Chapter Text
The One Page More new and used bookstore is a cramped, unassuming brick building in the heart of a downtown shopping district. Its door is old, and adorned with a small brass bell that jingles when it’s opened. Beside the door is a squat, arched window. The name of the shop is painted on it in what used to be neat, precise gold and black letters, now a bit faded and chipped.
Inside the window, books have been stacked, the brightest covers and the newest releases front and center in an attempt to ply someone, anyone, to perhaps take a look around inside.
It’s rare that they succeed. But that is exactly how Grantaire likes it.
The bookstore isn’t his. He’s one of a handful of employees that work around the semi-dark, small shop and the adjoined cafe. The latter of which was added only a few years back in another effort to get more people to come inside and look around. It replaced the religious works section, which had to be fused with part of the political and historical works sections to make room.
When it had happened, Grantaire made a joke to his boss—an older, incredibly grumpy man named Javert—about the importance of the separation of church and state. But it hadn’t landed.
Granted, his jokes have never landed with Javert. His boss is a former cop who acts like he’s still a hard-nosed investigator despite dealing with hardcovers instead of hardened criminals for the past two decades. If Javert had known him at any other point in his life, he wouldn’t have given Grantaire the time of day. So frankly, he was glad to just get a sneer and a paycheck.
Javert is still butthurt to this day about having to open the dinky cafe at all, in order to keep up with the big name bookstores. On a good day, he does his best to forget that it exists at all.
That fact alone is probably the only reason his best friend and coworker, Eponine, still has her job as the one and only barista on shift weekdays, despite making some of the worst coffee Grantaire (or anyone, he thinks) has ever tasted. It could honestly be constituted as a skill, since Grantaire is pretty sure it’s on purpose. He has to believe that no one could make coffee this acrid without putting in some effort.
This place, and these people have been a huge part of his life for the past decade, and he loves this place and them. But today? Today is boring.
Grantaire is sitting behind the register stand, having put a stool back there without Javert’s permission, because standing for eight hours a day is frankly not humane. The One Page More is blessedly empty, as usual, so he has time to doodle and sneak texts to Eponine, who is as usual just across the store in the cafe, also slacking.
It’s a Tuesday, in that spot of the year when fall is encroaching on summer’s territory. The leaves on the trees are just starting to yellow, some particularly ambitious ones even deciding to fall early.
Quitting while they’re ahead, a very Grantaire move.
Grantaire’s near permanent fall and winter wardrobe doesn’t feel out of place anymore, either. That he is grateful for. Today’s outfit features a worn green crew neck sweater, and a rumpled button up underneath. He has an iron now, and feels oh so adult when he uses it, but it’s rare he actually breaks it out. He’s got his usual soft grey apron over it, his name tag pinned on the right side.
It has been a particularly slow day. He’s already looked through the many rows of books multiple times, straightened the display books on the table in the middle of the floor showing off the (theoretical) best sellers, swept, dusted off some bigger tomes in the abomination of a historical/political/religious section, visited with Eponine at the cafe until she told him to fuck off, and un-stacked and re-stacked their freebie bookmarks on the pay stand five times.
Make that six.
Grantaire is an expert at slacking, but that’s only when slacking is the more fun option between work and...well, slack. With no stimulus, he just gets antsy. Javert isn’t even in today, so there’s absolutely no supervision. Somehow, that makes it worse.
Having been kicked from the cafe by Eponine for bugging her too much, he takes the next most obvious course of action and pulls out his phone, typing her a message from under the register table instead.
From: Grantaire
1:04pm, September 14:
-----
i know you said i was banned but please
for the love of god
can you give me something to do
It’s about a 50/50 shot that she’ll reply, mostly depending upon how bored she is. Apparently she is in fact bored enough to humor him, because a couple of minutes later his phone vibrates. Grantaire practically throws it back out of his apron pocket to look.
From: 🦇 Eponine 🦇
1:06pm, September 14:
-----
you work in a book shop, you realize that, right?
maybe try reading something.
