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“I spent my twenties running away from responsibility. It was as though I fast-tracked growing up when I was sixteen, so once I turned twenty-one, all I wanted to do was be a kid again. Sometimes I wonder what might have been if I had stopped running sooner.”
“Do you regret it?”
Sebastian is quiet for a long time. “No. There’s no denying that I did some stupid shit in those days, but I also met Aiden and Rochelle, and I learned a lot about myself.”
“So that’s why you’re so cool about things.”
“If you could stop judging yourself so harshly, you’d see that you’re pretty amazing.”
The force of my blush overwhelms me. I’m glad he can’t see it. “Maybe I just like hearing you say it.” I kick out, enjoying every time I return and get to feel Sebastian’s hands on my back. “What do you picture for your future now?”
“A family.”
I tighten my grip and swing higher.
He’s so certain. The last time I felt that way, I was buying a one-way ticket out of Elmsford. Writing is the closest I’ve felt to assured, and even now, I still have doubts.
One day, he’ll have someone special to lavish all that attention on.
Lucky them.
Gus is growing nicely. I never would have guessed Sebastian had a green thumb, but it’s downright adorable the way he dotes over the little guy. When he doesn’t think I’m around, he even says hello.
My crush is evolving faster than I can contain it.
It surprised me. Not because I thought living with Sebastian would kill any feelings I had, but because of the changes in him.
There’s something easy about him when he’s with people, but alone, I see a difference. He’s quieter. More purposeful. Intense. Needless to say, I’m a little obsessed. Obsessing. It’s what always happens when a story claws itself into me. But Seb isn’t like my stories. He isn’t abstract, at a distance. He’s flesh and heat and everything I shouldn’t want, and it would be so much easier if he stopped looking at me with those goddamn eyes.
I sip my coffee, dark and rich and rewarding. Gus isn’t the only touch Sebastian has made on the place. There are pieces of him everywhere. The seasoning he leaves out by the stove for easy access. His clean mug beside the coffeepot. The shirts he wants to iron hanging off the back of the couch. The large canvas of a bison leaning against the wall beside the TV—a thirtieth-birthday gift from my brother, who has the sense of humor of a child (“Get it? Because he’s bi, son.”), alongwith the silver watch he never takes off. Hell, he’s even written on the walls.
He’s a damn wolf, in name and action, establishing his territory, making it his own.
Man, those nature documentaries are really absorbing. No wonder Sebastian loves them.
Whatever. The point is, he’s nesting, and he makes it look easy.
Which makes sense, because the home is his.
And mine, I have to remind myself for the thousandth time. Sebastian is right. Maybe if I made more of a mark on this place, imprint on it the way he is, it would start to feel more like mine as well.
It’s different being in the house without him. Colder.
I thought I’d hate living with someone, but when he leaves, it’s too quiet. I’ve taken to distracting myself during his runs by starting a pot of coffee and telling Gus about my progress on the book. Sebastian says it doesn’t count, but he also chooses to get up at six a.m. to run with my brother every morning.
My fitness routine involves stress-losing my appetite and cleaning. The last time I went on a run was the one time I let Aiden reverse challenge me into it. I only finished through sheer indignation.
Monday’s conversation is still playing on my mind. It doesn’t matter that three days have passed; all I can think about is what I told Sebastian. I may have shared date stories and postmortem with Morgan before, but this is different. This is intimate.
Sexy.
And I’m having a really hard time telling my brain tostop conflating that and Sebastian. All week, my dreams have been so X-rated I almost need a parental warning sticker on my pillow.
The threads of my control are coming loose the closer we get, and I’m not sure whether I want to yank it harder or snip it off and forget about it. Okay, that’s a lie. I know exactly what I want to do, but I have no idea what Sebastian wants, and that’s the part that worries me.
“What is this?” I ask when he’s returned from his run. I’m exactly where I was twenty minutes ago, standing still in the kitchen, coffee gone cold. I squeeze my toes inside my socks.
Sebastian brushes his sweat-soaked fringe away from his eyes. The sight of him in his running gear—navy shorts, black shirt, gray zip-up—is a lot, but it’s got nothing on the way his whole aura seems to expand after a run, bright eyes and pink cheeks and voice husky from exertion.
