11

tabby

 

“Mrs. Worthington, I am so sorry I’m late.” I rushed to explain, as I ran into the house with Sebastian on my heels, carrying the new chinchilla cage.

“Oh, Tabitha, where else would I be?” The old woman waved a dismissive hand, her smile never fading. As her sparkling blue eyes lifted to the blonde hulk behind me, she beamed. “Is that Sandy’s new abode? Oh, thank you so much for picking it up!”

“Of course! I’m always happy to help, you know that,” I reminded her, ensuring my loyalty to the job, and to my friend.

“Will you introduce me to your … companion?” she asked. I had wondered when she would.

With a strengthening breath, I turned to flash hardened eyes at Sebastian, hoping he’d get the memo to behave himself. The sun did nothing to save us from the heat and after hoisting the cage into the trunk of his car, he had stripped the leather jacket off, showcasing the tattoos muraled over his arms. It was difficult not to be distracted by them—tattoos were always a weakness of mine—but I forced myself to keep my gaze upward as I touched a light hand to his arm.

“This is my friend Sebastian.” The word friend felt wrong on my tongue. It was a lie, but was the truth any better? “He came along to help with the new cage.”

“Oh, how nice. Thank you so much, Sebastian. I do love that name, you know,” Mrs. Worthington replied, folding her hands against her middle. “Mr. Worthington always wanted a son named Sebastian.”

“Mr. Worthington has good taste,” Sebastian’s voice rumbled luxuriously from behind me, and I suppressed a groan.

“He did,” Mrs. Worthington nodded with a rueful little smile twitching at her lips. “Can I get either of you something to drink?”

I opened my mouth to speak. “N—”

“Water, please, young lady,” Sebastian spoke up. “It’s as hot as Satan’s scrotum out there.”

At the crude comment and his sickeningly charming arrogance, my lips pulled between my teeth, and I bit down with embarrassment, disgust, and anger. On the ride over, I had warned him to behave and keep his mouth shut. I didn’t know the man very well, but I already knew him well enough to know he was incapable of following simple directions.

But then, Mrs. Worthington erupted with a bubbly chuckle, a sound I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard from her in all the time I’d known her. My anger washed away as her cheeks tinted rose and knotted fingers pressed to her lips.

“You remind me of my Thomas,” she sighed wistfully. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched her turn and move toward the kitchen, giggling all the way. Sebastian stepped around me into the entryway and placed the box onto the wooden floor. When he stood, he took a moment, sweeping his eyes around the wood-paneled walls, the crown molding, and inlaid floors.

“Hot damn,” he uttered breathlessly. “This place is a fucking masterpiece.”

His appreciation for the craftsmanship was evident in the way his hand gingerly laid over the staircase’s newel post, tracing his fingertips over the carved swirls and twirls.

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed solemnly. “Too bad nobody wants it.”

“Anybody who can afford this house and doesn’t buy it, is an idiot,” he stated bluntly.

His dark blonde brows drew together and his eyes narrowed, peering up the open stairway and into the hallway above. Nodding slowly, he turned to me with an expression I hadn’t yet seen.

“Did the old guy die here?”

“Wow, you picked up on that.” I blinked away the evidence of my shock as I cleared my throat. “Yeah, he did. Last year. Mrs. Worthington’s niece wants her to move in with her family in Pittsburgh, but she needs to sell the house first. Apparently she believes that her late-husband is scaring potential buyers away.”

Sebastian’s mouth stretched with a slow grin. “A haunted house, huh? That’s fucking badass.”

“It’s not haunted,” I mumbled, shaking my head.

“Then what do you call it?” He tipped his head with intrigue. I rolled my eyes, but my lips remained sealed. “Yeah, just like I thought; you got nothin’.”

“I’m just not convinced that the spirit of her dead husband is to blame for the lack of offers,” I whispered harshly.

With a suspicious glance around the room, Sebastian bent to lower his eyes to mine. “Don’t say that so loud. You don’t wanna piss the old dude off,” he warned in a husky voice that shouldn’t have sprouted goosebumps along the back of my neck, but it did.

“Oh, shut up.” I shoved against his chest, startled immediately by the ungiving, firm muscle under my palm.

A heated shiver trickled over my spine and I urged myself to calm the hell down. Tensing the muscles of my face into an expression of indifference, I pointed to the cage and then toward the back of the room.

“Sandy is right through that door, if you don’t mind taking that in there,” I instructed just as Mrs. Worthington returned with a tall glass of water, frosted with condensation.

“Here you go. Drink up,” she cooed, doting on him as though he was someone to her.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Sebastian replied, gratefully taking the glass from her and drinking it down in two strong gulps. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he sighed appreciatively. “I’ll go put that cage together. That way, you ladies can get straight to business and I can play with the chinchilla. Everybody wins.”

I so badly wanted to hate him for being so arrogantly sweet. The trouble was, I could tell it wasn’t an act. This was just the way he was, and although it was irritatingly immature, I almost found his demeanor to be refreshing. A break in the morose monotony of my life.

Almost.

“That would be lovely, Sebastian. Thank you so much.” Mrs. Worthington smiled, reaching a hand out to briefly touch his elbow. “And by the way, I do appreciate all of your body art. Very tastefully done. I see some of these young people with silly little trinkets doodled all over their skin, but yours are stunning.”