Grantaire groans, glaring towards the cafe. He can’t see Eponine from his angle, just one of the tables with two chairs by a window, and the swap from hardwood floors to tile that marks the beginning of the cafe’s territory. He taps a message back.
From: Grantaire
1:06pm, September 14:
-----
you think i havent thought of that??
cmon ponine i need real suggestions here
From: 🦇 Eponine 🦇
1:07pm, September 14:
-----
i think you should be grateful i responded at all, frankly.
my advice doesn’t normally come for free.
From: Grantaire
1:08pm, September 14:
-----
fuck okay fine
do you at least have a book to recommend in this trying time
im dying out here
From: 🦇 Eponine 🦇
1:08pm, September 14:
-----
what am i, your fucking english teacher?
grab a bestseller, it’s not that hard, R.
Grantaire sighs, and drops his phone into his lap, exasperated. Honestly, at this point he’d give anything for one of his old high school teachers to drop in and give him something, anything to read. Well, besides maybe The Great Gatsby. Fuck that book.
While Eponine’s texts were mostly unhelpful, as he looks across the small front area of the store in search of a book, he finds himself going down a mental rabbit hole that’s at the very least a little distracting.
In general, Grantaire tries not to think about high school. It was a long time ago, and there isn’t much of it he remembers fondly. But sometimes the thought of how he used to be pulls him in, and he can’t stop himself.
If you had asked Grantaire when he was in high school where he thought he’d be in ten years, he probably would have said something along the lines of “passed out in a fast food parking lot, or in jail”, and then he would have laughed. Because frankly, that was optimistic of him.
Being any kind of upstanding citizen had been out of the question, and anyone who knew him at the time would have agreed. He’s sure of that. No one would have pictured him stocking shelves of a bookstore, dusting off the paperbacks, and god forbid, reading. He hasn’t talked to anyone he knew then in years, besides Eponine.
They had both been a part of a very tight knit friend group in high school. Or...really, the rest of the group had been tight knit, and he and Eponine had been the ones on the fringes, fraying off a little more each day.
The group had been good for them both, he knows. Everyone in the “ABC”, as they had come to call the club, was passionate, and driven, and believed the world could be changed. They formed a club about political action, and actually tried.
Grantaire did not share their optimism, nor their passion. But he had been a part of the ABC regardless.
He still remembers the energy in their club room when their leader, Enjolras, had a cause, and would sweep everyone on board to organize.
Enjolras was a forest fire. Bright, blazing, and running almost too hot to really be able to look at him. It was hard not to pay attention, even for someone like Grantaire, who made sport out of knowing as little as possible at any given moment.
At Enjolras’ command, they took trips together to protests, getting as many students to come with them as possible. They organized sit-ins, walk outs, all types of shit to try and make change within their community. The success of which could barely be called marginal, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Maybe his problem was that he hadn’t believed in their causes, he’d believed in a person. And that person was Enjolras. He is willing to admit now, looking back, that he’d had a big fucking crush. At the time he hadn’t even been out to himself as bisexual, even if the group was the gayest thing their school had. That included the GSA, which was mostly straight female allies looking for a gay best friend.
Eponine had fallen into the same trap, following a boy named Marius to the group, and then falling away from it when he was introduced to a transfer student senior year named Cosette.
Grantaire’s reasons for falling away were less jealousy, like Eponine’s. It had been more that Enjolras hated his guts.
To be fair, some self sabotage may have contributed to that.
Enjolras had tolerated, and maybe even liked his presence for a while. But towards the end of senior year, Grantaire was high, or drunk more than he wasn’t, especially at school. And he’s sure now that he was unbearably annoying, though he remembers little to no specifics of what lead up to the end.
All he remembers vividly is the ultimatum.
After what he assumes was a particularly boisterous distraction from whatever Enjolras was talking about that day, he had been dragged out of their club room by his arm, and he had looked at those beautiful, piercing eyes that were more angry than he’d ever seen them, suddenly terrified.
