Chapter Text
Veth wasn’t following him.
Well. She wasn’t not following him, but that was only because he’d headed in the same direction as her and she was suspicious. Curious. Same thing.
But, to be fair, Veth had a right to be suspicious when she saw Caleb’s car pulling into the high school parking lot. Caleb was an enigma. It’s what made him impossible to stop thinking about, and what had put her in this position to begin with—she didn’t know a damn thing about him, as it turned out, and that mattered if he was going to be spending time around her son.
She trailed behind him by at least three cars, and, trying not to be too conspicuous, pulled into a space on the opposite side of the lot from him. Not that he wasn’t a perceptive sort. She doubted he’d missed her presence, but it was better to keep her distance. Any closer and she might just start forgiving him.
It wasn’t easy staying mad at him, but she had to draw the line somewhere, didn’t she? And that line had to be at some kind of shadowy past he refused to divulge that had the potential to catch Luc in its crosshairs. Right?
That’s what she told herself when she was lying awake at night, kicking herself for walking away after their first—and only—kiss. She was being practical, and this distance between them was to protect Luc. That had to matter more than her personal feelings.
There was a sharp rap at her window and Veth jumped. The knocking continued without pause, which was a dead giveaway as to who it was even more than her pretty blue skin or the white, fluffy earmuffs settled on her head.
Veth rolled down the window. It was the only way to get her to stop knocking. “What’s up, Jessie?” She asked.
“Oh, you know,” Jester said, leaning on the window frame. “Helping to set up for the school dance and all that. But what are you doing here? There hasn’t been a murder, has there?” Her eyes shined with eagerness and interest. There was no one more keen to know what was going on with Veth’s investigations than Jester, and Veth would be lying if she said she didn’t often indulge her. After all, what were best friends for?
“Not yet,” Veth said with a mischievous smile. “But you never know, do you? High schools. Hot beds for all kinds of crime.”
Jester tipped her head back and forth, her horns coming perilously close to scratching the paint on Veth’s car. “Hm, I don’t know, it’s less fun if a teenager is murdered, I think.”
“Oh, I agree,” Veth said. “My son goes to school here, that would suck. A teacher, though…”
“That’s drama,” Jester agreed, and laughed softly. “If you’re not on the job, what are you doing here? Luc isn’t in trouble, is he?”
Veth’s eyes flickered back toward the parking lot, as if she’d be able to see Caleb’s car from here. “Ah, no, no. I was just—”
Jester gasped. “Did you see Caleb pull in? I saw him when I was coming out.” Her voice pitched high, conspiratorial, a wide grin splitting her face. “It’s okay. You can tell me. I already know you two have your…thing.”
Veth shushed her and then jerked a thumb at the passenger’s seat. Not wasting a second, Jester scurried around the car and slipped inside, leaning over to rest her elbows on arm rest, half on top of the gear shift.
“Have you seen him?” Jester whispered. “You know, since that day?”
“Of course I’ve seen him,” Veth whispered back. She didn’t know why they were whispering—there was no one else around—but this felt like the kind of thing you couldn’t discuss at full volume. “You know, we see each other on the streets and I say hi and he says hi and then I walk away because that’s what I have to do. So.”
Jester poked Veth in the arm. “But you’re here right now. Where he is. Even though you have no other reason to be here. ”
“I just want to know what he’s doing at the school,” Veth insisted. “You know, Luc really loved working at his shop, but that doesn’t seem like a great idea right now…considering how things ended. And I just don’t want Luc to get his hopes up about going back.”
Veth bit her lip. She didn’t like lying to her best friend, and, in fact, would rather classify this as withholding. It’s just that…whatever was going on with Caleb’s past, it was clearly something personal, not to mention private. Veth would rather give her friend an abridged series of events and lean on the personal awkwardness between her and Caleb to explain why she didn’t think Luc should be around him right now. It didn’t make for the most cohesive story, but if Jester realized that, she hadn’t said anything.
Jester nodded sagely. “I also would follow someone to my son’s school and then creepily watch them from a distance in that case. And it definitely would have nothing to do with any other feelings I may be having after I stupidly walked away from him when he kissed me the first time. Why did you do that, again?”
Veth rolled her eyes and slumped back into her seat. “Have you ever considered minding your own business?”
“No, because this is the guy,” Jester said fervently. “Your guy. That means it is my business. What kind of friend would I be if let you—”
The sound of a polite throat clearing cut Jester off and made Veth jump for a second time in the last five minutes. It was starting to get a little embarrassing.
Worse: it was Caleb. His expression betrayed nothing, but Veth doubted she was lucky enough to think he might not have heard any of that.
“Oh, hi, Caleb,” Jester said sweetly, waving to him.
“Hallo, Jester,” he greeted her sedately with a single nod, one hand resting on top of the rolled-down window like he was a little worried Veth might try putting it up to avoid this. She wasn’t above that, actually, and hated that he knew it.
