Now
I don’t remember much of my walk home, but I know it wasn’t pretty. More than a few people stopped to stare at the girl with mascara running down her face, mussed up hair, and a trembling lower lip, but no one spoke to her. New Yorkers were rarely phased by something so minor as a girl having a total breakdown while wandering the streets of Midtown. Times like this made me miss Georgia, where I’d have been stopped immediately and tucked under the wing of a concerned neighbor, who’d have insisted on bringing me home with her for a glass of sweet tea and a slice of homemade pie.
I supposed a bottle of Merlot would have to do as a substitute.
When I got home, I didn’t even take my dress off before collapsing onto my bed in a heap of misery. Though the tears had finally stopped, I was exhausted from my crying jag and had no desire to look in my mirror at the puffy-eyed mess I’d become. I slipped my sleep-mask over my eyes to block out the light, burrowed my head beneath a mound of pillows to muffle the sounds of rush hour traffic, and fell into a fitful sleep, in which I dreamed of cemeteries and flashing hazel eyes.
“Do you think she’s dead?”
“I don’t know, poke her foot.”
“You poke her foot. I hate dead people.”
“Does anyone like dead people?”
“Necrophiliacs?”
The sound of two people giggling like hyenas pulled me back into consciousness.
“Ungh,” I muttered. I really needed to change my locks.
“Oh good, she’s alive.” A voice I now recognized as Simon’s drifted closer, and the weight of someone’s body landed next to me on the bed. Seconds later, another body settled in on my opposite side. To my dismay, my cocoon of pillows and blankets was ripped from my body and shoved to the floor. With a resigned sigh, I pushed the sleep mask up onto my forehead and cracked my eyes open. Simon and Fae were staring at me with horrified expressions.
“What?” I asked, my voice scratchy with sleep.
Simon looked at Fae. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?”
“Sweetie, you look like death warmed over. You’ve got raccoon eyes.” Fae’s lips twitched as she pointed at my face. “What happened?”
“And what’s with the psycho serial-killer wall over there?” Simon asked, gesturing toward the mosaic of notes and photos I’d pinned up on the other side of the room. “Does someone need a Prozac?”
I groaned, pulling my sleep mask back over my eyes to block them out.
“I think this calls for serious measures,” Fae noted.
“Yep.” Simon agreed. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Wine,” they chimed in unison.
A hand grazed my temple, peeling the sleep mask off my face and up over my head, and bringing my best friends back into view. Fae, sleep mask in hand, was staring at me with concern while Simon headed across the room toward the kitchen area, no doubt in search of the jumbo bottle of Merlot I’d stashed on the counter. I sat up in bed when he returned with a full glass of wine and a warm, wet washcloth. I accepted both gratefully, gently wiping at the mascara on my face and taking a large sip from my glass.
When I’d gotten myself together, I took a deep breath and faced Simon and Fae, who were watching me from their perches at the end of my bed.
“It’s time to spill, baby,” Simon said, squeezing my thigh. Fae nodded in agreement.
With a sigh, I set my wine glass on the bedside table, climbed from the bed, and crossed to my desk, where I’d dropped my keys earlier. Fingering the smallest brass key on the ring, I headed for the small excuse for a closet embedded in the wall by my bed. On the top shelf, tucked behind the Jamie Box, I had a small lockbox where I kept a few things safe — the tiny diamond stud earrings my grandmother had left me when she passed, some of Jamie’s old medical records, my college diploma, and, of course, the document that had sealed my fate all those years ago.
The NDA.
I pulled the lockbox down from its place on the shelf and used the small key to open it. My fingers flipped through several documents before reaching the file that lay on the very bottom. I grasped the papers lightly, as though they were laced with toxins and holding them might allow fatal poison to seep through my fingertips and into my bloodstream. The pad of my index finger traced the lettering typed in boldface across the top of the first sheet:
Non-Disclosure Agreement
The tempo of my heart picked up speed as I walked back toward Simon and Fae, who hadn’t moved from their spots on my bed. I stopped about five feet away.
“If I tell you everything, I’m violating this contract,” I told them, gesturing to the papers in my hand. “And, technically, I’m breaking the law.”
“What is it?” Simon breathed, the light in his eyes equal parts excitement and trepidation.