“Come back sober, or don’t come back at all,” was what Enjolras had said through his teeth, clearly not wanting to cause more of a scene.
Grantaire had picked the latter.
To this day, it’s a memory that makes him cringe. Stocking shelves, finishing checking out a customer, or doing nothing but sit at the register like he is now, he has to clench and unclench a fist, and squeeze his eyes shut to make the pit in his stomach go away. It’s never completely gone, but it’s muted. He’s done a lot worse for himself since then, but also, eventually, a lot better.
Right now, he’s on the clock for another two hours, and can’t afford to be too down on himself for something that happened nearly a decade ago.
…Christ, a decade? He’s getting old.
Sighing loudly, he pushes his stool out with a lurch, and goes to meander. If Eponine isn’t going to be of much help, he’ll have to find a way to make himself busy, somehow. He’s got this store memorized better than the back of his hand, which isn’t hard because it’s a small store, and who the fuck memorizes the back of their hand anyway?
History/Religion/Politics land is up by the cafe, at the front left, next to the best sellers table. And the rows that splay out behind it cover literary fiction, young adult, science fiction, horror, romance, mystery, and squeezed way in the back, art and photography. The shelves themselves are tall, old wood that stand monolithic above customers, crammed to bursting with books of every shape and size. They're maze-like and twist throughout the store with only the placard on the side of each shelf telling what genre is on them.
Grantaire winds his way through shelves back towards the art section; within moments, he has a copy of MEGGS’ History of Graphic Design, a textbook a college student sold back about a year ago and that no one has bothered to touch since.
He picks it because it’s the first book he sees that he hasn’t bothered with yet, and he barely cares what it has inside as he leans against the shelf, and balances the heavy textbook on both arms, and begins to read.
Grantaire never went to college.
Well, that's not entirely true; he had tried. The local community college had seemed like the logical extension to the high school experience. But by then he had met Camille, and meeting her was the natural continuation of a downward spiral he had put into motion years even before that.
People who enabled him and his...tendencies, he'd found, were a trap he'd just loved to fall into. And Camille had been the best at it.
Camille isn’t a mental rabbit hole he wants to fall into now, though. He redoubles his efforts to get interested in history, focusing hard on each word in the book until reading it begins to feel natural.
Ten minutes later, he hears the bell jingle from the front of the store. But by now he’s invested in the cave paintings at Lascaux, curious how the fuck this ties into modern graphic design.
“Welcome in,” he says absently, still leaning on the shelf and focused on the book. His back is to the front of the shop, so he re-balances, and waves an arm out into the aisle so the customer knows where he is if they need help. “Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
And he goes back to reading.
He keeps an ear on the soft footsteps as they creak around the old shop, waiting for them to get back around to the front desk.
It turns out that the cave paintings only tie into graphic design in that they are graphic, and technically designed. The connection to him seems tenuous at best, but sure, he'll allow it.
Just as he’s losing interest, he hears footsteps start to move from the literary fiction section back towards the front of the store. So he snaps the old textbook shut, and shoves it with some effort back into its place on the cramped shelf.
He finally looks up to face the new customer when he gets behind the front desk, leaning on it and rapping his fingers on the wood.
They freeze mid tap when his eyes meet blue.
The face he finds when he looks up isn’t some anonymous college student, or an old woman who has been coming here for years, though. It’s familiar, and piercing, and Grantaire’s former restlessness now has a new application of pure anxiety.
Enjolras looks good, is his second thought, after the first. Which for the record, is 'Oh fuck'. He hopes he says neither out loud. Vaguely, he wonders if he somehow summoned Enjolras here by daydreaming. But knows that if he had that ability, they would have run into each other a long time before now. It’s a little embarrassing to admit how often he’s crossed his mind over the last decade.
