Black Velvet (9) (Patreon)

Two days later and my heart still goes into a panic if I let my mind wander to the dark-eyed man.  I've left my car parked in the garage that's conjoined to our house both days — and in doing that, I've been able to avoid Tobias all together when I leave for work. 

He's caught my eyes, once, as I was pulling from the drive — only tilting his head back to watch with subtle interest. I wonder just how subtle it is.

Sweet boy.

My mom has begged me time and time again to stop ignoring the rose-hedge, that it needs a good watering since it hasn't rained. There's only so long I can pretend that the water hose isn't working before I have to go out there and do it — before I'm right in the line of sight to do something else that ends in a horribly embarrassing way.

It's Richard's freaking rose hedge,  I think, bitterly. 

Tobias' stepfather had never done much of the upkeep on the bushes, and that turned into outright neglect — but our family took over its maintenance and care without a word.

I feel like I can still feel Tobias' thighs between mine.

I stand in the shower, scrubbed to the point of rawness — and I can still feel his breath on my ear, and spend too much of my time with my eyes fogged, caught up in a daydream.

It's a nightmare, I remind myself, a total nightmare.

I press my toothbrush to my teeth furiously, trying to scrub away whatever this feeling is — spitting foam into the shower floor, and reapplying a fresh line of spearmint goop.

Of course, Nic, being the oblivious sort of brother that he is, has still decided on having Tobias over tonight.   He hasn't questioned my absence or general avoidance of his friend — which is probably for the better. 

Is it?

— No.  It doesn't matter.  My hardheaded brother had instead whooped loudly after checking the mail this morning, rectangular package in hand as he bounded across the yard.

I cursed the creators of MLB, choking on the next bout of foam of my toothpaste. In this midst of my coughing, I find it in myself to roll my eyes, because what is my life — seriously.

"You okay in there?" Nic yells as he passes the bathroom door, and I grunt in response — knowing fully well that there's another set of footsteps following after his.  "You need the Heimlich?"

That's cool, not embarrassing at all — just let everyone pay witness to my untimely shower death. I snark internally, eyes watering from my coughing fit.

I finally catch my breath and pull myself from the cooling water, yanking a towel from the sink to rub through my hair. It's mid-afternoon, but I need to be in bed before six if my tittering nerves will allow it.

I'm not even sure if it is my nerves —

My brain is a constant loop of slate grey eyes, so dark that they could be black — rose hedges, the edge of evening light beating down on bare — broad shoulders, bruised — lovely women, and the hint of a laugh that strolls forth like a growl from a Greek man's chest.

As the steam over the mirror subsides, I stare at the boy in the reflection. My hand darts out to rub over the glass, my other wiping quickly at my neck and cheeks. I wonder how long Tobias had seen my sideways glances, and I wonder how I hadn't noticed the childish idolization turning into something else.

Something that feels dangerous.

I frown and touch my ear gently.

—
One thing about Tobias staying the night that has always been quite a wonderful thing is that I know he falls asleep when my brother does.  There's no drunken stumbling on his porch as I'm pulling out of the drive, no man rocking on the swing as I'm locking the front door —

He's just tucked away in the sheets, slumbering. It's nice to know when he's at peace.

—
I stand in the kitchen, hiked up on the counter-top as I eat my bagel — avoiding the toaster despite how much better bagels are when toasted. I figure the less sound I make, the better chance I'll have of getting a decent snack in before I have to sneak off to work.

I hum quietly around a particularly dry piece, crossing my dangling legs. I have a sore spot on the back of my throat each time I swallow — a warning to be prepared for allergies or a head cold. I hop down and grab a bottle of honey from the cupboard, depositing it into the messenger bag I lug with me to work.

— But,

as I go to wrap the bag around my shoulders, I nearly lurch out of my skin at the sound of Toby's muffled voice, the rhythm of socked feet cascading down the stairwell.  I panic immediately, shoving myself into the corner between the oven and the sink — hoping through the dark he won't spot me.

He does, wild eyes darting to me and back to the door.  He grits his teeth, shoving his phone in his pocket and rubbing a hand over his face —

He tries to calm his purposeful steps as he strides towards the door, but there is a sense of urgency that has my skin prickling. I can't tell myself that it isn't the time to ask, because it sure seems to be.

"Are you okay?"

My voice is scratchy with sleep, but the question sounds loud in the sleep-quiet kitchen. He stops with his hand outstretched towards the doorway.

Tobias has always been reposeful, a lack of words unless they were rumbling forth with precision to strike. I'd never seen his eyes cloud with anything other than anger or boredom, but here — right now, it's like a lightning storm is taking place.  He's good with words, precise — but he's stumbling over exactly what he wants to say, jaw flexing.

"Am I ever,"  he breathes, so quietly I would not have heard him — but the tone is so direct that it travels the tiny space and resonates in my skin, "okay?" There's a sheen in his eyes that I could misplace as panic or tears — or maybe finally saying something that didn't callous everyone who surrounded him like some sort of shield.

I feel my lungs constrict as his gaze falls, strong arm ripping the front door open.

Was he?

—
When I leave for work, I think — maybe I shouldn't.

Maybe I should stay inside, feign sickness, or that I've overslept.

I tell myself that a million times as I fit my body through the door he'd left swung ajar. He's already made it up the stairs of his own home, hand on the beam to his porch as he turns towards his front door. It's only then that I hear the muted sounds of an argument.

I stand behind the rose hedge, hands curling in the wet leaves as I fight a battle inside of me that says, go and help him, and another voice that tells me, he doesn't need anything more to worry about.