“It’s a non-disclosure agreement.” I swallowed roughly.
Fae’s expression was unreadable. “It has to do with Sebastian?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’ve never told anyone about this. Not even Jamie. I didn’t ever want to look at it again,” I whispered, my grip tightening on the slim stack of paper. I wanted to rip it to shreds, but instead I forced my grip to loosen and looked up at my friends. “But I needed you to know that this isn’t a secret I keep lightly. It’s not something I ever wanted in my life, and I probably shouldn’t even be talking about it, but I trust you guys. I love you. And if you need to know, I’ll show you — I’ll tell you everything.”
They were quiet for a long time, the silence stretching out as I waited for them to make a decision. They locked eyes, staring at one another for a few seconds before nodding in sync and turning back to face me.
“We don’t need to see it.” Fae smiled softly at me. Simon nodded in agreement.
“Are you sure?” I asked, wavering. There was a large part of me that didn’t want to keep all of this to myself anymore, even though sharing wouldn’t have been the soundest decision I’d ever made.
“Put it away, baby,” Simon ordered in a gentle voice.
“I don’t want this secret to come between us or cause a problem in our friendship,” I said quietly, voicing one of my biggest fears. Since Jamie died, Simon and Fae were the closest thing I had to family.
Simon snorted outright. Fae’s laugh was a little more subdued, but not much.
“Now you’re just being a dumb blonde,” Simon chided, rolling his eyes. “I thought you’d finally dispelled that stereotype but I see my work with you is not yet done.”
“Lux, don’t you understand?” Fae asked with a grin. “We love you too. Being friends with someone doesn’t mean that everything is perfect all the time.”
“Clearly,” Simon chimed in, rolling his eyes.
“As I was saying,” Fae continued, smacking Simon lightly on the arm. “A perfect friendship doesn’t mean everything is perfect — it means you love each other enough to forgive the imperfections.”
I’d thought I was cried-out for the day, but I suddenly found my eyes watering.
“Jesus, all this sweet bonding is giving me cavities,” Simon complained. “Put that damn thing away and come drink your wine.”
With a laugh, I walked to the lockbox and slipped the NDA inside before placing it back on its shelf in my closet. When I returned to the bed, I sat in the space between Fae and Simon, who immediately enveloped me with their arms.
“What would I do without you guys?” I asked, leaning my head on Simon’s shoulder.
“You’d probably be dead in a ditch somewhere.” Fae giggled.
“Or, at the very least, you’d have an abominable fashion sense and never get into the good nightclubs,” Simon added.
I smiled and sipped my wine.
By the time Simon and Fae left me for the night, I was thoroughly buzzed and swaddled in the pale blue silk pajama set I never wore because it was too pretty to wrinkle and, anyway, didn’t only women in classic movies wear fabulous designer nightwear? Most nights I slept in the first oversized t-shirt my hands landed on when they reached into my dresser drawer, but tonight I had little choice in the matter — Simon was being insistent.
The pajamas had been a Christmas gift from him last year, purchased because they’d apparently “bring out the blue in my eyes” and, as an added bonus, help to trick men into thinking I was the kind of classy lady who wore silk to bed. While rummaging through my wardrobe — as was his habit, whenever he was cooped up in my tiny studio for too long — Simon had been dismayed to find them folded in a neat pile with the tags still attached, in a small nook at the back of my closet. He’d retrieved them, made a fuss about my neglect of a perfectly good pajama set, and, of course, forced me to put them on immediately.
I had to admit that his taste was impeccable. As soon as I pulled the sleek tank top over my head and slid my legs into the flowing kimono pants, I fell in love with the feeling of silk as it brushed against my skin like a caress. And he’d been right — my gray-blue eyes did look brighter in the mirror in contrast to the fabric.
During the pajama drama, Fae located a bag of microwave popcorn somewhere in the depths of my cabinets — quite possibly leftover by the previous tenant, but I had a good buzz on and I wasn’t feeling picky tonight — and popped a comedy into my DVD player. The two of them clucked over me like mother hens for nearly an hour before I finally forced them out of my apartment. They would’ve stayed with me all night if I’d asked, but I was craving some alone time after the day I’d had.