He’s grown up in the time they’ve been apart, which Grantaire knows is what happens as time passes, but somehow it feels unreal. Enjolras had always been like a pristine marble statue, unchanging and unflinching against any torrent that came at him, and somehow the idea of Enjolras changing in any way is ridiculous.
But he has.
He’s slightly taller, and his face looks sharper. Any baby fat he had in high school is completely gone, and his hair is a bit shorter than it was then. He’s dressed in semi-formal clothing, at least to Grantaire’s standards, a deep red cardigan over a button up, and comfortable looking khaki’s, worn brown leather shoes completing his look.
The biggest change, though, is that he looks tired.
Grantaire had seen him the usual kind of tired, everyone in high school was at least a little groggy. But this...it’s not so much that Enjolras looks like he needs sleep. He’s...dimmer. The former forest fire looks more like embers, left un-stoked.
Grantaire realizes a moment later with a start, that Enjolras looks burned out.
Silence stretches between them, the reverberations of a cymbal crash after a joke that didn’t land. He’s a little gratified to see that Enjolras seems to be as stunned as he is. And stunned is better than disgust or anger, like the last time he’d seen those eyes.
They are still beautiful, and terrifying as ever. And they seem to be sizing him up the same way Grantaire is doing to Enjolras. Grantaire isn’t sure he wants to know what Enjolras sees, so he clears his throat, shifting from foot to foot and pushing off the counter to stand a little straighter.
“So, um...” he says, stilted, “Hi. Long time no see.”
He wants to make a joke, but whatever might have theoretically come up dies in his throat. He debates faking amnesia just to save them both this embarrassment of a reunion.
If they had been friends, really friends, this would have been easy, he thinks. But Grantaire knows that he had been more of a nuisance than a pal most days, and so, easy it will not be.
Enjolras seems shocked from their staring match, giving only the barest jolt, and then a nod. His expression isn’t one that Grantaire can place easily.
“Yeah,” he says, “hi.”
Grantaire has never seen him at such a loss for words, and he does feel a little proud of that.
Enjolras is standing a few feet from the checkout stand, holding one slim paperback with a pink and black minimalist cover, and not giving any sign of moving closer.
Before another bout of silence can start, and Grantaire knows that it will, he sighs, and leans on the counter again, trying his best to look at ease, if only to make the awkwardness stop for a moment.
“Well, I can’t really help you pay unless you give me the book,” he says, plastering on a smile that he hopes doesn’t look practiced, and holding out a hand.
Enjolras, still looking stiff and incredibly uncomfortable, closes the distance in a couple of steps.
He hands Grantaire the book with the caution of someone handing a piece of bread out to a raccoon, and Grantaire takes it with the caution of said raccoon trying to convey that he does not in fact have rabies.
He flips the book to scan it, and then flips it back, finally processing the cover. It’s a used copy of No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai. Grantaire lifts his eyebrows, glancing up at Enjolras.
“Is this a cry for help?” he asks, still holding the book, and holding it up to show the cover, as if Enjolras doesn’t know what book he grabbed. He knows that it’s rude to question what a customer buys; Javert has gotten on his case about it before, but he can’t resist.
It’s not that the book is bad. In fact it’s a great book, according to most critics. A classic piece of Japanese literature, delving into the protagonist, Yozo Oba’s disconnection from human relationships and society as a whole, and the many coping mechanisms he uses to get through life in postwar Japan.
It is, however, incredibly depressing, and doesn’t seem like something that Enjolras would have picked for himself in the past. Enjolras’ strength had always been his idealism. And this book is all hopelessness. At least from how Grantaire remembers it.
Enjolras seems torn between affront, and perhaps surprise that Grantaire can in fact read. Grantaire tries not to take offense.
After a beat, he answers, “It’s not,” respectfully snatching the book from Grantaire’s hand, and there’s a little bit of that old fire in his eyes now, “It’s for my book club.”
Grantaire’s smile is more genuine now, peevish and familiar to both of them.
“Does someone in that club want you to be depressed?”
