I nod for him to continue.
“Anyway, I was just hyperaware of her from the get-go, and we had dinner with her and Charlie. It didn’t end great. That was when Charlie told us all that stuff about our dad.” He frowns and his brows lower like the memory makes him angry. “Did you hear about all that?”
“Yeah.” I remember when Fi told me about that visit. It was so fucked up.
“Well, Charlie took off, and Fi just about lost her mind. She was so anxious about her friend—my sister—and honestly, I think I fell hard for her in that moment, though I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time.” He traces the wood pattern on the table with his finger and taps the toe of his boot against mine again.
I shiver and then feel ridiculous because who has this kind of reaction to someone foot-flirting? I don’t even know if he’s doing it intentionally.
“She let me hold her hand the whole way back to our apartmentthat night.” He looks up. “And I just knew that all I wanted to do was hold her hand forever.”
I clear my throat and rub my eyes.
“Are you crying?”
“No,” I choke. “Just an eyelash or something.”
“You’re crying.”
“Well, fuck, I mean, that was a sweet story.” I sniff. “But we’re not talking about me. It was that quick with Fi? Really?” Bastian flushes, and I backpedal a bit. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I just mean…intimacy has been so difficult for you.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing again in a very distracting way. “Intimacyishard. So hard. But if I feel that deeper connection with someone, I crave simple touches first—if that makes sense.” He grips his water glass nervously. “Reddit says I’m demisexual, but it sounds like everyone experiences levels of attraction differently.”
I consider Bastian’s standoffishness and his hesitancy to open up, and understanding hits. “Does that mean you have that connection with me, too?”
The blush is back, brighter than before. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Maybe.”
My foot collides with hisintentionallyas a fluttery feeling tickles my chest. It’s no declaration of love, but it’s enough for now.
We spend the next hour or so talking about ourselves. It almost feels like a date. I learn about his childhood growing up with Charlie and Marcus. How he refused to go to college despite his father’s wishes because he always wanted to be a chef. How he struggled with relationships over the years. It makes my heart ache to think about this beautiful man being so sure that he was undeserving of love.
I tell him about my dad and how he made me hate the sport I loved so much. I tell him about waking up in the hospital alone and feeling like I lost everything. My teammates came to see me,of course, but my dad hasn’t spoken to me since the accident. My career was fucked, my body was fucked, and the one person I sacrificed everything for completely abandoned me. I regretted my whole life at that moment—every decision.
I expect to see pity when I tell him how I spiraled after I found out I’d never play pro again, but then I realize that he already knew about it. He saw me drinking my life away, and he took care of me anyway. Reluctantly. Night after night. For months. I never really thought about it, but Sebastian Conner has been there for me all along. I knew who he was because of Charlie, but that’s not why I kept coming back.
“Do you remember the first night I came in?”
Sebastian purses his lips and gives me a nod. “You sat at the bar and ordered a Granville Island lager.”
My eyes widen.He remembers. I lick my lips. “You were helping Brett behind the bar. I thought…” Heat crawls into my cheeks.
“What?”
“I thought you were the hottest guy I’d ever seen.”
Bastian, who happens to be mid-drink, sputters on his water. “What?”
I chuckle. “So I came back again and again, trying to work up the courage to talk to you for weeks. It gave me something to focus on, you know?” I reach across the table and graze his hand with my pinky. He doesn’t pull away this time. “But you didn’t really notice me until the first night I got so drunk that Gabriella had to call an Uber.”
He flinches. “I didn’t think you remembered that.”
“I thought you were going to throw me out for good. Tell me to never come back.” I laugh sardonically. “I mean, my own dad didn’t want me, why would the hot bar owner?”
“But I didn’t throw you out.”
“You didn’t. You helped Gabriella pull me from that bathroom stall, you wiped puke off my face, and you said, ‘I knowthis isn’t you, Michaels. Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.’”
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’d just watchedBatman Beginsthe night before. I figured you were too wrecked to recognize it.”