The credits were rolling and my eyes were drooping when the buzzer rang sharply three times in quick succession. I rose and stretched the kinks out of my back, walking to the door with my wineglass in hand. I figured it might be Simon and Fae, back to ensure that I hadn’t pulled a Sylvia Plath and put my head in the oven or started bottling my own urine like Howard Hughes.
I pressed the intercom and was surprised by the voice I heard on the opposite end.
“Babe! It’s Desmond!”
What was he doing here?
“Um, hey, Des. Did you need something?” I buzzed back, my brow furrowed in confusion.
“I have your jacket! You left it at my place after the movie a few weeks back. I was in the neighborhood so I figured I’d swing by and return it to you.”
I glanced at my watch — it was 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night. Maybe he really had been in the area, but it seemed unlikely. Guys who looked like Des didn’t spend their free evenings playing errand boy for former girlfriends. Then again, I could be totally overthinking things. I’d had too much wine to judge properly.
I sighed and buzzed him in.
“Hey, babe.” Desmond leaned down and kissed my cheek as soon as I pulled open the door. “Nice jammies.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“You okay?” he asked, his eyes scanning my face. My makeup was long gone and I knew that my eyes were still puffy and red from earlier.
I nodded, but didn’t explain the residual traces of tears.
“Here,” he said handing over my jacket.
“Uh, thanks,” I repeated, feeling awkward. Southern hospitality practically demanded I let him in, rather than leave him standing on the stoop like a stranger, but I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. I was half-inebriated, braless, and feeling vulnerable after the day I’d had, so a visit from an ex was probably not the greatest idea. As I deliberated, I watched a delivery man walk through my hall toward Mrs. Johansson’s apartment next door, the brown bag in his arms wafting the deliciously greasy aroma of lo mien noodles and egg rolls.
My stomach growled loudly.
“Hungry?” Desmond asked, arching one eyebrow in the direction of my stomach.
“No,” I lied, trying to conceal the Pavlovian response I was having to Mrs. Johansson’s takeout. It was a miracle I managed to hold in the long tendrils of drool threatening to leak from my mouth.
“What’d you eat for dinner?”
“Um.” I winced. “Stale microwave popcorn?”
“Babe.” Des shook his head. “My idea of gourmet may be macaroni and cheese, but even I know that popcorn is not a meal.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Desmond kept talking.
“And no, Doritos and wine don’t count either.”
My mouth snapped closed. The delivery guy, now empty handed, smiled at me as he headed for the stairwell at the end of the hall.
“Come on,” Des said, edging inside my doorway. “I’ll make you something.”
“My cupboards are empty.”
“Well, then I’ll order you something.” He grinned at me, stepping further through the entry so I had no choice but to move back a step — it was either that or initiate a sumo-wrestler-esque chest bump standoff, which I was in no way prepared for seeing as I wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Listen, Des…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I also didn’t want to lead him on. His smile slipped a little. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to—”
“Hey, it’s cool,” he said, holding both hands up in a gesture of surrender. “No worries.”
“Thanks for the jacket,” I told him, meaning it. “And I’m sorry.”
“Come ‘ere, Kincaid.” He smiled sadly as he stepped forward and pulled me into an embrace. It wasn’t one of seduction, but of sheer comfort. Of friendship.
What a freaking good guy, I thought, bringing my arms up to return his light hug. I cursed my own inabilities to date him, but hoped that one day we could, at the very least, be friends. A warm, happy bubble of contentment rose within me at the thought.
Unfortunately, that bubble burst when a familiar icy voice shattered the silence and stopped my heart — for the second time today.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
My arms stilled around Des, and I felt every hair on my body stand on end.
Shit, shit, shit.
Sebastian fucking Covington was at my door.
My eyes flew open and spotted him over Desmond’s shoulder. He was standing in the partially open doorway, the hand he’d raised to knock drifting slowly back toward his side. His glaring eyes were, for once, not directed at me, but were locked on the back of Des’ head. With my eyes on Sebastian, I pulled out of the embrace. Desmond’s arms dropped away from me, and he turned to face the man who’d just appeared in my doorway.
“This was a mistake.” Sebastian’s eyes were wide, his tone incredulous. “I just can’t seem to stop making those with you. I shouldn’t have come here.”
Desmond looked from me to Sebastian, then back to me. “This the guy?” he asked.