"Get the fuck out of my way, Richard." Tobias' voice is so low and hateful that I curl into myself, spine tense as I push away from the dividing set of flowers and make my way towards my car.

It takes me a moment to register the name — Richard, with my body trying to tell me that the sentiment is directed towards me — but once I'm strapped into the seat of my car, I see him.

Tobias' step-dad is burly in the light of the porch, shadows cast in all the wrong areas of his face- making him seem all the more menacing. I've never liked the stone-faced man and saw it fit that Ms. Amadeus never took his last name as her own.

Her son stands taller than her lover. Tobias has his mother draped in his arms as he helps her descend the tri-stone stairs with a lack of difficulty that makes me wonder just how many times he's had to do it.

Richard makes a move forward as if to steady the two — and his stepson lifts his arm and swats at him like he would a giant bug — stance set and ready to take the older man on.  Ms. Amadeus pets Tobias' face, almost begging him to look at her as she calms him.

With a glare that I'd never want to be settled on my person directed at Richard,  the husband backs off — hands in front of him as he swings back around towards the house.

His figure disappears, and Tobias rounds the side of his compact car, the woman in his arms curling her right arm around him like it pains her to use the other one.  He props open the passenger side door, shadow looming in his driveway, to place his mother inside with a gentleness that has the goosebumps I've acquired settling with a strange warmth.

I feel my hands tighten over my own steering wheel, a familiar pinprick of emotion behind my eyelids.  I want to leave my car; I want to help them.  The scene is so private and caged that I can't tell myself it's okay to interfere.

The honey-haired woman's head lulls to the side, eyes hidden from his window's shadow — and she smiles at Tobias, lovingly.

I start my car and shift into reverse, sparing a glance back to where they sit in their driveway.  The lights from the house reflect off of Tobias' car and Ms.  Amadeus' skin.

He's holding her face, assuring her of something I can't hear from yards away — but I can, however, see her mouth move in an unmistakable,

Sorry.

—
Shelby was eavesdropping first. Or at least, that's how I'm justifying my involvement.

"Wednesday's aren't that busy, but it's the concept,"  The pancake diner's owner is visiting Ms. Martin, The Sweet Spot's shop owner.  She's a friendly boss, but prone to gossip — just like any other in this town.  "And this boy decides to no call, no show?  It's disrespectful as hell."

"Not even a call?"  Ms. Martin hums to herself, pushing the man adorned in a dirty apron another danish with her manicured nail.

"Nope! This morning was hell without a waiter with experience — everyone else is new around this end of spring break!"  The man sighs, snapping off a piece of biscotti and drowning it in espresso.  "It was a mess!"

I'm on break, sipping my hot chocolate in unnecessary proximity to where they're chattering away.  The diner, of course, is the diner where Tobias works.

"I say you should give him a warning,"  my boss claps her hands together as if they've settled on something,  "he's such a polite man — and eye candy like that draws in quite a bit of customers."  Ms. Martin gives an audacious wink.  She's an older woman, but she still has her, uh, tastes.

Nic's friend, Joseph, is babbling away in my other ear about some construction site that I can't even remember the name of, and occasionally switches from that and back to the topic of my brother.  Shelby looks as if she might pinch his mouth shut, but I know she thinks he's too hot to actually do it.

I give half-formed remarks to keep myself from looking suspicious. Still, I wonder if the guy is ever going to get back to remodeling so I can spy in peace — and wonder if it's necessary that Shelby's shoulder is so innocently resting against his.

Ms. Martin catches my eye when I give her one too many wayward glances.  I chide myself, knowing I don't need to see them to eavesdrop, but senses are so weird.  Her eyebrows spike towards her hairline, and she pulls herself up closer on her barstool.

She smirks.

"Oh, she caught you." Shelby sings and ushers me towards her.

Shit.

"Oliver!"  The older woman calls excitedly.  She turns back to the diner owner and smiles broadly,  "Randy — this is Oliver Abernathy."

I waver forth to her beckoning hand as Joseph wanders off, Shelby in tow. Randy looks at me expectantly, eyes scanning over my attire like he's trying to figure out why I'm crucial to the conversation at hand.  I find myself wondering the same thing.

"Uh, hi,"  I give a short wave, awkward at that — reaching it out as if I'm going to provide him with a handshake and then burying it in my apron's pocket instead.

"Hello, young man," he wipes the soggy biscotti from his fingers, leaning in like he's going to deliver a secret, "you wanna be a waiter?"

"Don't steal my employees. Oliver here knows Tobias." Ms. Martin nods as she says this as if she's explaining supernovae.  If she thinks I have a shot in the dark at saving her eye candy's job, then she's sorely out of luck, "I'd say he thinks very highly of him, too."

"He didn't call,"  Randy says with a stubbornness that I can attribute to most old men and their ethics.

So, he's the no show.  I think back to this morning — or more accurately, Tobias dragging his mother's limp form into his passenger seat.  It sounds a good a reason as any to not come into work, so why hasn't he explained himself? 

A seed of worry plants in my gut.

"Oh, yeah. Uh — so, he's my neighbor. He's really nice — and responsible." Okay, only a half-lie.  I hope the sincerity in my expression can somehow attest to the man's character — like I'm sure Ms. Martin was hoping for. "Totally wouldn't miss a shift on purpose."

My monologue doesn't seem very inspiring.

Randy grimaces.

"Damn shame, good lad."  He pops his knuckles and snaps off another piece of biscotti.  "Eh.  Tell your neighbor he's fired."

Fucking, fuck.

—

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