It's a fact that you can't help who you fall in love with. And for Rosaline Davenport and him, it definitely shouldn't have been each other.
Because, sometimes, love stories have blood on them.
[warning: this is the mother of all slow-burns]
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【 21.
Twenty-One
Gholi 】
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[ Gholi • bullet ]
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SEBASTIAN HAWTHORNE WIPES down the gun with a luster cloth, the flannel-like fabric containing silicon lubricant removing any debris or acid from the metallic surface and adding a shine to it.
“I hate those things,” Mehreen’s voice pipes up from the entrance of the garage. Her eyes are on the shiny object in Sebastian’s hands, but they look sad. Not hateful. Not angry.
“I know,” he sighs, placing the gun down against all the newspapers he covered the workspace with when he began disassembling the firearm in order to give it a proper cleaning. “That’s why I do it in the garage.”
Mehreen wrinkles her nose. “You do it in the garage because all that solvent and lubricant stink all the way to hell, and you can’t have the foul smell flooding the house.”
His lips inch up into a smile, “And also because you don’t like them.”
“And you wouldn’t dare get your work space in your study dirty. Hence, the garage.”
Sebastian eases back into the chair and twists the smile into a smirk instead, “Not get my study dirty? Forgetting all the times we’ve done each other in there, love?”
Mehreen shoots him an unimpressed look and it only causes him to laugh. “But, really,” he says, sobering up. “Mostly because I know you don’t like guns.” He shrugs and picks up an old towel nearby, wiping the grease on his fingers and then subtly drops the cloth over the gun to cover it. He knows his wife must have noticed the gesture, if the softness in her eyes is any indication—but Sebastian chooses to not comment on it.
“Sometimes, it’s a little ironical,” Mehreen says, stepping further into the garage and walking towards Sebastian. “That our Zach would choose to get into the weapons industry out of everything.”
Sebastian props up an elbow on the thin arm of the leather-and-metal folding chair, and then balances his chin atop his fist, watching his wife.
“That’s the difference right there,” he tells her, “You look at it as him getting in the weapons industry. He always calls it the defence industry.”
Mehreen sighs and sinks down on his lap, leaning her body into his firm chest. “Semantics, Seb.”
“Intent, Mehreen,” he argues gently, but firmly. “Both of you learnt very different things that day. You still see the madman with the gun, firing bullet after bullet into the crowd. He still sees the unarmed people running for their lives and getting shot down because nobody there had anything to defend themselves with.”