I glanced at Sebastian, who’d turned to go but halted when he heard Desmond’s question. When Bash’s eyes met mine, I nodded reluctantly.
“Seems like a dick,” Desmond muttered. One corner of my mouth twitched and my gaze returned to Des.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m the dick in this situation,” I admitted. I could sense Sebastian’s presence by the door, where he stood paralyzed with momentary indecision — to stay or to go. As much as I was worried about another confrontation like the one we’d shared earlier, the curiosity of why he was at my door — hell, of how he’d even tracked down my apartment and gotten inside without buzzing — was tearing me up inside.
“You gonna be okay with him if I leave?” Des asked. I smiled softly at him before my eyes drifted over to Sebastian. He was watching me closely and I saw something flare in his eyes when I nodded my head.
“Yeah,” I said, my gaze steady. “Yeah, I’ll be fine with him.”
“You need me, you call.” Des took hold of my chin and turned my face back toward him, so I was looking into his light blue eyes rather than the hazel ones that had a tendency to ensnare me.
“Thanks, Des,” I whispered. “You’re the best.”
“I know that, babe.” His grin was cocky. “I’m just waiting for you to catch up.”
I laughed as he dropped a light kiss on my forehead, turned for the door, and came face to face with Sebastian — at which point all levity was sucked from the room and my giggles died in my throat. Des drew himself up to full height and made sure his not-insignificant muscles were on display as he leaned toward Bash.
“Do not upset her.” His tone was surprisingly cordial, even if his stark order left something to be desired.
To my surprise, when Sebastian responded it was with equal civility. “I won’t,” he promised.
“Good.” Des nodded, then turned back to look at me. “Bye, babe!”
With a final wink, he was gone — leaving me not only in the company of my ex, but also wearing a ridiculous silk freaking pajama set and three sheets to the wind after downing two brimming glasses of wine.
Perfect.
I stared at Sebastian. Sebastian stared back at me.
When neither of us spoke, the tension grew into a living, breathing entity — coiling around us like a dark, malevolent snake. With each passing second, the cobra constricted more tightly, its deadly embrace squeezing until the strain of simply staring at one another became too much to withstand. I cleared my throat, sick of this silent stalemate, and gave in.
“Well.” I stepped back into my apartment so the doorway was clear. “I guess you should come in.”
He took a step inside and shut the door behind him with a soft click that, for some reason, sounded more like a jail cell locking into place than a thin piece of particle-board closing on crappy hinges.
I walked over to my kitchen area and immediately topped off my wine glass, taking a healthy gulp for strength. When I turned back to Sebastian, his eyes were sweeping my small space in an intense but not altogether critical evaluation. They lingered for a moment on my wall of notes, photos, and mapped locations, his brow crinkling in confusion and curiosity as he took in the sight.
“Wine?” I offered. He shook his head.
I walked over to my couch, skirting him with several feet of safe distance between us. Settling into the cushions, I turned to look at him. He hadn’t moved much past the doorway and his gaze now seemed to be locked on my bed, examining the rumpled comforter and widely strewn throw pillows with more than cursory interest.
“You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend.” He spoke the words with indifference, still refusing to look at me.
I rolled my eyes. What was this — jealousy?
“You didn’t ask,” I snapped back, my inhibitions far lower than usual due to the wine sloshing around in my system. Sebastian turned to me, surprise clear in his expression. I’m not sure what answer he’d expected, but it hadn’t been that one.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I admitted, this time using a quieter tone. With a sigh, I turned away from him and burrowed deeper into my couch cushions. “So are you going to tell me why you’re here, or should I start guessing?” I didn’t look at him as I asked my question — two could play that game — nor was there any real insistence in my voice. I was too worn out to fight with him any more today.
There was a moment of silence before I heard the sound of footsteps on hardwood. Seconds later, Sebastian settled onto the other side of my couch, leaving an empty cushion in the space between us.
“I’d apologize, but the last time I tried it didn’t go very well,” he said quietly.
My lips turned up in a small smile. “True,” I acknowledged.
“I meant what I said earlier, before…everything exploded.” He looked over at me, his expression earnest. “I’d like to try civility. Hearing about Jamie, it just — it floored me. But I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have kept his death from you,” I countered.
