Chapter Text
The bell above the door jingled and I looked up from the cup of English Breakfast I was fixing myself. The Hatter’s was empty save for myself and my business partner, Bucky the Maine Coon, who was glaring at the newcomer from the top of the bookcase which housed the boxes of tea for sale. The man who entered the shop was of average height but broad-shouldered beneath his grey peacoat. His brown hair was long and covered most of his face, but as he turned his head, I caught sight of tendrils of scars hiding beneath the hair. His eyes locked with mine as he approached the counter. They were blue-grey and I couldn’t decide if they were attractive or unnerving. “Hi,” I said, smiling my usual tea room smile. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”
The guy nodded and looked up at the chalkboard on the wall above my head. “A London Fog would be great.”
“Sure.” His voice was very deep, a little rough, and unbearably sexy. I set about preparing his London Fog, pouring boiling water into a mug with the Earl Grey tea in a tea ball. “Feel free to look around. Let me know if I can get you a pastry or a cup of soup or anything.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could sense him beginning to move about the tea room as I frothed the milk and vanilla. I was just pulling the tea ball from his mug and setting it aside when he asked, “What’s your cat’s name?”
I looked over my shoulder and saw him reaching up to let Bucky sniff at his hand. Bucky seemed hesitant, but deigned to take a sniff. “Bucky. He’s my business partner.”
“Nice. I hope he doesn’t take care of your bookkeeping.”
“No, but he is my manager. Be careful. He likes tea and he has a habit of stealing when you’re not looking.” I brought his London Fog to the counter and he walked back to me to accept it. “Is there anything else I can get you right now?”
“This is great. Thanks.” He smiled as he met my gaze and it changed his whole face. Suddenly, he was boyish and probably funny when he put the effort in. I could also see now that he wasn’t nearly as old as I would have first guessed. He certainly wasn’t older than me and I was twenty-five. He wrapped his hands around the mug and I watched him, noting the pink and silver scars on his left hand. He must have caught me looking because he clammed right up and made to move stiffly towards the armchairs by the fireplace.
I bit my lip and thought for a moment. I knew what it felt like to constantly have people staring at you, thinking of you as some poor broken thing, something worthy of pity but not love. Very deliberately, I rolled up my sweater to my elbows, exposing my sleeves of tattoos, and grabbed my English Breakfast, walking slowly around the counter. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” I asked. “Wednesdays are always quiet and I could use the company.”
He looked up from his tea in surprise. “Um, yeah. Sure.” I gave him another smile and deliberately took the armchair on his left side without looking at the scars. I stared into the fire and sipped my tea, feeling him watching me. Finally, he said, “I love your tattoos. Full sleeves?”
I nodded. Carefully, I set my tea down on the coffee table and faced him, holding my arms out so he could see the tattoos all the way around. He set down his tea as well and peered at the tattoos, his fingertips very gently turning my arms over, as if afraid to touch me. His fingers were cold, probably from the autumn wind outside, but they didn’t give me chills. He tipped his head to one side and looked up and down my forearms again. “Beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling. “Usually when guys see them, their only response is to ask where else I have them.”
The guy laughed once, the accompanying smile again transforming his face. He really was beautiful. It was too bad he hid it behind all that hair. “It usually takes me a few drinks before I can hit on a girl.”
I raised an eyebrow at him and smirked. “A handsome guy like you is too shy to flirt?”
The smile turned into a grimace and I immediately regretted the words. He released my arms and picked up his mug of tea again. “Yeah, well, I used to be a ladies’ man. But, when you look like this…” he waved his left hand briefly at me, showing off the scars. “Well, no one wants to flirt with Freddie Krueger.”
I suppose a lot of people wouldn’t have known the right thing to say to that. I was not one of those people. I shrugged, let my smile return, and reached out to clasp his hand. A jolt went through him, but he didn’t pull away. “Well, you’re welcome to flirt with me anytime, handsome, and I mean it.”
A blush broke out on his face and a small smile accompanied it. I squeezed his hand gently, then released it to grab my mug. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Ember. Yours?”
