loose around her shoulders. Sebastian frowns; she should really wear a hat or she’ll get a cold. It’s already September.

“Little sister,” he replies.

She looks out towards the cars. There are only a few left, and he absently waves his hands up and down to tell them when to go; for the most part, it’s safe now that everyone in town’s not in the tiny parking lot.

“How did you get stuck as the Hall Monitor?” She leans against him, and he wraps one arm around her waist, half a hug and half an excuse for her to let her exhausted body fall fully against him.

“Is it really Hall Monitoring if it’s outside and with cars, not people?”

“Fine,” she huffs. “How did you get stuck as Crossing Guard?”

“Think I prefer Hall Monitor,” he grumbles. “The school apparently doesn’t have anyone on duty, and it looked dangerous.”

“Look at you, hero of millions, director of trucks.”

“Shut up, squirt.” He ruffles her hair and she ducks away from him.

“Can we go, please?” She tightens her grip on the bag across her shoulder, hefting it up, and he rolls his eyes. He holds out his hand and she grins, thrusting the heavy gym bag at him.

He tosses it over his shoulder and salutes a simple goodbye to the car nearest to him so they get that he’s leaving before leading Clarissa towards his truck.

She climbs in and starts fiddling with the radio as soon as he’s got the engine on.

“Can we pick up pizza?”

“Call Mom,” he says, pulling into the line of cars. “She left a while ago and might have already started something.”

“If that something isn’t pizza, I’m protesting,” she says, pulling her cellphone out of her pocket.

“You do that,” he encourages. Then he thinks about it. “Actually, no, don’t.”

“It’s okay,” Clarissa grins, leaning back in the seat. Sebastian raises a single eyebrow, finally on the road. “Mom’s already texted. She’s making pizza.”

“Awesome.”

“Are you staying for dinner?” Clarissa asks, already typing away. “It’s personal pizza night, apparently, and Mom doesn’t know if she needs to make you one.”

“She thinks I’m going to go home and cook for myself when she’s making homemade pizza?”

Clarissa scoffs. “Good point. I’ll tell her to make you two. Then you can take one into work tomorrow.”

“See, I knew I liked you.” Sebastian grins.

The drive to Mom’s is quiet and familiar; the sun has gone down while they were at the game, but the dark doesn’t deter Sebastian. He’s pretty sure he could drive this road with his eyes closed, based off muscle memory alone.

Clarissa fills the silence with jabberings about her friends and the game and one particularly pointed complaint about her geography assignment for that week.

She’s halfway through the story when a car in front of them slams on its breaks, grinding to a halt at the stop sign.

Sebastian had started easing off halfway through the curve before and was far enough away from the other car for it to not do much except surprise them both.

“Out of townie,” Clarissa says, leaning forward to take a look at the car. It stays at the four way stop for longer than it needs to before slowly, almost nervously, pulling out. “Hey, maybe it’s that same guy from the other day.”

“What guy?” Sebastian asks absently, frowning at the car that’s pulling away. He crawls up to his place at the stop sign before driving again.

“You know,” Clarissa waves a hand impatiently, “that guy who sucked at driving. The guy you were telling me and Mom about.”

Sebastian glances over at her, frowning, before he remembers. Oh. Matt Collins.

“Right,” he nods. “Yeah, that makes sense. Probably is.”

“Although, that guy is from here. Ought to at least remember where the frigging stop signs are.”

Sebastian laughs when she does.

He had kind of forgotten all about Matt, bad driving and bad childhood all together. He hadn’t been able to shake the guy while he was at work, but watching his sister play had all but washed it from his head.

The swirling guilt and worry came barreling back, his chest clenching with the intensity of it.

He hadn’t been that bad to the guy—everyone had said he hadn’t been as mean as other people—and he definitely hadn’t made fun of the guy for being gay because he couldn’t have, he didn’t even know.

Except that if everyone else had been, there’s an insanely good chance that Sebastian would have gone along with it, and the fact that he knows that, even if he’s pretending like he doesn’t, hurts his stomach.

Clarissa says his name, a bit too loudly, as if she’d been saying it for a while.

“Sorry,” he shakes his head, clears his throat, ignores the unsettled feeling thrumming through him. “What did you say?”

She stares at him. He can feel her gaze, sharp and unwavering, as he looks straight ahead and focuses on driving. He can also see her worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, and he has half a thought to pull the truck over.

