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“Practice sucked,” I admit quietly. “This made things better.”
Her brown eyes flick up to mine as my finger slips from her mouth. “Why did it suck?”
I shake my head. “How was your day?”
She frowns. “Not great. Professor Santoro was all stressed out about lining up peer reviews for this paper she’s publishing, and my latest model isn’t working right, even with the updated data. Alice is up my ass constantly. Why did it suck, Seb?”
I trace my finger down her soft arm. I feel her shiver. I swallow, but the words don’t want to come. It should be easy to explain, it’s not that big a deal, but somehow—despite being literally naked in bed with her, my come drying on her body—it feels too personal.
“I’m going to grab some pasta.” I untangle myself from her, sliding off the bed. I grab a fresh pair of underwear from my dresser and throw them on, along with a pair of sweatpants.
The frown is still on her face. “If you’re getting food, bring me a plate.”
I catch her chin in my hand and brush my lips against hers. Once more for good measure. “I’ll bring the rest of the tray up.”
“Should we watchPoint Break?” she asks.
That makes me smile despite myself. “Are you game?”
She pretends to think for a moment, tapping her nail against her chin. “Let’s see. I think I have room in my life for another acceptably hot blond guy.”
“And to be clear, who is the first one?”
“Well, I’ve had a Hemsworth-sized hole in my heart ever since I watchedThor.”
“Is it his hammer? You can tell me.”
Her lips twitch, but she holds in her laughter. “Honestly, it’s probably the fact he gets to kiss Natalie Portman.”
“And mess around with Einstein-Rosen Bridges.”
She puts her hand over her heart. “Sebastian, that was almost sexy.”
I roll my eyes. “Beer, bourbon, or wine?”
27
MIA
Those articles won’t annotatethemselves, but I can’t bring myself to feel bad about blowing off work when it means more baked ziti, a cheesy old action movie—my favorite kind—and touches from Sebastian. While he went downstairs to grab the rest of the pasta, plus a glass of bourbon on the rocks for me and a beer for him, I cleaned up in the bathroom, changed into a tank top and pajama shorts, and ran a comb through my hair. I’m usually not big on cuddling, but the past hour, wrapped up in him while we watch the movie, has been nice. Normal. If I don’t think about anything beyond this moment, I can pretend that when I look at him, I just see a friend I happen to find attractive.
Sebastian kisses my neck softly. “Someone was photographing me during practice.”
I tear my gaze away from his laptop, where Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze are parading around in all their ‘90s glory, and frown. “Wait, what?”
His hand, which is on my bare knee, tightens slightly. “Some creep is probably selling the pictures to a publication as we speak. I spoke to Richard and he’s going to try to get anything that crops up taken down, but still. I wonder if he did it freelance, or if someone hired him. And if someone did, why, because it’s fucking weird.”
I reach over and pause the movie. Whatever I thought he was holding back about earlier, it wasn’t this. I figured he just had a tough practice, which must happen sometimes, even when you’re locked in. The last time we spoke about baseball, a couple days ago, he was still having trouble at the plate. But this? This is on a whole different level.
Indignation rushes through me at the mere thought of his privacy being violated so callously. “That sounds awful.”
“It’s stupid, I know there’s a lot of interest in me and I should be grateful, but I just… I wish it would stop.”
I wriggle around, so I’m facing him instead of sitting back against his chest, and stroke his hair away from his face. “That’s not stupid. You have the right to privacy.”
“I already agreed to do an interview soon, and that’s going to come with an actual photoshoot.” He makes a face. I don’t blame him; something tells me they’ll be a lot more interested in his personal life than his thoughts on baseball. I wouldn’t be able to handle that either. “This is making me wish I could cancel the whole thing.”
“Can’t you?”