“No,” Enjolras says, “It was Combeferre’s turn to choose. He said it’s a classic.”
At that, Grantaire’s smile falters a little. Their little group had been very close in high school, but he had never considered that they’d all still be in contact a decade later.
“Is your book club all old high school friends?” he asks, hoping the bitterness mostly at himself doesn’t poison his tone, and he’s not sure if he succeeds, because Enjolras’ eyes are a little icy now.
“We’ve kept in contact, yes,” he says pointedly, “Everyone went their own ways, but Jehan started the book club a few months ago to bring everyone back together.”
The way he says ‘everyone’ without any hesitation is like a punch to the gut. If Enjolras sees any trace of the wince Grantaire can’t quite keep down, he doesn’t react. He digs in his wallet, pulling out the exact change for his book, dropping it onto the table. Grantaire counts it and goes about putting it into the cash register, numbly.
“May I have my receipt?” he asks, holding out a hand, and this is the look that Grantaire had been dreading. There’s anger and hurt simmering there, and Grantaire gets the sense that Enjolras will snatch away the receipt, and make a point of never coming into this bookstore again. Grantaire wouldn’t blame him.
He swallows, nodding and hitting a few buttons on the cash register, which dutifully spits out the paper listing Enjolras’ purchase. As expected, it’s out of his hand in the blink of an eye, and Enjolras turns to go to the door.
Maybe he knows that this might be his last chance to clear his conscience, or maybe he just doesn’t want another loose end of a goodbye under his belt, but either way something compels him then to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts, and Enjolras stops, halfway turning back as Grantaire swallows, and continues, “for how I left things. That was shitty, and I was shitty.”
His fingers are knotted under the desk, and he feels a flush touching the back of his neck.
Enjolras turns back a little more, and his face speaks of a new kind of surprise as he says, “It’s okay.” But Grantaire knows it isn’t. One shitty apology isn’t going to fix his bullshit, and he knows it. It’s part of the reason he never reached out. The amount of making up it’d take to get things back to normal feels insurmountable, and he hadn’t been able to take the idea of flopping and having yet another memory to wince at when he’s trying to sleep at night.
So he tells Enjolras to wait for a minute, and sweeps around the checkout counter and towards the fantasy section. He finds the book he’s looking for, and rushes back to the front. Miraculously, Enjolras is still there, looking confused.
He scans the book, makes a mental note to pay for it later, and holds it out to Enjolras to take.
“If you’re going to be reading that for book club, you might as well have a palate cleanser,” he says. The book is a used copy of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab.
That book had made him cry like a goddamn baby, but it was not from hopelessness like the other book that Enjolras holds. It was sad, but he had been left feeling more uplifted than depressed. If Enjolras is even close to the same man he knew in high school, he thinks he might benefit from the book’s central theme of ideas being powerful, like seeds in a garden. When planted, and tended, they can grow despite their obstacles.
If it is burnout he’s seeing in his face, maybe he just needs a little hope.
“It’s about a woman who makes a bargain to get a better life, but it goes wrong, and everyone who knows her forgets her once she’s out of sight. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I can’t say more,” he says, trying not to over-explain, but justify his gift, “I couldn’t put it down when I read it. I think you might like it too.”
He feels intensely self conscious now, knowing that while this book had hit him hard when he’d read it a couple of months back, it might not yield the same response for Enjolras. But he can’t afford to make a joke out of his last ditch apology, either.
It’s too late to take it back anyway, because Enjolras has gotten over his shock. The book is in his hand, now neatly stacked under the other volume.
“Thank you,” he says, and his eyes look softer, but still wary. Grantaire will take that.
“Come again,” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound too desperate. But Enjolras just nods, and after another moment of hesitation, turns, and leaves. The bells of the door sing behind him, and Grantaire collapses onto the stool, tight wound nerves finally unraveling.
After a moment he pulls out his phone again, fingers shaking a little as he texts Eponine.
