Black Velvet (54) (Patreon)

(Hehe, I’m so excited the romance is back.  I just want to let you guys know that this version of Black Velvet will leave out most of Tobias’ white knight complex towards his mother.  I don’t think that this version of events will involve as much angst as before, because I want the main drive of Tobias’ plot-line to be distancing himself from his abuser/toxic household and growing as a person next to Oliver.  It’s healthier and suits them better.  Sorry if that means that the scenes that you enjoyed originally will be different or omitted for the sake of the story!)

anyway! This chapter is 2,000 words! Enjoy!

—

Tobias touches my shoulder, tilting his head in the direction of his car.  It's early enough that the sky still mimics still a cool, Jameson night.

"If I drive you home..."  he swallows, rough with sadness like he's trying to find his voice.  He can't.  He closes his eyes and turns his head like I won't be able to tell he was crying.

"Nic can bring me back for my car."  My voice is firm.  Tobias nods, tears caught in his lashes and jaw clenched.  But.  I take that as a compromise. "You can drive me home."

It's ridiculous.  I think.  To leave work like this — before my shift has even really started.  To leave my car behind and go to my parent's house to nothing.

But I don't think Tobias knows where else to take me, and I don't want to end this, so I open his car door before he can change his mind.

—

"Tobias?"

His car smells clean, like mints, like him. I'm instantly less nervous, less wired on the events of this morning.

I don't know when Tobias became a comfort.

But I'd like — eventually to be the same for him.

"I can't. Oliver. I just...." His music is playing softly, something different — familiar, this time. I relax to the rhythm, lean my head against the window, feel like I could fall asleep. "I'm not like you.  I don't know what to say."

"Okay."  I bite my lip, releasing it with a nod, "why don't you, um,"  I twist my seatbelt between my palms.  "think about it?  It doesn't have to be today.  It doesn't have to be ever.  I just... I'm here, is all."

Tobias is less relaxed. I can see his thumbs pressing into the steering wheel and skidding against the leather — and he cocks his head a bit to the side every once in a while like he's willing away a thought, clenches his jaw when he pulls up to a stop sign and has nothing to train his attention on.

"... You like The Smiths?" My voice is quiet with the sound of the car on gravel, but it doesn't stop his gaze from flickering over to me like I had startled him with the inquiry.  I wouldn't say I like watching him fidget, can't stand the thought that he might be thinking of Ms. Martin's words — and desperately want to camouflage the incident with a different topic.

He pauses, moves to turn the volume down — but I outstretch my hand at the same time to overlap him because I like The Smiths too. I feel his knuckles shift under mine, raised with scabs, and when he curls his hand upwards, around mine — he delivers a squeeze before he quickly drops it.

"I'm sorry that I yelled."

I feel butterflies bloom in my chest, stomach rolling like we're traveling at high speed. But we're not, it's a slow drive down the backroads to work, and dawn hasn't broken yet — the stars still making an effort to shine in the dark remnants of the night before.

"But.  What if she fires you?" Tobias whispers, finally. "You just — left."

I can see his eyes narrowing, gaze flickering down to his hand and back out the window like he can't figure out why he did what he just did.

I shrug.

For some reason, Ms. Martin being down two bakers before the crack of dawn doesn't bother me at all. Maybe — I'm just as tired as Tobias.

"This band played on my first field trip," I tell him, instead, because I want to soothe whatever hurts. "What about you?"

Tobias' eyes shift to the cassette player and back up towards the sky.

He hesitates.

"... It was my dad's tape," Tobias curls his hand around the steering wheel slowly, like he's thinking carefully about why he's divulging that information with me at all.   Finally, he loses whatever battle he's fighting and opts for the distraction. "...We used to listen to it in Rhodan."

"Rhodan?"  His dad.  He gives a curt shake of his head, "you lived there with him?"

"... Not Richard."  There's no emotion to it, none at all. He means the family he has before; he's always so desperate to clarify that. "I lived there with my parents."

I've never met his biological father, never really heard much of him.

I nod,

"Did he give it to you?"

"He left my mom a car when he sent us off," he shrugs, "Tape still in it. She threw it in the trash... but I dug it out."

I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that. I thought maybe it had been a gift, a present — something to remind him of his father in his absence.  Not a sad keepsake that he longed for enough to slight his mother.

I lift my head, feel more sympathy for the man next to me than I should.

"... It must mean a lot, then."

"It doesn't. It's a tape from the trash — that's all it is," He laughs when he sees my expression, and it's low and dry, "I like The Smiths. Not everything has a beautiful story, Oliver.  It's just a tape. I like it."

"Don't do that," I lean back in my seat and eye him skeptically from where he watches the road, "You can say you miss him — you know that, right? You can tell me things."

"... I don't miss him," Tobias twists his scarred hands against the steering wheel, "Really. He wasn't the type you'd miss."

"Oh." I worry my lip for a minute, chase the fog that's gathering on his window with my hand,  "Do you ever talk to him?"

"No,"  he pulls up to the stoplight next to Mrs. Hartgrove's.  "He died a couple of years ago."

Before I can even hate myself for thinking I've said something brazenly insensitive, he clicks his tongue, rights himself with a sigh — like he's forgotten I'm there.

