Page 36 of Last Man Standing

Finally, the bathroom door opens, and my lungs choose right now to stop functioning altogether. I bring my shoulders high, my head low, press my elbows to the counter, and though I have my markers and notebook spread out in front of me, I can’t even find the effort to use them. Instead, I pick up my silent phone, swipe the screen unlocked, and tap-tap-tap at nothing.

Something to keep my hands busy. Anything to give the impression I’m not on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Sebastion wanders this way, hesitating at the entryway for a single beat of my heart, but then he starts forward again and smacks the coffee machine with a kind of morning violence that speaks to my soul.

He’s large; I’m small.

He’s militant; I clean houses for a living.

He enjoys being a jerk; and besides my behavior these past three weeks, I prefer it when people remember me as kind.

His world and mine are opposites, but our cave-dwelling inability to function in any normal capacity before coffee…? I can relate to that.

“Mornin’.” He grunts out the single word and snatches a mug from the cupboard above his head. Or, well, the cupboard in front of his face, since he’s head and shoulders taller than the average human being. Slamming the mug beneath the coffee spout, he leaves it there to catch steaming liquid, and while he waits, he presses his hands to the counter and stares… stares… stares.

Like he thinks he can intimidate the machine into working faster.

Picking up my cooling coffee, I take a sip and inhale its delicious scent.

“We’re back to that again, huh?” Grumpy, Sebastion takes a second mug, steals the first, slaps the replacement under the spout, and brings what little piping hot liquid he has to his lips.

Turning to face me, he rests against the counter and folds just one arm across his chest while he studies me over the top of his mug. “Not like I considered you my best friend or anything, but I thought we bonded, Princess. I thought we were cool. But now I don’t even get a response when I greet you this morning?”

“Don’t call me Princess.” I sip my perfectly warm coffee and save my taste buds, unlike my silly soldier, then I force my lips into a smirk and hate how his eyes narrow in response. He’s too perceptive. Too eager to test my boundaries. “I suppose I considered your greeting rhetorical. Sounded kinda mechanical, like it didn’t require a reply.”

He grunts again and chugs his coffee. “I say hey, I expect a hey back. Won’t cry about it or anything, but basic manners apply when we spend time amongst basic society.”

“Well, shoot. I thought we were still living amongst the apes, since you spend all your time grabbing your dick and beating your chest.” I lock my phone and place my cup back on the counter. Setting one foot on the floor, I twist and pray this is it for us today. We spoke, we didn’t even fight, and no one pulled anyone’s hair. This is as good as things are gonna get for us. If we don’t cut it off right here, we risk losing it all to our bad attitudes. “Kitchen’s all yours, Boot.”

Dammit, Scarlett!

Shoving forward and circling the island, Sebastion comes to an abrupt stop in front of me. He crowds my space and makes it impossible for me to keep going unless I want to try that knife-in-the-eye-socket thing. “What are your plans for today?”

Surprised, I drag my eyes up, over broad hips, wide shoulders, and then past the cranky lines he forces his lips into.

I lift a single brow in question. “What?”

“Your plans.” He’s still grunting. “We’ve got a whole day to waste, and doing nothing is turning my brain to mush. So, I’m asking what you’re planning to do.”

“Oh, well…” I nibble on my thumbnail and focus on this, the ten minutes of agony he experiences each morning, right after waking up, but before the caffeine hits his veins, instead of the slick, sick ache burning in my stomach. “I thought I’d spend a couple of hours staring at my bedroom wall. I noticed a hairline crack in the paint, and though I can’t be completely sure, I think it’s a smidge bigger than it was last week.”

His eyes narrow to slits.

“After that, I noticed Nova owns a five-thousand-piece impossible puzzle, so I figured I could dedicate an hour or two to contemplating suicide while I gave it a swing.”

Unimpressed, his mildly perturbed scowl transforms into a definitely irritated sneer.

“Then, if I still have time leftover, I thought I could stuff my face with macaroni and cheese-topped pizza scrolls until my stomach hangs over the front of my pants, and since doing that only requires one hand, I’m free to doom scroll Reddit threads to see if anyone else solved the impossible puzzle.” I peek at the clock on the wall and nod. “I’d say that’ll do me for today. What about you?” I force fake cheerfulness into my every word. “Do you like puzzles?”

“No.” He grunts. “But I can teach you some new stuff in the shed today.”

“Pass.” I step around him, my eyes clinging to the door. “But thanks for the offer.”

He latches onto my wrist and yanks me to a sharp stop. “It’s good for you to learn, Scarlett. Better to know it and not need it…”

“Than to need it and not have it?” I twist my arm and break his grip. “Been there, done that, maxed out my credit card paying for a therapist. Thanks, but I’m good now, Boot. Did my time in a gym, learned what I needed to learn. I doubt I’ll ever land my stupid ass in one of those kinds of wars again, but on the off chance I do, I’d say I’m all set.” I cross the kitchen before my headache has a chance to grow into a full-blown panic attack. “I won’t be using the shed today, so if you wanna go beat on a bag or something, the place is all yours.”

He turns.