From: Grantaire
1:40pm, September 14:
-----
dude
enjolras just came in
enjolras from high school
From: 🦇 Eponine 🦇
1:41pm, September 14:
-----
RIP.
how'd that go?
From: Grantaire
1:41pm, September 14:
-----
i gave him a book
From: 🦇 Eponine 🦇
1:41pm, September 14:
-----
…why?
From: Grantaire
1:41pm, September 14:
-----
i panicked?
From: 🦇 Eponine 🦇
1:41pm, September 14:
-----
jesus christ R.
They text like that for a while, Grantaire getting his nerves back in check until a new customer comes in, and Grantaire jumps up to help them as a distraction.
He clocks out of work at 3:30. It’s earlier than most people get to, which means he also goes into work earlier than most. Yet another thing he never would have expected of himself years ago.
He says goodbye to Eponine, of course. He’d had a chance to actually talk to her on his final break, going through every minute detail of Enjolras’ visit over some predictably shitty coffee. She doesn’t seem as enthused, or surprised as he’d felt, but she does listen. Eponine had been in the group too, but she’d been pretty removed from it even when she’d been a member. She’d had just as rough of a time as he had after high school, and seems in no hurry to be reminded of it.
Grantaire leaves through the back door next to the art and photography section after giving his goodbyes. It leads out to the employee parking lot, and smoking area.
He gets into his shitty old car, the same one he’s had since high school. Miraculously, it’s still still chugging along despite its one missing hubcap and chipped paint on one door. But as usual, he doesn’t drive directly home.
Instead, per his usual routine, he drives about five minutes from his small apartment to the parking lot of the local elementary school, and gets in line for pick up.
Fifteen minutes later, his daughter, Bea, her mop of matching curly brown hair bouncing, runs up to his car. She opens the left back door, and gets into the booster in the back seat. She’s already babbling about her day before he’s even signaled and pulled away from the curb.
She is the one good thing that came out of being with Camille all those years ago. The one good thing that Grantaire still has, and honestly, the one good thing he’s done with his life. Despite her being...unplanned, to say the least.
Bea is in second grade, seven years old, and it’s gone by so quickly that sometimes Grantaire doesn’t know what to do with himself.
They drive home. Beatrice talks about her day and what she drew in class, already trying to show her dad from the backseat. He can only peek in the rear view mirror and promise to look more closely when they get home, but says it’s stunning already.
They pull into the apartment complex, and Grantaire finds his usual spot, parking with the practiced ease of someone who hasn’t moved house in years. He hasn’t been able to afford to, though the apartment is slowly but surely outgrowing them both. He’s lucky to be able to afford anything with two bedrooms on his salary. But Javert, he’s found, is generous. He seems guilty about something, which may explain why he took pity on Grantaire nearly a decade ago and gave him a job. He took a chance on him, and Grantaire is thankful enough not to question it.
He unbuckles once the keys are out of the ignition and rushes to the other side of his car, opening the back left door for his daughter, as is their routine. She unbuckles herself, and he whisks her up into his arms, Bea giggling the whole way to their second floor apartment.
He knows that he won’t be able to carry her for much longer, she’s already almost too heavy to do so some days. So when he’s not too tired, he likes to take the chance.
He sets her down once they’re inside, kicking the door closed behind them with a snap, and they both remove their shoes.
The apartment isn’t much, but it’s home. A small living room with a grey loveseat and a pink bean bag, a coffee table covered in a puzzle that’s only half done, and a fairly small TV with half bookshelves on either side, filled with both books and DVDs. A standard kitchen that’s unadorned except for the art Bea gives him to tack on the fridge using letter magnets. A small dining room with a simple square table and two chairs sits beside it. There are two more folding chairs in the coat closet for guests, which are usually just Bea’s friends.
There are three other doors that branch off the dining room; a bathroom, Bea’s small room decked out in glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling, and Grantaire’s slightly larger room. His room is fairly impersonal, but there’s room for a small desk which holds his old art supplies, unused, but hopeful.
