“I could ask him to come too. I got the impression he’s there down south. Your drive would be less boring if you have some company. So you don’t fall asleep at the wheel.”

“You’re caring for me. Cute.”

“And he could babysit Pulju.”

“Why would Jesse need a babysitter?”

“Just in case.” Sebastian feels a heat of embarrassment creeping on his cheeks. This sounds like he’s implying more than he thought he would.

Teuvo, the little shithead, clings to it instantly. “Oh. In what case?” he asks.

Sebastian is in his room in his childhood home where he spends his summer living practically like a teenager. I visualize him here laying on his back on a neatly made bed. The conversation starts out very casual, Sebastian has just suggested he would invite Roope Hintz over for the midsummer weekend.

I didn’t know that much about Hintz but I wanted him in the story because I think he & Sebastian look so aesthetically pleasing together, I wanted to write scenes where they interact in ways that make Teuvo jealous because it’s a useful feeling in pushing people forward and making them prone to expose their emotions.

“I don’t know. Maybe you’ll get fed up with hanging out with kids.”

“You mean like you?” Teuvo says, because if Sepe is headed this way, he will want to see what’s coming next, contrary to his initial reluctance, against the gut feeling that warned that nothing good will come out of this.

“Why would I mean like me? Everybody says I’m very mature”, Sebastian chuckles.

“Don’t read what people say about you in the media, that’s the ground rule. You should know that”, Teuvo says softly.

I tried to write the phone dialogue in a way that it starts off as their usual friendly bickering and loving trash-talking about each other and their mutual friends but kind of wavers to the side of innuendo because the underlying emotional bond they have towards each other is so hard to keep down. The affection comes out in the tone of Teuvo’s voice in the end even though what they say is, once again, their usual banter.

“They fall into a silence that prickles on skin like little needles. Teuvo is the first to break it.

“It’s okay, I can drive with Hine if he’s coming”, he says.

“Nice. I’ll ask him.”

“Do that. If he’s free I’ll bring you your Pulju-sitter.”

Sebastian laughs. “Great. We can ditch them to the playground and go do grown-up things.”

Oh.” 

At this point they both recognize the emotional space where their casual talking has led them, I wanted to express it with a physical metaphor. Teuvo wants to break the tension and brings the conversation back to the practical level. Sebastian half-accidentally goes back to the tone that can be taken as suggestive. It ends with Teuvo telling himself not to take the “grown-up things” bait but he can’t help responding to it.

I liked writing this dialogue a lot, I usually do. It also took the story forward in introducing two of the side characters so it served as a useful storytelling device too.