Love At First Text ✔️

Him

"What's going on with you two?" Charlotte asked, low, intending for only Sebastian to hear. He watched her attention flick briefly to the ginger girl laughing with her friends – his friends – as she tried to hold a bottle of spirits over her head.

Sebastian was slow stirring his own cocktail. He was far from amused. So much so, he forgot to reply to Charlotte.

Elijah nudged him, his lifted brow conveying a message to 'knock it off'. He wasn't sure what he was doing wrong, but he conceded regardless, looking down at the bar. "Seriously?" Char pressed, not to mock, but out of sincere concern. "Have you two had a fight?"

"No." Seb shrugged, but then he faltered. "I don't think so, at least."

"Come on. Talk to me. What's been said that's made you the biggest misery gut I've ever seen?" Charlotte nudged Sebastian softly with her shoulder. Since her engagement, she seemed to have mellowed somewhat. He didn't want to hold the circumstances entirely responsible, but he planned to thank Elijah for it anyway.

Seb let his gaze drift back over to Eden. Since they'd arrived, she'd hardly said two words to him, and it didn't settle fondly with him. She wasn't outright ignoring him, but she was different. He couldn't even put it down to the pressure of company. It had been her request to have them all join, and the last time they were all together, she'd spoke to him no problem. This time, she didn't seem to consider it, and he hated that.

"Stop brooding." Elijah grumbled, hitting Sebastian lightly on the head with a stirrer. "You look like you're going to go Beast mode and lock her up in a lonely castle for the rest of her life."

"I knew you hadn't fallen asleep." Charlotte grinned victoriously.

Elijah wasn't impressed. "Hard to, with you and Ez in either ear signing at the top of your lungs."

"I'm not brooding." Sebastian argued, but the reality of it was that he most definitely was. He wanted to know why she wasn't speaking to him or standing beside him. He also wanted to know why the fact she wasn't turned the contents of his stomach. "She's just being different."

"Is she?" Charlotte looked up at Eden. She wasn't convinced. "She seems her normal happy self."

"She is," Seb stretched to defend, sighing despondently. "She's just-" he trailed off.

Char lifted her head in a slow nod, something akin to a smile pulling at her lips. "Ah. Different with you."

He neither agreed nor disagreed, but Charlotte was right. Eden had been different with him, for the past week now. Her replies come hours later, and even then, they were clipped and blunt. Far more than what they ever used to be. She was always too busy for a phone call, and she suddenly seemed overwhelmed with uni work, as though she didn't spend every evening keeping on top of it. Then, he'd asked to take her out, and she'd asked for everyone else to tag along. Not for company, he realised when they arrived. A buffer.

He wasn't sure what had changed – he knew when it had started. After their last date. Except, he couldn't understand why. She said she was fine, that they were only friends, and she knew that. He thought honesty would have been better. Nat said as much. But if she was fine with it, then why was she reacting this way? Was Natalie right, and he'd been blind to see that Eden had not taken heed to his warning?

The chime of a phone pulled him from his reverie, and he watched as Eden fished her phone from her pocket, smiling at the caller ID. "Hi Caleb. Two seconds." She flashed an apologetic look at Zoya and the rest, and then hurried over to a quieter corner.

"Relax your jaw. You're going to chip a tooth." Charlotte mused, pressing her index finger into Seb's clenched muscles. He looked at her, noticed the twitch of a supressed smile. He didn't have the time to comment on it, for Char seemed far more interested in dominating the conversation. "So, who's Caleb?"