“Oh my gosh,” Jester said, holding up her empty wrist like she was looking at an invisible watch. “Would you look at the time? I promised Mama I would pick her up something from the diner and you know how Caduceus gets when you’re late for your order, so…” Gracelessly, she slid out of the passenger’s seat, ignoring the panicked look Veth sent her way. “I’ll catch up with you two later, okay?”
Veth shook her head, letting her go. “Fucking Jester,” she muttered under her breath as the car door slammed shut behind her.
“Ah, don’t blame her,” Caleb said mildly, a small smile playing on his lips. “Blame me. I am the one who interrupted.”
“Yeah, but…yeah,” she said, looking up at him.
He looked good. That wasn’t saying much—he always looked good, even when his beard got scruffy and late nights spent reading left him with drooping under-eye bags. He was always a little unkept, a little out of sorts, but she liked that about him. Sometimes she wished she could be like that, a little less self-conscious, a little braver to be unabashedly what she was. If he could be a tired armchair scholar who spent his days setting off prestidigitation lights inside his Christmas shop, what’s to say she couldn’t be a serious detective running around in garishly hand-embroidered jeans covered in flowers and buttons? She supposed she always could be that, but when he was there it made her want to be louder. Bolder. Herself.
“Speaking of interrupting,” Caleb continued, pushing loose strands of red hair out of his face. His ponytail was slowly unraveling, but he wasn’t pausing to fix it. “May I speak with you for a moment?’
She winced. She had been trying to avoid this, though clearly not very well. “Yeah, yeah, of course,” she said anyway, popping open the door and slipping out.
In the car or on her feet, Veth was still staring up at him. Caleb was tall, at least compared to her, but it never felt like he towered over her. Well, at least not in an unsexy way. She vividly recalled the one time when he had towered over her and it had been one of the hottest moments of her life, one that she, of course, immediately ruined right after. Looking up at him now, she could hear Jester’s voice in her head, asking why exactly she had done that.
Oh, right. Because he was lying to her about something dangerous. Because he didn’t trust her enough to believe she’d stick around no matter what. And because she had her son’s welfare to think about, too.
Caleb paused before speaking, clasping his hands in front of him as if in search of answers. “Why,” he started slowly, “are you here, exactly, Veth?”
She blinked. “What, am I not allowed to visit my son’s school?”
“Nein, that is not what I said,” Caleb said. “But you followed me here. I was under the impression we were hardly on speaking terms, which I assumed meant we were not on stalking terms, either.”
Veth’s mouth dropped open and she gave a single, indignant squeak. “I am not stalking you, Caleb,” she said, though she absolutely had been. “I have a right to be curious about what you’re doing at my son’s school. You know there is a reason why Luc isn’t working at the shop anymore.”
Caleb’s jaw worked. “I am aware,” he said. “But I am here because I was dropping off decorations for the dance. Jester asked if I had anything to donate. It was a favor for her. That is all.”
Veth’s mouth snapped shut. Of course that’s all it had been. What had she been expecting, exactly? That Caleb was hanging out with her son behind her back? That was ridiculous. “Oh,” she said, feeling just a little bit foolish. “Well. That’s very nice of you, then.”
“Right,” he said with a sigh, hanging his head and rubbing the back of his neck. “Veth…”
“I should go,” she said, rushing to interrupt him. Whatever he was going to say, she didn’t want to hear it. Her resolve was hard enough to keep as it was. She popped the car door open, getting ready to escape.
“Wait, wait,” Caleb said, holding up a hand. “Before you go…I, uh, I did run into Luc. He was asking if he could come back to the shop.”
“Oh,” Veth said, loosening her grip on the door. “I’m—I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“That is what I tried to explain to him,” Caleb said wearily. “I just wanted to let you know that he was asking.”
“Okay,” Veth said, a strange emptiness moving in her chest. Regret, maybe? Regret that things had to be this way. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“And Veth?”
“Yeah?”
He hesitated, fingers twitching against the shell of his shearling coat. “My door is always open. For you, and for the boy. I hope you know that.”
“Has anything changed?” She asked desperately, looking back at him. “Anything at all?”
“You don’t want to know who I was,” Caleb said, expressionless.
Veth deflated. “Then nothing’s changed, I guess.”
“I wish I could say I’m sorry,” Caleb said.
“You’re not?” She asked, trying not to show how much that hurt.
His brow furrowed, the slightest twist of pain in his face giving him away. “I’m sorry that this has come between us. I’m not sorry that you don’t know the rest.”
“Okay,” Veth said with finality. That was that, she supposed. “Then I guess I’ll see you. Or not.”
He made a soft noise of distress, like there were words trapped in his throat he just couldn’t get out. But when she turned away and got back in the car, he didn’t move to stop her and he had nothing clever to say to make her stay and listen. Instead, all he said was a quiet, “I’ll see you, Veth Brenatto.”