They make it to Mom’s road before she says anything though.

“Are you jealous of him?”

Sebastian can’t reply. His hands shake around the steering wheel and he pulls into Mom’s driveway as slowly as he can, unsure of how well he’s handling the vehicle at this point.

Jealous? Of Matt Collins?

Why would he be jealous of Matt?

Sebastian has no reason for that. There’s nothing even about Collins that Sebastian doesn’t have that he would want. Sure, he’s smart as hell and doing great things up in the city, but that was never what Sebastian wanted. He has no reason to be jealous.

Instead of saying that though, Sebastian only manages to squeak out a feeble, “What?”

Clarissa unbuckles and turns fully in her seat, hands clasped in front of her as if she’s afraid they’ll act without her permission.

“I think you’re jealous of him. You act kind of weird when he comes up, you look all weird and longing, and I think maybe it’s because you’re jealous.” She stops with a deep inhale of air, letting it out shakily as if that took a lot for her to say.

Sebastian feels a little floored and a lot dizzy. His chest is full and empty at the same time, and he doesn’t know what to say because she’s wrong, but it almost doesn’t feel that way. “I—Clarissa.”

“It’s okay. I know you never wanted to stay here.”

There’s a beat. Then, “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t want to stay here, in Poplar. You were going to join the Army.”

Sebastian’s head whips up so fast, it almost makes him more dizzy than he was in the first place. All of the worry he’d felt is replaced, suddenly, with a hyperawareness of his sister’s worries. “Where did you hear that?”

“I didn’t, like, hear it or whatever. It’s not like you guys kept it a secret!”

“Clarissa,” he’s turned in his seat now, frowning at her. Sebastian covers her hands with one of his and stares until her eyes flicker up and lock with his. “I don’t want to leave. I want to be here. I like it here.”

“You stayed because of me! You were going to leave, and then Dad died and you stayed. I’m grateful, I am, but you never wanted to and you’re jealous of that guy because he got to leave and all you got was a bunch of needy women.”

Sebastian waits until she’s breathing regularly again. “Sis, I love you, but that’s a bunch of bullshit.”

Clarissa’s mouth slams shut with an audible clasp and she blinks at him. “What?”

“I’m not here out of some obligation or something. I don’t even know why you’re thinking that.”

“Dad died, and we needed you.”

“Sure,” he agrees, because why not? It’s the truth—but it’s the absolute, only truth in anything she’s saying. “You guys did. You were just a kid. But Mom didn’t ask me to stay, and neither did you. I wanted to be here then, and I want to be here now.”

Clarissa frowns and sniffles a little. She’s not crying, but she looks a little too close to it for comfort and Sebastian scoots over to wrap an arm around her. She melts into his side immediately, as if she’s still just a little six year old girl. Sebastian’s heart clenches, and he has to struggle to not pull her more tightly. “What’s bringing all this up?”

“Nothing,” she sighs, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’ve just been thinking and—”

She cuts herself off and something clicks in Sebastian’s head. The gears still and he can breathe again because he understands a little better. “You’re going to leave,” he says. “When you graduate.”

“For school,” she says quietly. “But you never did and I don’t want—”

She stops again, and Sebastian pulls away to look at her firmly. “You’re going to go away for college. You’re going to get into a great school, probably play basketball with an amazing team, and you’ll travel and be very happy, and that has nothing to do with me. I’m here because I want to be, and you’re going to go where you want to be.”

She smiles at him, and this time it’s not as watery. Sebastian’s whole body feels better, as if he’d been put through the ringer but came out safely on the other side. “Not nothing,” she grumbles. “I mean, I wouldn’t be going anywhere if it wasn’t for you.”

Sebastian’s heart hurts, it feels so good. God, he loves his sister. He pushes the feeling away and ruffles her now nearly dry hair. “Okay, that’s enough. Mom’s making pizza and we’re talking about our feelings.” He scrunches his nose up as if its something distasteful and Clarissa laughs, head falling back.

“Good point, what was I thinking?”

She climbs out of the truck, leaving him behind. Sebastian takes a moment alone, grabbing his keys and Clarissa’s bag. He’s halfway up the porch steps when a thought hits him.

He swallows hard and ignores the thought that it’s a little weird, how he never even considered that the jealousy his sister thought he had would come from anywhere else other than him being gay.