"Guess I should have tried to talk to him, but,"  Tobias shakes his head,  "I thought it'd hurt my mom."

Tobias seems tenser now, like his thoughts have traveled to something long past — like he's having a hard time composing his emotions like he usually does. I don't know how I always manage to do that to him —

To say the worst thing.

The sky is starting to lighten, folds of blue in front of us. I try to think of what it must be like to be him, to have done everything for the sake of the family he has left.

"Do you regret it?" I know it's a personal thing to ask, but I can't help but wonder. I think of my own dad and think of how much my heart hurts at the thought of losing him — of getting into some sort of fight before his death, "or um — do you really think it would've hurt her feelings if you talked to him?"

"I don't dwell on things I can't fix," He shrugs, "and he let us go." Tobias' shoulders square in the slightest bit, a brazen protectiveness crowding into him. "I thought when he died; he'd leave Mom something, help her — he knows how hard she's had it."

"How hard has she had it?" I glance towards him. "I don't — I don't know much about her."

"Hard enough," Tobias shrugs. "Hard enough that I guess I don't feel so guilty that he died without a goodbye."

I tug at the hem of my shirt, folding it into small segments between my fingertips tightly.

"Was it — was your mom sad?"

Tobias nods, eyes slide over the road,

"She still loved him. Yeah. She was — sad."

"Think he still loved her?"

"Nah, he found some twenty-year-old that he wanted to fuck — because, usually, that's what love boils down to," Tobias chuckles low and off pitch, but it turns into a deep frown,

"... Then you ended up here."

"My mom couldn't find a job.  I don't really know how hard she tried,"  his face falls a little, then hardens the more he seems to think about it, "she loves love.  It's all she cares about."

I feel my grip on the seatbelt loosen.

"So she married the town fuck-all who smiled at her a couple of times, had a bit of money, and didn't care that she had baggage. Worked out, huh?"

I think of how Tobias calls himself baggage and cringe, think of what has to happen before a kid could've thought of himself that way.

"You're not baggage."

"Don't, Oliver." He twists the steering wheel to the side, pulls us into town, "you don't have to read into everything like that."

"Well," I swallow, "Well, do you think your dad," I pause, think better of it.  Tobias touches my leg, then retreats,

"Do I think what?"

"He missed out."  I stare at my shoelaces. "Maybe he just — loved that other woman — Just couldn't help it. And he missed out."

"You romanticize a lot of things," He bellows a short slip of laughter like he's happy his father didn't get away scot-free, didn't end up in a relationship better than he had with his wife and son. "He didn't love her — think he wanted to fuck her. The two are separate things."

I feel my stomach drop, think about the words he'd said the night on my front lawn. Suddenly they didn't seem like a confirmation of anything, and it shouldn't make my heart sink the way it is, but apparently, my emotions don't know that.

"Would you?" I let myself stare at him, watch his face carefully. I know my eyes are narrowed, know he knows what I'm talking about, "Would you fuck someone you didn't care about?"

Tobias pulls up into my empty driveway and parks up close to the front porch. He takes a moment, lifts his head after he puts his car into park. He watches me, lets his head drop back against the headrest.

"I know what you're asking me."  His brows lift.

I frown.

"So answer, then."

"When I was younger, I might have," his dark eyes travel over my home, in front of where we've parked, then back to me, "I wouldn't now."

It isn't enough, isn't clear enough for me. I swallow, try to still my shaking hands,

"Then what about — you said,"  I cut myself off, know he knows what I meant to say anyway. I'm scared if I blink, I won't know if he's lying. He isn't the type to, regardless,

"I also said that I wanted to kiss you."  He smiles, small and wry.

"And you did." I grit my teeth before waving towards myself, "But. What about me — me, as a person?  Do you really not want anything from me — like you said, in the bakery?"

Tobias turns his head like he isn't going to answer, like he's going to leave the question as it is —  drive away, into his new life, and pretend we haven't talked a bit about anything that we have.

He stops himself, though, almost like it's a disservice to avoid what I've asked him. He unbuckles his seatbelt but holds the strap before it can pull back into place, wipes his hand across his face with a sigh,

"I want a lot more than I should. I want more than I'll probably ever have.  And I — I know I would do something stupid to be with you," he watches the sky, "in that way, I'm like my mom."

"You're not like your mother."  I turn towards him.  "And that's why — you're going to go where you need to go," I bite the inside of my lip. "And get out of here.  You can just — see me. When you want to. When you want a lot."

Tobias' gaze shifts to mine.  He looks so open, like this.  He hesitates to reach again, but eventually does, tucking a wayward curl behind my ear.

"I always want a lot."

"Good.  Then I'll be seeing you." I whisper. My eyes don't leave my shoelaces. "I'm going to go inside now. You can think about it — but... Come visit me. Whenever you think about me or whatever."

I unlatch my seatbelt, cheeks hot. But Tobias reaches out and snags the back of my t-shirt.  I fluster, awkwardly turning back,

"My lease doesn't start until month ends." He says. It doesn't sound like he's asking me a question. "I'll be here.  Yeah? I just... I'll come see you."

--

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