We fell silent, neither of us knowing how to move past this stage of anger and animosity to a reality in which we were kind to each other. We’d ignored, tormented, and nearly broken one another in the past. We’d approached every interaction like two hostile combatants, locked and loaded with enough ammunition to blow each other to pieces. And sure, maybe those barbed, explosive interactions were dangerous and practically guaranteed to destroy us both — but somehow, the thought of laying down our arms and negotiating peace seemed a far more daunting task right now. The accusations and antagonistic words that had colored our previous conversations were, for all their brutality, simpler to face. Holding a gun on someone as you stood in your suit of body armor was much easier than trusting that as soon as you lowered your weapon, they wouldn’t blow you away with their own.
That was really what it all came down to: trust.
I’d broken Sebastian’s a long time ago. And trust was a funny thing; once it was gone, I wasn’t entirely convinced it could ever be reconstructed or made whole again. There would always be small chinks in the foundation, compromising the structural integrity of everything you managed to rebuild on top of it.
But what was the alternative?
If you didn’t try to reconstruct — if you chose to live in the ruins and attempted to convince yourself that you were happy there — you’d never even have a chance at seeing the beautiful view from the sky. You’d spend your life looking up at what you could’ve had, lying in the rubble of a broken relationship.
It was time to lay my weapons aside. To strip away my armor. To try to rebuild. And to hope, above all things, that Sebastian might do the same.
“I can’t,” he said abruptly, shattering the silence and drawing my gaze to his face.
“What?” I whispered, wondering if he could somehow read my thoughts.
“You asked me to let you go — like it’s this simple, easy thing. But I can’t let you go.” Hunched forward with his wrists resting on his knees, Sebastian shook his head and a deep frown troubled his expression. “I’ve had seven years of unanswered questions. Seven years of doubts. Seven years of calling myself an idiot, and cursing your name, and hating you for what happened. And I’ve tried to drink you out of my head with booze, and screw you out of my memories with other women.”
I cringed, but forced myself to listen to the rest of his words.
“I’ve traveled across the world, trying to outrun my memories of you. But damned if I didn’t get to every fucking continent and still see your face on the other side of my camera lens — in a crowded Tibetan market, on the cliffside of a snowy Himalayan peak, in the reflection of a muddy river in Thailand. You were always there, haunting me, around every corner.”
I curled my hands into fists in my lap. He looked over at me and our eyes caught immediately. I knew my every emotion was playing out on my face for him to read — a running script of remorse for the things I’d done, regret for what we’d both endured in our time apart, and longing for the love we might’ve had.
I’d honestly thought that he’d been fine without me all these years. That he’d moved on and forgotten the carefree months we’d spent beneath the sun when we were young and innocent, wrapped up in love. Because, though he’d been the brightest star of my life, I’d always assumed I had just been a minor, forgotten constellation somewhere in his massive stratosphere. A tiny asteroid, shooting across his distant horizon.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” I admitted, my words hesitant. “I don’t know how to do this. All I can tell you is that I’m sorry for hurting you all those years ago, and again this afternoon. I’m sorry, Bash.”
He nodded. “I know. Me too. And honestly?” he added, the specter of a smile crossing his face. “Hating you is absolutely exhausting.”
I laughed lightly. “You too.”
Once again, silence descended.
“You moved here when he died?” he asked eventually.
I took a deep breath, prayed for composure, and nodded. “After, I needed a clean break. It was too hard to be there without him…too many memories.”
Our gazes caught once more, and I knew he sensed I wasn’t just talking about Jamie.
“You never came back.” He looked at me with a question in his eyes. “That summer, after that day, you were just gone. Both of you. You vanished from Jackson, from my life like ghosts and I never saw you again.”
“I’m surprised you noticed,” I teased, hoping to steer the conversation out of dangerous waters. “With all your adventures at Princeton I can’t believe you even had time to think about Georgia, let alone visit.”
He looked at me as though he were staring at a mountain of puzzle pieces, trying to align them in his mind and figure out which ones were missing altogether. When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter than before.
“I didn’t go to Princeton.”
My eyes flew to his face. “What?”
“I didn’t go.” His expression was blank but there were thoughts working in his eyes.
I took a steadying breath and tried to keep my voice free of malice. “But what about your father and all his grand plans?”
