Page 65 of Ruined Wolfsbane

“Yeah, I like a lot of his songs. They’re really relatable. His work captures a lot of difficult emotions,” I tell him, shrugging.

He nods and stares at the piano a moment longer. When he looks up, a bright, fake smile is pasted on his face.

I hate it.

“Don’t,” I whisper.

Bastian tilts his head in confusion. “What?”

“Don’t hide behind a fake smile. Not around me. If there’s anyone you can just be you with, it’s me. I won’t run away from the messy, broken, and chaotic parts. I have them too.”

Bastian’s mask cracks as I talk. I hold my breath as I wait for him to decide whether he can trust me.

“I don’t know how. I don’t know who I am anymore,” Bastian admits after a moment. My heart hurts for him. He grips the piano tightly, causing his biceps to flex. My eyes momentarily dip down to them while he talks. His lips twitch up into the ghost of a real smile. “Like what you see?”

“Yeah, I do,” I answer honestly. I can’t expect him to be truthful with me while hiding my feelings.

He breaks out in a genuine crooked smile. My heart skips a beat seeing his grin. I’d do almost anything to keep him smiling like that forever.

Scrubbing a hand across his face, Bastian tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling for a moment. Blowing out a harsh breath, his turns his gaze to me. “Dance with me?” he asks. His eyes shine with vulnerability.

“Always,” I reply quickly. I want him to know I’m here for him, whatever he needs.

“C’mere.” He holds his arms out for me. I get up from the bench and step into them. Wrapping one arm around me, Bastian messes with his phone for a second before music starts playing through a hidden sound system.

“Rich people, man.” I smile and shake my head.

Bastian barks out a laugh. “You realize you’re a rich person, too, right?” Bastian lifts my hands so that they’re wrapped around his neck. He winds both of his arms around my waist, resting his hands ever so slightly higher than my ass.

“I guess I forget that I am. It’s just so different than how I grew up.” My mind drifts to my childhood home. It was a little Victorian with three bedrooms and a wraparound porch. My mom loved to spend the summers on that porch listening to her windchimes.

“Ah, so your mom wasn’t well-off like Patrick?” Bastian guesses.

“No, she was actually richer than Patrick. She liked living simply and having enough without excess. Pretty sure she hated how wasteful and gaudy Patrick was.” Needing to change the subject before I start crying over my mom again, I ask, “What’s this song? I like it.”

“‘Perfectly Broken,’ the Banners.”

We sway in comfortable silence for the rest of the song. Even when the song ends, Bastian keeps me in his arms. I rest my head against his chest, enjoying the steady beat of his heart. I could stay like this forever.

Bastian eventually breaks away from me, and I see the mural behind him. “What’s with the mural?” I ask, nodding toward the painting dominating the back wall.

Spinning around, Bastian looks at where I tipped my head. “Oh, that. It’s the story of Aeneas and Dido.”

“No, it’s not.” I shake my head. “Aeneas and Dido never fought. Dido totally would have won if they did, though.” The Queen of the Phoenicians was pretty spectacular until Venus made her fall in love with Aeneas.

He chuckles. “You’re spot-on about Virgil’s version of the Aeneid. Just because his is the most popular doesn’t mean it’s the only or right interpretation of what happened.”

“There’s more than one version?” I ask incredulously. My mom was low-key obsessed with the Aeneid. She only ever read me the one Virgil wrote. I would think if anyone knew of an alternative version, it’d be her.

“You betcha.”

“Huh, what’s different about it? The beginning and end look the same from the mural,” I note.

“Yep. The story starts out with Dido, Queen of the Phoenicians, building Carthage. When her city is almost finished, Aeneas and his merry band of rejects rolls up. Dido allows the visitors to rest in her city and throws a banquet for them. Everyone has a grand time, gets shitfaced, and goes to bed.

“Except Aeneas and his bros don’t actually get wasted. They’re not in Carthage to visit. Instead, they want to take over the city and make it the new Troy. They launch a sneak attack in the wee hours of the morning, hoping to take Dido and her people by surprise.

“Dido, being the badass she is, easily repels the attack, even hungover. She rallies her people, and they successfully drive Aeneas and co. from Carthage. Aeneas begs for mercy when Dido is about to execute him. She grants him a stay of execution but only on the condition that they never set foot in her city again.

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