Love At First Text ✔️

Him

It was later than Sebastian had ever stayed at work. Of course, his overtime wasn't unusual, but it was already pulling close to six, and he was making no effort too start packing up. For as long as Karl didn't mention it – he thought he could well stay here into the next morning.

He didn't want to go home. It only meant he'd have nothing to focus on. He'd end up drinking for the simple matter of having something to do, and then he'd think of her, and everything he'd done wrong, and he'd probably drunk text her a poorly spelled paragraph about how much he was sorry and how he wished things were different, and that it physically ached him every time he saw her because she was so beautiful, and so out of reach.

Staying at work was not doing much for keeping him distracted, either.

"You can go home, kid." Karl said, sitting with his knees spread, his jumper swallowing his bulked torso. He'd not done much work for the past half an hour. Instead, he had his phone in one hand, his bottle of lager in the other.

Seb raised a brow but said nothing. "I'm good. I'll stay till you want to get off."

Karl scoffed. "Might be a while yet. The mother-in-law is still round fussing over Elsie, and I'll be damned before I subject myself to a lecture on how to parent." His tone turned sour, and Sebastian decided then he wasn't ready to delve into that topic, but Karl didn't pick up on the hint. "I haven't ever felt rage before, until she told me I was burping her wrong. I know how to fucking burp her. She said it, not even a second after the kid belched like she was up for a world record. Then tells me I ain't swaddling her properly. You know how many fake dolls I wrapped up at those Lamaze classes? I know how to swaddle. Could do it in my fucking sleep."

"Sounds like a ballbuster." Sebastian mumbled.

He made a noise of agreement. "You don't know the half of it kid. She does my nut in. I put up with her, because she's Leah's mum, but I can't take another lecture. I'm gonna put my teeth through my tongue if I keep biting on it as hard as I am." He let his head drop back, knocking a toolbox slightly. "Sure you don't want to hear about this." He muttered, more to himself.

"You're alright. I don't mind." Sebastian did, in fact, mind.

"Nah. I'll keep quiet. Do appreciate the company though, mind." He raised his beer in gesture.

"Go easy. I'm here for the money. These holidays aren't going to pay for themselves."

"They are actually. You've booked them under paid leave." Karl commented, and Seb huffed a laugh at having been caught out on the lie. Thankfully, Karl didn't see the need to press for the reason behind Sebastian's overtime. "You all packed up for it?"

"There enough." He wasn't. In fact, he was hoping if he left it long enough, Charlotte would have a major rage and help him do it. He hated packing.

"Looking forward to it?"

"God no." Karl belly laughed. "Full weekend with my mum and dad? I'd rather work here for free for a week."

"Well, if you're offering," his boss trailed off, a chuckle of mirth tangled with his words.

"I'm not." Sebastian went back to his work, Karl to his phone. "Could do with the time away, either way."

Karl didn't lift his sights from his phone. "Aye? Got the weight of the world on your shoulders?"

"Close enough." He sighed.

He needed to get away, clear his head. Try his hardest to move Eden out of it, since she was living rent free there. So far, it hard proved impossible. He hoped that perhaps some sun and a sea breeze would help it along, but he was being wildly overoptimistic. There was no forgetting her. She was ingrained in his mind, his heart, his soul. Every joke he made, he thought of how she would laugh at it. Every flower he saw, he imagined her reaction to. He couldn't even look at the stray cats the same, because all he saw was her face, lit up with adoration.