Raising his forearms, he twisted them from back to front. “What, these old things?” Bowing his head, he smiled gratefully. “You have a good eye for fine art.”

The old woman was swooning. Staring at him like he was sent to her by God Himself. As Sebastian turned toward the kitchen, Mrs. Worthington eyed me over her shoulder with those glittering blue eyes of hers.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he looks a lot like Greyson,” she commented with a gentle smile.

“That would be because he’s Greyson’s father,” I admitted without apprehension. It was the truth and she’d guessed accurately.

“How lovely that he’s in the boy’s life,” Mrs. Worthington declared with a glowing smile.

Sebastian returned to the foyer, bending to hoist the cage into his arms. From behind, Mrs. Worthington and I shared a moment of our own silent appreciation for the way his jeans hugged his ass perfectly. Tailored to fit, no doubt, and we watched him walk toward the closed door at the back of the room. The shifting and bunching of his t-shirt, stretched over his back and biceps, was almost the equivalent to a striptease. Tantalizing. Hypnotizing.

How lovely, indeed.

 

***

“Is there anything I have to do with this … computer hullabaloo?” Mrs. Worthington asked, screwing her face up and showing her blatant distaste for technology.

The woman didn’t even own a TV. Her entertainment consisted entirely of reading, gardening, and knitting.

“Not a thing,” I told her gently, laying a hand over her knee.

“You know, I just would’ve preferred the house go to someone local, preferably someone familiar,” she persisted.

I’d heard her say this six times over the past hour, but still, I continued to nod with the patience of a saint. “I know, Mrs. Worthington. But the residents of Hog Hill already live here, and not a whole lot of people are reading the Hog Hill Gazette.”

I chose to leave out the fact that nobody in town had the money to afford such a big and beautiful house. It was the only mansion within town lines, and the majority of the town folk were upper-middle class, at best.

“But the ads in the papers …” She offered a rueful smile and shook her head. “I thought it would be better than announcing it to the world. I-I don’t want the place to be torn down and turned into some mini-mall.”

“I know.” I nodded sympathetically. “But I promise I will make sure whoever gets the house respects its integrity. You know I would never sell it to someone who didn’t.”

“Oh, honey, I know.” She nodded firmly, to herself more than me. Her eyes flitted skyward and clasped her hands over her heart. “I just wish we’d had children. This wouldn’t have been a problem then.”

Sebastian intruded on the business conversation, reminding me that he was still there. Sandy was nestled in the crook of one muscular arm, as the opposite hand stroked along his back and tail.

“Softest thing in the fucking world,” he confirmed with a shit-eating grin. He lifted Sandy to eye-level and grinned unabashedly. “Tabby, have you ever held this thing? He’s such a sweetheart.”

There was something strangely endearing about this grown man holding the little critter to his nose and nuzzling it.

“Yes, I’ve had the pleasure a number of times,” I told him, unable to stop my smile as I turned to Mrs. Worthington.

“I’m getting one,” Sebastian declared, hugging Sandy to his chest. “This is definitely happening.”

“I’ve always had pets,” Mrs. Worthington nodded solemnly. “I need the companionship. Something to be happy I’m home.”

Inviting himself to sit at the table, Sebastian dropped into the chair beside me, ruffling Sandy’s little head. “Bet it was nice when your husband was alive.”

“Yes, it was.” Mrs. Worthington smiled with that tinge of sadness that was always present whenever she spoke about him. “It was just the two of us with a dog for many years, and when he passed, so did our dog at the time. I got Sandy shortly after.”

Sebastian nodded, looking at the furry animal tucked into his chest. “Sucks being on your own, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. Worthington met his eyes, and whatever she found there brought her to rest her knobby hand against the torn knee of his jeans. “It certainly does.”

“Why didn’t you have kids?” he asked, and I could’ve smacked him. Who asks something like that? How did this man not have any filters?

But Mrs. Worthington burst just with a somber laugh and held her hands up into the kitchen air. “Do you see this house around us?”

“Hard to miss,” Sebastian replied, quirking his lips and stroking Sandy.

“Well, it’s not cheap, and because Thomas never believed in keeping a working wife, he instead worked himself to the bone. He was always very career oriented, and not very in tune with his wants for a family when we were younger and able. It wasn’t until it was too late that we realized how much we would’ve enjoyed having children of our own,” she explained without hesitancy, folding her hands over her lap and nodding regretfully.

“Hm,” Sebastian grunted with a thoughtful nod.

“Anyway,” I hurried to interject, “I hope that soon, we’ll have a buyer for the house and you can move in with your niece. It’ll be good for you to have family around.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Worthington nodded kindly. “I hope so too. I just hope the house goes to someone who will—”

“I know,” I cut her off with a glance toward the clock. “It’ll be fine, I promise. But right now, Sebastian and I really need to go pick up Greyson from school. I’ll see you in a few days, okay? I’ll call if I have any updates.”

“Oh, of course!” She reached out to take Sandy from Sebastian’s arms.

“Mrs. Worthington, thank you so much for letting me chill with this little dude,” he said, petting the critter with an affectionate smile. “I can cross chinchilla holding off my bucket list now.”

“Sebastian, you are welcome to visit him any time,” Mrs. Worthington replied, pressing a hand to his jaw. “And please, call me Jane.”