“Sebastian.”
“I haven’t seen you around before. Are you a tourist?”
He shrugged, peering down at his tea. “Something like that. I spent some time here years ago and I’m just in town for a few days to settle some things.” He took a long sip of his tea. “This is amazing.”
I beamed with pride. “Good. If you know how to make them at home, I have that brand of Earl Grey for sale here. I could give you a deal.”
“I might have to take you up on that.” Sebastian took another sip and I watched intently as he licked foam from his upper lip. “Are you from here originally?”
I shook my head. “Maine, up near Augusta. But my little brother was a student at Spenser’s. For years, all he wanted was to go to school there. He talked endlessly about it and about Ipswich. I felt like I knew this place better than I knew Augusta.” Sebastian had his full attention on me now and it made me a bit nervous, but we’d just been talking about how he couldn’t flirt with anyone anymore because of his scars. Who was I to hide mine? “Well, he got in five years ago. I moved here with him and started working at a coffeeshop downtown to get by. We’d never lived apart and didn’t want to start then. We were barely settled in and I got a phonecall at three in the morning.” Sebastian stiffened in shock, maybe from the story itself or maybe from the fact that I’d told him. Everyone in town knew who I was, though, and who my brother was. I’d gotten used to people knowing. “He was at a start of the year bonfire and overdosed. The police found him dead in his car. I didn’t even know he did drugs. It seemed so unlike him.” I shook my head, then, and took a sip of tea. “I can’t exactly argue with it, though. He’s dead either way.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sebastian said hoarsely.
“Don’t be. You didn’t have anything to do with it. Anyway, it didn’t feel right to leave the place he so wanted to be, the place I buried him. So, I stayed.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
I shrugged. “There really wasn’t much to the rest of my family. My mother left when I was five and my father was an ass who expected too much. Nothing was good enough for him. For Dan, my brother, that pushed him to be better. It just pushed me away.”
Sebastian grumbled, then said lowly, “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”
“Your father was a pusher too?”
He nodded. “My mother too. They drove me half-mad. I was never good enough, never. I don’t think they ever actually loved me, even. They adopted me when I was two and they loved to remind me that I wasn’t really theirs.”
I looked down into my tea, hearing my father’s shouts in my head. “I hear you. Did you get out?”
“In a way.” He looked into the fire, his eyes glazing over. “They died in a car accident when I was eighteen. I still don’t know whether I regret that or not.”
“You can’t let the past own you. My father didn’t think I’d amount to anything. He once told me the only way I’d earn a living was on a street corner.” I gestured at the tea room around us. “Now I own my own business, I have an apartment upstairs that’s mine, I have friends here in town, I even go on a date on a rare occasion. I have a life and it’s pretty good and my past has nothing to do with what I have now.”
Sebastian studied me for a long time before nodding slowly. “That’s really good advice. And, for what it’s worth, I really admire you.”
That stunned me. A hot blush rushed to my cheeks and I tightened my hands on my mug. “You mean that?”
He nodded, his eyes sharp, his face sincere. “Yeah. I know how hard it is to do anything without a support system. And you did all of this with no one’s help. That’s awesome.”
“Thanks.” I bit my lip and looked to the fire, then back to him. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. I loved my brother and he loved me, but even he never said anything like that to me.”
“That’s rotten. You’ve earned it and I do mean it.” Sebastian took a final long sip of his tea, then set the empty mug down. “What do I owe you?”
A smile crept into my face. “That depends. How long did you say you’re in town?”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me, a hint of a smile reaching his lips. “Just a few days. Why?”
I shrugged. “Well, if you’re still around on Friday night, you can buy me dinner and we’ll be square.”
A slow grin entered Sebastian’s expression, the kind of grin that, if I could see his whole face, would probably be a total panty-dropper. “I suppose I could stay through Friday.”
I gave him a grin of my own. “Then I’ll see you here at six, handsome.”
He blushed again, but the grin didn’t fade.