“I told him to go fuck himself.”
Sebastian smiled — a real, genuine grin that made the corners of my own mouth lift. I thought about his words for a moment, and small bubbles of hysteria began to dance within me like popcorn kernels just before they burst open. They filled me, vibrating and expanding in my chest until I could no longer keep them contained, and I burst into laughter. Spurts of giggles popped from my mouth into the air like a flurry of exploding kernels.
“I’m sure that went really well,” I gasped out between fits of laughter, my mind conjuring up images of the senator’s face as his golden boy broke the news. My reaction probably didn’t make much sense to Sebastian, but I couldn’t help myself — there was a tremendous amount of karmatic justice in the fact that, after everything the senator had done to ensure it, Bash still hadn’t ended up on the path to the presidency or even followed in his father’s footsteps.
I glanced over at Sebastian and was pleasantly surprised to find him still grinning, rather than looking at me like I was a crazy person. “Sorry,” I whispered. “Just the thought…”
“Of his face?” Bash shook his head, grimacing. “Yeah, not pretty at the time but, in retrospect, pretty damn hilarious.”
“So no Princeton…” I trailed off, an unspoken question hanging in the air between us.
“He cut me off, of course,” Sebastian said, his happy smile still in tact. Evidently, he hadn’t been too upset about this turn of events. “I went to art school out in California. To pay my tuition, I worked my ass off every night doing freelance for local magazines and spent my mornings as a waiter, serving breakfast at this tiny diner. Then I g—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted, holding out a hand to stop his words. “You, Sebastian Michael Covington, were a waiter?” I contorted my expression into a mask of horror. “The same boy who didn’t know the difference between an omelet and a frittata? Who’d never even been inside a kitchen unless it was to sneak cookies from the pantry? Who’d never eaten a waffle until he was eighteen?” I stared at him in disbelief. “How on earth did you manage to deliver orders?”
Bash dropped his forehead into his palm. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he muttered, groaning at the memory. “Though you’re right — the first few weeks were pretty brutal. It’s actually amazing they didn’t fire me after my first shift. I spilled an entire pot of coffee, accidentally gave an order of huevos rancheros to a vegan, and mistakenly charged someone’s credit card for another table’s order.”
“Oh my god.” I snorted. “And they chose not to fire you because…?”
“I begged the owner for another shot. She was a great lady. Plus, it’s hard to say no to this face,” he joked, winking at me.
I laughed and rolled my eyes.
“After graduation, I got lucky. National Geographic had an opening doing some foreign correspondence stuff overseas. They needed someone young without any attachments back at home — someone who’d be willing to drop into dangerous places to shoot photos, with the knowledge that they might never come back. Frankly, at the time, it sounded perfect,” he told me, some of the light fading from his eyes as he thought back. “And for a while it was. I saw pretty much all of the Middle East, and a lot of Asia. Some of Africa, a few cities in Europe. I didn’t come back to the States for almost three years.”
“Sounds amazing,” I murmured. Sounds lonely, I added in my thoughts.
“It was.” He looked over at me. “Though if I never eat rice or see sand again, I’ll die a happy man.”
I laughed again and this time, though he seemed almost uncertain how, he joined in with me. His deep chuckle resonated through the room in perfect harmony with my own giggles, and filled me with an unrelenting joy. I watched his face alight. Unbeknownst to him, his expression revealed his own surprise at the sound of years of shored up laughter spilling out into the air around us. It was clear he’d not laughed like this for a long time — perhaps so long he’d become convinced it was no longer possible.
I’d forgotten how wonderful it was to laugh with Sebastian. I savored the moment, memorizing the sound of his rumbling laughter, the warm look in his eyes, the faint smell of his aftershave. I bottled up the memory and tucked it away in a far corner of my mind so that one day, when he was once again just a thread in the fabric of my past, I could replay it, relive it, as many times as I wanted.
When our breaths grew short, we finally fell silent, staring at one another across the sofa. We’d ended up in identical poses, with our bodies turned inward toward the unoccupied cushion between us, our sides pressed against the couch back, and our heads leaning against the fabric.
