The Blue House of 1478 (15) (Patreon)

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—

"Is Levi..."  I frown,  "the roommate?"

Matthias smiles in response, distracted by the pup beside him.

"Sit, girl."

Blue plops down beside Matthias obediently, blissfully unaware of the severity of the situation, dopily still wagging her tail from beside her owner — ah, one of her owners.

I make eye contact with her instead of the two men, feeling awkward and out of place.  Blue licks at the air, preoccupied with the sight of a butterfly fluttering near Levi's garden.

"Yes.  The roommate," Matthias takes a step, one of his hands sliding into his pocket, "and you deliver the paper?  For Sleep Birch Chronicles?"

I inhale, heart fluttery and suddenly insecure,

"Yeah."  I confirm, then quickly scrabble to add,  "I — write sometimes.  Too.  Some articles.  Sometimes."

"Hm.  This,"  The man waves his free hand towards me and my entirety, and then he turns his attention back to his still bewildered roommate, "This, this is Theodore Eldory."

I can't tell if it's a question or statement — or both.

He grins.  Levi shakes his head —

"It doesn't matter."  Levi turns, grabbing his gardening tools, "he's got work to do.  Let him go."

Matthias nods evenly, communicating more with his eyes than my unfamiliarity can dissect.

"I want him to be our roommate."

Levi rubs his temples with a short swipe of his thumb and middle finger, bright gaze narrowed and cutting.  He inhales as if he's considering something — then his demeanor shifts so quickly that it seems oddly...

Manufactured.

Like a wall.

He swings back to us,

"Yeah, for what reason?"  Levi shrugs, mean, his chin up,  "could he even afford to pay rent?  Think he puts care in a house better than he does in his job?"  His chest heaves and my insecurities swallow each blow with a returning, boiling anger, "I don't need..."

"Leviticus."

"I afford rent just fine, thanks."  I dive into the shitstorm, despite my better judgment, pissed — though something is off, I know it's off, but I can't stop.  I  turn back to the apologetic-looking brunette beside me,  "Sorry.  Deals off.  I didn't know you lived with Levi."

My line of sight slides to my borrowed, glaringly yellow child-sized bike.  Then down to my rainboots.  I can feel my now withered pride, and the heat of anger on my cheeks.

"Theodore.  It's obvious everyone is on the wrong foot,"  Matthias sounds patient.  Kind.  Calm.  "Let's all start over."

The whole situation is definitely going on my top ten humiliating moments, but who needs to know that?

I decide to cut off my filter completely.

Call it a defense mechanism.

"Sorry, but Levi is right."  My nose wrinkles,  "I'm not particularly religious, but I have no interest in living with fucking Satan."

Even though Matthias has a lovely face — downright worship-worthy, and that I'll probably never meet anyone as beautiful or friendly as him in Sleepy Birch ever; if he can stand rooming with Leviticus Blue, there's something seriously wrong with him.

"Props to you, must keep the heat very high to remind him of home," I continue, back-stepping twice, "I got to get going.  Happy roommate hunting to the two of you — and yes, Levi, that was a hell joke."

I hear Levi's sharp intake of air, and glance back just as his fist winds into my raincoat.  I have a very tiny, brief moment where I wish my brain-to-mouth filter included self-preservation, especially when Levi seems capable of jerking me towards him with limited use of his strength.

This is natural selection, I suppose.

"I want you to stay away from my fucking house,"  Levi hisses.  Matthias's eyebrows raise for a moment, perhaps at the extent of our hostility towards each other, which he shouldn't be if he's at all aware of Levi's absolute shit personality.  "My lawn.  Me.  Matthias.  Blue.  All of it."

He doesn't seem particularly worried that Levi is actually going to land a fist in my face, and that's reassuring, at least.

"... Uh oh," I smirk up at the strangely light-eyes man, and those eyes do narrow sharply, nose inches from mine as he tilts his head.  If I were smart, it might be frightening, "Or what?  Hm?  Are you going to attempt a chokehold again?"

"I'm —"

"You're pretty good at it. This time, we could pretend that I'm anywhere close to an even match for your 'I hit the gym to burn out the hate fire inside me' muscles.  It could boost your ego a bit more."

"... Spend a lot of time admiring my physique?"  Levi snarls, and I hesitate — struggling for a quick-witted quip, lost as I feel my face bloom with a blush.  "You seem to talk about it quite a bit."

" — Oh, only in my dreams,"  I finally spit back, swooning, raising my nose until it presses against his," Oh darling, oh honey, what would my eyes do without such a sight."

Levi's brows gather dangerously.

"I think it's time to stop,"  Matthias doesn't sound like he wants us to stop, but he is trying his best to reason with us from behind me, and the firm quality of his tone cuts my rant in half.

Maybe we're making fools of ourselves.

Maybe — he's thinking of how immature we both are.

Well, jokes on him because no one is quite as okay with looking like a fool as I am.

"Leviticus, put him down.  He's mouthy, yes. It's four am, muggy as hell outside, and he biked the whole way here."

"Mouthy doesn't even cut it.  He's been goading me for weeks, and you — "

"My mouth is my only weapon, unlike you, the caveman over here,"  I cover Levi's hand with my own, primarily an attempt to loosen how my rainjacket is trying to reverse strangle me.  I feel like a kitten dangling from her mother's mouth. Levi's gaze flickers from Matthias and back to me,

"Jesus — I mean.  The first time we met, you accused me of being a burglar and restrained me in your yard.  Why do you expect me to be nice to you?"

Matthias snorts from behind us both with surprise, and Levi rolls his stormy eyes heavenwards, off-kilter — his wall, his previous rise into anger falling into childish irritation,

"You called my house creepy, called me an asshole, insinuated that I'm boring,"  he hisses, which is a weird thing to add, and I might whisper precisely that.  He glares, "you wake me up at four in the morning, all the time — you throw my newspaper into the wet lawn, you broke my flower vase, you harass my dog, stare at me every time I'm at the library, and insult me, at the library, and then again on my lawn... Am I forgetting something?"

"When you say it like that, it makes it sound like I have a personal planner dedicated to making your life miserable," I glare, struggling a bit.  Levi drops me with a drawn-out sigh,  "which I don't, by the way, you just happen to pop up, and I just happen to say what I think, and I told you, I'm not throwing your newspaper into puddles on purpose!"

"And you don't know how to apologize then?"

I blink.

I guess... I could've...

Levi stiffens when he sees Matthias' face, who is not taking anything nearly as severe as the two of us are, and then reacts with more emotion than I was expecting.

He's turning away from me in an instant, retrieving his gardening gloves from the edge of one of his potted flowers.

Levi doesn't just seem angry; he looks hurt,

"Whatever.  I'm not wasting my time.  Good to know your name, Theodore."

I can see his attempt at smugness from where he's crouched and puff out a bit of air at his concealed threat — but don't say anything more since he just looks so stupidly sad.

Maybe...

I should've... Apologized?

"I think..."  Matthias is reaching towards me tentatively, "We've stalled your paper route long enough," He says this so quietly that it's almost lost in the bottles smacking together angrily from beside us.

He glances over at my bike.

I can't meet his eyes because there's a little wave of nausea settling in with the fact that my blooming crush and resolve that I was in the right — have been stomped all over by Levi's muddy boots and waspish mouth.

"I'll make sure Levi doesn't call your boss, don't worry."

I ignore Matthias, pulling my tiny bike from the ground and hanging onto some of my dignity by walking it off their lawn.

"And I don't admire your physique, Levi!"

It's a small lie.

I could've said sorry instead.