They go through the motions of their evenings without much fanfare. He gets a good look at Bea’s newest piece, a t-rex wearing a crown, because according to Bea, she’s the queen of the dinosaurs. He sticks it to the fridge with a matching dinosaur magnet.
She grabs one of the chairs and uses it to stand next to him, helping make some mac and cheese with broccoli. The broccoli despite Bea’s complaining. (He doesn’t like it either, but he’s not about to raise his kid to eat like he did growing up.) They make a mess, but have fun doing it.
They fall into relaxed semi-silence while they eat. It’s warm, and it’s easy. This has been Grantaire’s life for the past seven years. But for the first time in a long time, he actually has something to share about himself when Bea asks how his day was, after she's gotten all of her own news out of the way, of course.
“I met an old friend at work,” he says, and his kid looks shocked.
“You have friends?” she asks, and Grantaire nearly chokes on a piece of broccoli. And he has to admit, calling Enjolras a friend is a bit of a stretch. Call it aspirational, maybe. He doubts Enjolras ever considered him one, but explaining the ins and outs of their rocky relationship to a seven year old would be a little pointless, and more than a little painful.
“Of course I do, that’s harsh,” he replies, feigning a blow to the chest when his throat clears.
“Aunt Eponine doesn’t count,” she says, looking suspicious. And she has him there. Eponine is his best friend, but they’d come together again out of necessity after Bea was born. Eponine had had Gavroche to take care of, having essentially stolen him from her shitty parents once she was old and financially stable enough to do so. He and her are really more like co-parents to different kids than casual friends.
He has to admit, he would be weirded out as well if he was Bea. He never had friends over, or went out to meet them. Bea and work have been his life; he hasn’t had time to make new friends.
That's probably a lie. It's more that he doesn't have the confidence.
“It’s a friend from a long, long time ago,” he says, taking another bite after, then continues through a semi-mouthful, “I haven’t seen him in years. The last time we talked, we had a fight.”
Bea chides him for speaking with his mouth full, and he apologizes with a wave of the hand, covering his mouth.
“Did you say you’re sorry?” she asks, unfazed. And Grantaire nods. Bea nods back, approving. “He has to forgive you then. Those are the rules.”
“It’s a little more complicated for adults,” he replies, and Bea rolls her eyes. He smiles, knowing it’s his fault that she has her snark.
“It shouldn’t be,” she says, blunt as ever, “Do you still want to be friends with him?”
‘More than anything’, Grantaire thinks, surprising himself. He hadn’t realized how much he missed companionship. But he also knows that the likelihood of him seeing Enjolras again is slim, despite his efforts at a peace offering.
“I do,” he says, “But I don’t know if he does. I was a bad friend.”
It hurts to admit, even though he’s reminded of it every time he remembers the way they left things all those years ago. It sucks to say it aloud, something he hasn’t done until today.
“Be a good one now,” she says, shrugging, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world, “I fought with Valerie at school last week, but then I gave her a rice krispy the other day, and we’re friends again.”
And god help him, somehow Grantaire does feel a little more hopeful. He ruffles her hair across the table.
“Where did you get your brains from?” he asks, over her squawk of protest to him messing up her hair. Bea grins, swatting his hand away.
“Am I supposed to say from you?” she asks. And Grantaire snorts.
“Definitely not,” he says.
“Good. I’m not a good liar,” Bea deadpans. Fucking devastating.
Grantaire laughs, and thanks her for the advice. She says that he owes her a dollar for her thoughts, obviously they don’t come for free. He obliges, even though he knows she’s joking, because he knows it will make her smile. They finish their food, and sit down at the coffee table instead to work on the puzzle they started, finishing it just before bed time.
He puts Beatrice to bed, and lying on his own, he feels the warmth of hope in his chest. And for once, doesn’t bother to try and quash it. He slips into sleep, feeling excited about going into work the next day for the first time in a long, long time.