I blow out a sigh as I walk up to the apartment building where Seb resides. I glance across the car park and I see his car is here so I know that the journey isn't a wasted one. His car is once again completely black and clean of graffiti so he must have already gotten the paint job he wants me to pay for. I hope the drive he made to the garage with a giant penis painted down the side of his car was a long one.
When I reach the entrance to the building, my eyes scan over the buttons until I find the one that reads 'flat 6'. I hold the button down for a few moments and wait.
"Hello?"
"Is that Seb?" I ask, checking that I have got the right flat.
"Yeah, who's this?"
That girl who spray painted the word 'prick' across your car.
"It's Ella" I say, "can I come up?"
"Yeah" he replies and then door clicks, signalling that he's opened it. I make my way up to the second floor and knock against the wood of his door. He appears a few moments later, and I'm expecting him to be really angry and start shouting at me. He doesn't but his face is unreadable.
Best to just get it over with.
"Five hundred and forty-two pounds," I say as I hand him the cheque, sarcastically adding, "don't spend it all at once"
"No need" is his reply as he pushes the cheque back into my hand. I frown at him in confusion.
"What?"
"It's already been paid for" he informs me.
Eh?
My confusion multiplies tenfold.
"You gave my brother the bill to give to me-"
"I did," he says, "but your mate, Brad, came round yesterday, he beat you to it"
"Brad?"
What the fuck?
"Yeah, he gave me a cheque so it's all sorted" he explains, "I assumed he was doing the dirty work for you"
"If I have the balls to spray paint my initials on y0our car, then I have the balls to come and speak with you about it"
"Fair enough" he nods, before the two of us fall into an awkward silence.
"Okay, well, bye then-"
"Wait," he says, stopping me before I'm about to leave, "look, I'm sorry... about the stuff I said that night, I wasn't thinking and I was drunk and I didn't mean to make you feel bad"
"Well, you did," I say bluntly, making him wince, "You obviously just wanted sex, which is fine, but I'm not about that, I just wish you'd told me that initially so we didn't waste each other's time"
"Well, saying you just want sex doesn't exactly go down well with a lot of girls"
"So leading them on and then getting pissy about it when they say 'no' is better?"
"No, it's not" he admits, "like I said, I am sorry"
"Well, I appreciate that," I tell him, "and I apologise for vandalising your car, even though I think it was an improvement" I add snarkily, just to lighten the mood; Seb give me a sarcastic smile, "but I guess I took it a bit too far"
He nods, "If it makes you feel any better about all of this, I don't think that I would have been a very good boyfriend"
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think that you'd have been able to handle me anyway"
He laughs at that; he knows it's true.
"Well, meeting you was certainly an experience," he says with a small smile, "I know never to get on your bad side again"
I smile back, "guess I'll see you around"
He nods and I'm glad that we haven't left this on terrible terms.
As I leave the building, I know that my next task is to talk to Brad, as much as I would rather do literally anything else. That always turns out interesting.
When I return home to the flat, it's quiet but I can hear noise from further inside. I follow the sound until I reach the door leading to the room that the guys make music in. The door is ajar so I gently push it open.
"Now, I'm half a world away from you" I hear Brad sing quietly, tinkering away on an acoustic guitar, whilst my brother is tapping away at his MacBook, "but you're always on my mind..." Brad trails off as he notices me at the door. In turn, my brother looks up and gives me a small smile.
"Hey, where've you been?" My brother asks.
"Out"
"Where?"
I sigh, "erm, I went to pay Seb his money," I tell him quietly, whilst avoiding eye contact with Brad.
"Really? Did it go okay?" My brother asks, quirking an eyebrow.
"Yeah" I nod, "he apologised and I apologised so..."
"Good" he gives me another small smile, "so are you two... done now?"
"Yes"
"You know, that's really mature of you, El"
"Spray-painting PRICK across his car?"
"Taking responsibility" he clarifies, "that's the adult thing to do"
"Are you done patronising me or..."
He flares his nostrils at me.
"I'm not-"
He's cut off as his phone starts to ring in his pocket, diverting his attention. His pulls it out of his pocket as he stands up and makes his way to the doorway where I'm stood.
"You did the right thing," he tells me, give me a small hug before he moves past me to leave and go take the phone call. It's just me and Brad left in the music room now, and I don't want to linger around for the awkward small talk. Especially since we haven't actually spoken since he found me drawing him last night.
I take the cheque out of my bag, walking over to near where Brad is sat and I drop it down on the guitar amp that's next to him.
"What's that?" He asks as I make my way to leave again.
"A cheque for five hundred and forty-two quid" I tell him, turning to face him as I get to the door, "I left the name blank so you can just fill it in with yours"
"Ella, it's fine-"
"I didn't ask you to do that" I state, turning around to face him, "I didn't ask you to pay it"
"I know" he replies softly, "I wanted to"
"Well, I don't want your charity"
"Look, five hundred quid makes no difference to me but I know that you had to go into your savings to get that money-"
"Oh, so it was out of pity" I snort, sarcastically adding, "even better"
"No, that's not what I'm saying" he sighs, "look, it was my fault as well, I drove you there and I did some of the graffiti"
"Because I told you to" I counter.
"I could have said no. I could have tried to change your mind and persuaded you out of it. I could have driven you to the middle of nowhere and had you take your anger out on some random abandoned building that wouldn't have affected anyone but I didn't. I let you do it and I joined in and you took all the flack so I've paid for the damage and now we're even" he tells me, holding out the cheque for me to take. I just stare at him incredulously.
"Let's get one thing straight, Brad, you do not have the power to change my mind about anything," I tell him sternly before I turn and leave.
"Challenge accepted, Ella" I hear him call playfully after me. I roll my eyes at that. It's not much of a threat.
But Brad gets to work quicker than I anticipate, I discover, when I go to the bed that night and find the cheque torn in half and placed on my bedside table. I don't know whether I'm more annoyed about the loss of my pride or the fact that Brad has managed to sneak into my room without my knowledge.
One thing I do know is that Brad's got one hell of a challenge ahead of him because I'm not backing down easily.