He reached over slowly, his hand moving to my shoulder blade where the thin strap of my silk tank had fallen down over my left shoulder. His entire body moved toward mine, and I held my breath as he entered my space. I pressed my eyes closed when I felt his light touch on the skin of my upper arm, and shivered lightly when he dragged the strap back into place. The graze of his finger was featherlight as it traveled down the length of the strap to the space below my left collarbone, where it stilled abruptly and pressed into the skin with more pressure than before.
“A tattoo?” His voice was husky.
My eyes flew open. Shit. He could not see my tattoo.
With my inhibitions dulled by the wine and — fine, I admit it — the pull of his presence, I hadn’t realized that the small line of script was visible near the edge of my tank top. Only a portion of the last word, but still — enough to make him curious about the phrase I’d inscribed in ink over my heart.
My hand came up to cover his, shielding the tattoo from his eyes.
“It’s, uh, it’s nothing really.” My mind searched desperately for an excuse to keep him from seeing the mark, and when my eyes landed on the small door to my bathroom, I blurted the first words that popped into my head. “I have to pee!”
I jumped to my feet as Sebastian laughed, my abrupt admission clearly a case of over-sharing. God, I was such a dork. I averted my eyes from him and hurried for the door. “Be right back!” I called.
He was still laughing when the door closed behind me. I leaned against it and sank slowly down to the floor, the cool tiles chilling me through the thin fabric of my pants. I curled my knees to my chest and proceeded to smack my forehead repeatedly with the open face of my right palm, hoping it might knock some sense back into me.
Seriously, what the hell was wrong with me?
Where was my self-control? My common sense? My ability to ignore the fact that the most beautiful man in the world was sitting in my living room?
Ah yes, that’s right. They’d fled somewhere around the time I’d poured that third glass of wine.
Crap.
I had to go back out there and regain control of the situation. I could totally do this — be his friend, without letting him see how much I still loved him. Pretend I felt nothing more than mutual respect. Restrain myself from staring at him like I’d given up ice cream for Lent and he was a large, delicious cone of mint chocolate chip, begging to be consumed.
Damn, Des had been right. I really was hungry. Even my mental metaphors had devolved to become food-oriented.
I scrambled to my feet and stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink, trying to collect my thoughts. I reached up and pressed my fingertips against the still-swollen bags beneath each of my eyes. Staring into their cloudy grayish depths, I prayed for composure, straightened my shoulders, and shook my fingers through my hair from root to tip, as though I could somehow shake out my nerves.
When I stepped back into the studio, I saw immediately that Sebastian was no longer sitting on the couch. He was standing by the far wall with his back to me, examining my mosaic of research. I was silent as I approached him, coming to a stop by his side with a few feet left between us.
“What is this?” he asked, all laughter gone from his voice.
“It’s for a story,” I explained, my serious tone matching his. “It’s nothing.”
“This isn’t for Luster.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
His eyes caught on the photo of Vera and me — our matching smiles stretching our cheeks so wide they’d ached with happiness, our arms looped around each other’s waists in an embrace, my silver bangle gleaming in the summer sunshine. Sebastian’s slow gaze migrated from the pinned photograph on the wall, down to where my wrist hung at my side. Its only adornment was the same beautiful thin bracelet I wore in the picture and, when his eyes came up to meet mine, I knew he’d figured out that my involvement in this story was more than that of a simple reporter.
“Why haven’t you gone to the police with this?” he asked.
My eyes moved up to examine the photo of Santos. “It’s complicated.”
“So un-complicate it.”
“I don’t want you to get involved,” I deflected, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s none of your business.”
“Jesus, I forgot how goddamn stubborn you are.” His tone was exasperated, and I’m sure if I’d looked, I’d find his expression matched it. “If this is dangerous, you shouldn’t be doing it alone.”
“Who says I’m doing it alone?” I countered maturely, using avoidance tactics a seven-year-old wouldn’t deign to. I stopped short of sticking out my tongue at him or taunting nah-nah-nah-nah-poo-poo. How totally adult of me.
I suppose it was better than the alternative — better than admitting how terrified I’d become of this whole thing. The doubts were there, circling like wolves, ready to take me down. I was in over my head, and I knew it. I was scared for Vera’s safety and my own. I didn’t know what to do, or where to turn next. But if I let those fears in — if I let them take hold — I’d never be able to finish this investigation or do anything to change those missing girls’ fates.
