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Salt and pepper in hand, I season the pot—two pinches; Sebastian is very particular about this.
While he’s distracted, I try to taste the sauce he’s preparing for our noodles, but he manages to block me with the spatula.
“Behave.”
Oh, but I don’t want to.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been preoccupied with them for so long, but my obsession with his ink hasn’t abated. Even now, I can’t help but lazily trace them. There’s so much strength within him. Hands, wrists, arms.
Heart.
I wonder how much he gives himself credit for.
It’s easy to stay, to watch him move as he cooks. Question him about what he’s doing and listen as he coos to Gus and Lucy and the whole menagerie while my heart stretches the limits of my chest.
It’s even easier to catch him by his forearm and reel him in for a kiss. His lips are soft and insistent as I catch him in the hold between my legs.
Before I can blink, Sebastian is kissing me, slow and deep, his hands warm where they’ve slid around my neck.
“You’re incredible,” he says a minute later. It takes another twenty seconds for the words to clear the blissful fog his lips have left cloaking my brain.
The first touch is a spark. His fingers, strong, a little calloused, kneading into the joint.
Enjoying the scratch of his jaw against my lips, I say, “There’s a little gray in your beard.”
His grin turns wolfish. “Does that do it for you, angel?”He kisses the corner of my mouth. “Corrupting an old man?”
“Immensely.”
Sebastian moves fluidly around the kitchen, completely in his element. I like being included in his ritual. In the life he’s built here.
It’s comforting. I know every inch of this house now, can navigate my way in the dark without hitting a thing, and I don’t care who you are, that’s a skill. I haven’t discovered a mystery bruise in weeks. Which really should put me in the running for an award.
But it’s not forever.
This is Sebastian’s dream, and the whole point of coming back was to pursue my own.
One day that will mean saying goodbye.
So I sit sentry and watch, committing every detail to memory.
Along the windowsill, Sebastian’s collection has grown. Missy is the latest addition. A calathea with an attitude, based on his comments, which are endlessly endearing.
Squeezed between her and Gus are Bruce, Billy, and Bowie. All named gleefully on purpose.
“There are already enough Bs in the house,” I’d joked.
“I could never have enough,” Sebastian had said, then proved it—in the kitchen, and then the shower.
I’m finding that hope springs from desire, and with every minute that I get to enjoy this domesticity, it blooms into wanting more. More of this safety, of the shaky but steadily growing confidence that I’m finding. More of Sebastian’s time, kisses, compassion. Just more.
I know he’s hoping for it too. He’s so careful not to push, but it’s there when he thinks I’m not looking. Little does he know I never stop.
I want to give him that hope, but I can’t.
Because I promised I’d stop putting other people’s plans before my own, and no matter how much I like this, I need to know the choice I make is for me and no one else.
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