Sin
“So, this is your happy place,” Dorian comments. I’m in my workshop once again, and it’s late into the night. My eyeballs started burning a couple of hours ago and my legs ache with the need to move, but I’m pushing right on through.
We’re cutting dangerously close to the deadline before we have to leave the cabin and I still have another ten device’s innards to tweak and to add my magic to them.
They dragged a couple of squishy chairs in here and are now splayed out on them. While I’m used to working alone, I have to admit it’s nice having them here, even if it’s weird having their eyes on me.
Micah is a constant cheerful light, and Cal is steady and quiet. Both of them seem to enjoy watching me work and they’re helpful to bounce ideas off whenever I get stuck. Plus, they drag me out whenever I lose track of time and forget to eat anything more than snacks. Then there’s Dorian, who barges in whenever he feels like it and forces me away from my workbench if he thinks I’m working too hard.
Even Iri’s been popping by every day without fail. He always has a ton of notes and thoughts to share over my designs, working out the kinks in my ideas. He doesn’t seem to mind that my mind often works best at two in the morning and he sits and listens to everything I say before adding his opinions.
“Have you always been into fixing things up like this?” Dorian asks.
I twist my screwdriver and hum softly, considering his words. “Yeah. I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with things. Taking them apart and then putting them back together. When I was about ten, I took every appliance we had to pieces and then cleaned them up.”
Mostly because everything we had was at least third-hand and shitty. Nothing ever worked right, and I got fed up with having our power short out because we couldn’t afford anything better.
“Where’s your happy place?” I ask them, my eyes darting between them in interest.
Micah cocks his head to one side, long hair spilling across his shoulders as he ponders the question. “It used to be on stage. The roar of the crowd. The overwhelming sound and the sense of anticipation and connection. That was where I finally felt like I was floating instead of drowning.” He shoots me a shy smile. “Now though, I guess my happy place could be anywhere, thanks to you.”
Gah. This guy’s so damn sweet. He has my cheeks flushing with zero effort.
“Cal?”
My Orc grumbles softly from his spot by the wall, where he’s alternating between watching me closely and replying to an email from his sisters. “Not sure how I can follow that, Sin. The mountains will always be home. I never felt another place would give me that same warmth here—” He pounds his chest. “—but watching you work does something to me. Blows my mind. I get the same feeling playing drums as I do watching you get engrossed in your work.”
I can’t stop myself from smiling at him in return.
Seriously, before I met these guys, I think I was maxing out at a smile a week. Now, though, I’m a grinning fool.
Cal might not think he’s good with words, but he just expressed the same weird experience I have whenever I watch them practice.Seeing the four of them losing themselves in the music, playing for themselves and their pleasure only, it’s like nothing else. There’s nothing sexier than someone passionate about something, doing that thing well.
Iri appears in the doorway with a pile of water bottles in his arms, which he hands out to each of us.
“Evening, Sin,” his low voice murmurs. “One small thing for today is that I regret giving my mother this address.” He chuckles softly. “My big thing is that I’m nervous about the tour kicking off and that it won’t be enough.”
That’s the new game that he’s started over the past week. At least once per day, he shares two things about his day or about himself, every time there’s one big and one small.
Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad. Other times, they’re wacky as hell.
And I find myself sharing something back. It took me a minute when he started doing it one day without explanation, but then I realized he was trying to get to know me while also telling me about himself.
It’s kind of weird, but I like it.
I think for a moment, tapping my chin as I go through all the stuff in my head I haven’t shared before. “Uh, my small thing is that I never learned to swim. My big thing is that I haven’t heard from my mom since I left The Path and... I don’t feel sad about it.”
He nods seriously, and it seems like he’s making a mental note and settles down on the floor, resting his back against the wall.
The others are all as exhausted as I am, but there’s a kind of simplistic perfection to the late night hours in this cabin. I tinker for a while longer until I can’t keep my eyes open. There’s something deeply relaxing having the four of them here, this quiet togetherness of being all in one room.
I soak up the feeling while I can since pretty soon, we have to leave the cabin.
And everything is going to change.
OVER THE FOLLOWINGdays, I get so lost in the whirlwind of activity and final bits of preparation that somehow, the end of our time in the cabin creeps up on me.
And then before I know it, we’re packing up the car and getting ready to go on the road again.