“Lux, this isn’t a game. If this is what I think it is…” He looked over at me, concern furrowing his brow. “It’s dangerous. These aren’t good people.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I fired back, my eyes flashing as I thought of Vera. “Believe me, I know. But it’s none of your business. We aren’t dating. We aren’t even friends. Until twenty minutes ago, I’m pretty sure we hated one another. So please just leave it alone, Bash.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then held his hands up in surrender. “Fine, if you don’t want my help, I’ll drop it. And you’re right — we aren’t dating and we aren’t friends. But you couldn’t be more wrong about that last part, Lux.”
I felt my eyes widen slightly and my breath caught as I waited for him to explain. He leaned in closer and when he whispered in my ear, his warm breath sent a small tremor through my entire body.
“See, I’m pretty sure you never hated me. In fact, I’m nearly positive of it.” His lips brushed my earlobe and I tried to keep my body completely still, my face clear of the emotions that were raging behind my mask of impassivity. My heart raced faster as he spoke on. “I wasn’t sure at first — I thought I might be imagining it, seeing things that weren’t there because I wished they were true. But now, after watching you for the last week, after sitting here with you, after laughing with you, after seeing the way you react when I do this…”
He pressed his lips against the sensitive hollow beneath my ear, his tongue flicking out to brush the skin in the briefest of caresses, and I couldn’t stop my reaction. It was involuntary — the instinctual arching of my spine, the slight tilting of my head to give his lips better access, the breathy gasp that escaped my mouth.
“Or this…” he breathed, his lips trailing down my neck to the ridge of my collarbone, where he pressed another openmouthed kiss. I whimpered slightly, cursing my wanton reaction internally but powerless to stop it.
“See, Lux, if you hated me, you wouldn’t tremble at the thought of touching my hand to take back your cellphone. You wouldn’t cast your eyes away, as though looking at me caused you acute pain. You wouldn’t smile at my jokes, or breathe in my laughter like you need it to keep on living.”
Damn. Apparently, he’d been paying pretty close attention — which meant I was royally screwed. I took a step away from him and ran my fingers through my hair, before opening my mouth to formulate a protest. I needed to be a minimum of three feet from him if I wanted to be at all convincing or coherent — any closer and it seemed my mouth was more likely to produce a torrent of uncontrollable babble. Unfortunately, as I stepped back, he advanced on me, matching each of my strides and maintaining our close distance.
“You’re crazy,” I muttered.
“Yeah?” He arched an eyebrow at me skeptically.
“Delusional,” I confirmed, retreating another step.
“Mhm.”
“Seriously, this is pathetic,” I lashed out, falling back on hostility to dissuade him. It had worked before. “Look, I get it. You’re rewriting the past to make it less painful for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“Oh, burn,” Bash mocked, grinning as he advanced on me. “You got me.”
Shit.
Abruptly, I felt my back hit the wall. He’d boxed me into a corner. Before I could squirm away, his arms came up on either side to form a cage around me, and he leaned down so we were face to face.
“I didn’t see it seven years ago. I was too hurt, too mad. But I see it now.”
“What?” I bit out, glaring up at him.
“You lied then. Just like you’re lying now.” He leaned closer so our lips aligned perfectly, separated by the smallest sliver of space. “I still don’t know why. But you know what, Freckles?”
My breathing stopped entirely as the endearment left his lips and he moved fractionally closer, closing the gap between us until our mouths brushed in the hint of a kiss. When he spoke again, I felt his words before I heard them.
“I intend to find out.”
His eyes were solemn, his voice more serious than I’d ever heard it. They weren’t just words — it wasn’t just a statement of curiosity or an expressed desire to solve a seven-year-old mystery.
It was a vow. It was a promise.
He breathed his declaration into my mouth and deep down into my soul, where it fanned the flames of panic and passion raging simultaneously within me. And before I could move, speak, breathe, think — he was gone. Striding to my apartment door and out into the hallway without another word.
I lifted a hand to trace my still-tingling lips with my fingertips, staring at my closed door with disbelief. I simply couldn’t believe it — my mind refused to process that whatever had just happened was real. Because if it was…
Bash knew. Maybe not everything, but certainly enough to send him digging into our past.
Shit.