At two o’clock the following day, Sebastian approached the Colemans’ house carrying a wrapped birthday present.
All year long, he received a steady stream of reminder texts from CeCe and Ben’s sisters. Don’t forget to send flowers for Great-Aunt Clarice’s funeral, poor dear. Just don’t send roses. She hated roses, remember. Or Cousin Drew got a promotion at work so you might want to shoot him a congratulations text. We’re trying to give him lots of positive reinforcement because we all feared he’d never amount to anything.
Almost every week the Colemans gathered to celebrate someone’s birthday, anniversary, or accomplishment. It was more than he could keep up with. He attended only when he was in town and when they were meeting for a reason he cared about even slightly.
He cared more than slightly about today’s party, which was in honor of Hadley Jane’s fourth birthday.
Ben’s dad greeted Sebastian with a hug. “Love you, man. Glad you’re here.”
“Is that you, Sebastian?” CeCe yelled from the direction of the dining room.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Get in here right now. We’re about to sing.”
He set his present on a coffee table full of gifts, then he and Hersh jammed themselves into the dining room. The family welcomed him with an assortment of hugs, fist bumps, and smiles. Ben, seated across the table from him, gave Sebastian a friendly nod.
Guilt pulled at him.
Sebastian had been making an extra effort to communicate with Ben in their usual ways. Even so, their friendship wasn’t normal right now. Again this morning, he’d asked Ben if it really was okay with him if Sebastian went out with Leah. Ben had said that it was, but then he’d said, “Can you do me a favor, man, and not talk to me about her for a while?”
CeCe walked in carrying a Barbie doll standing in the center of a dome of cake and frosting. The doll wore a silver top and crown. Pink candles stuck out of the cake, which was only big enough to feed about four of the forty-plus people who were present. Not that he really wanted to eat cake that had been pressed up against plastic doll legs, anyway.
Hadley Jane crouched on her knees on the chair at the head of the table. Her silver-and-white dress matched the Barbie’s. She stilled, wide-eyed, as everyone sang “Happy Birthday.”
She blew out her candles. Sebastian clapped along with everyone else, then took the long way around to the kitchen. He found CeCe there, cutting the cake skirt, surrounded by her sister, a daughter, and a son-in-law. Holding a knife covered in frosting, she paused long enough to give him one of her assessing looks before hauling him down into a one-armed hug. “I saw your face in there when I brought in the cake. You were thinking that it’s too small for everyone.” She clucked her tongue. “As if I’d feed this whole group a little itty-bitty cake! Those—” she waved the knife in the direction of two enormous sheet cakes—“are the cakes for the family.”
“I deeply apologize for my doubt. I should have known better.”
“You missed lunch, so it’s not good enough at this point for you to stand there apologizing and looking pretty as a mess of fried catfish. Come over here and start delivering cake.”
He’d missed lunch because he’d been buying supplies for tonight’s dinner with Leah. He served cake until everyone had the size of slice they preferred.
“Sit down, Sebastian,” CeCe ordered. “I saved you a plate.”
He settled at the kitchen table, which overlooked the back deck. A meal of pot roast, carrots, and mashed potatoes landed in front of him.
“Thank you.” His mouth watered, and he remembered how hungry he’d been the first time he’d come to this house and she’d fed him. Starving, really. For much more than food.
Ben and several others took the remaining chairs and made progress on their cake. After a time, CeCe demanded, “Eugene! Where are you hiding? Don’t think you’re going to get away from here without playing your saxophone for us!”
“Yeah,” Hersh seconded.
For CeCe, no Coleman event would be complete without one of Eugene’s mediocre sax solos. Everyone responded with enthusiasm larger than Eugene’s talent. The older man retrieved his instrument and played something that sounded like it might be the soft jazz hit “Just the Two of Us.”
Hadley Jane appeared at Sebastian’s side. He pushed his chair back so she had room to climb onto his lap. “Thank you for the dollhouse,” she said just loud enough for him to hear.
“You haven’t even opened your gifts yet.”
“But I know that’s what you got me.”
The last time he’d seen her, she’d asked him very seriously to buy her a bright pink L.O.L. Surprise! Cottage for her birthday. He had mad respect for her because she’d chosen her mark well. She’d known he was good for it.
She reached up and twisted the hair at the back of his neck around one of her fingers. How long did he have before she’d stop doing that? Another year? Two? It hurt to love children who kept insisting on growing all the time.
“Can we play fighting horses?” she asked him.
He didn’t want to play fighting horses. For one thing, he didn’t like fighting horses. For another, once they started that up, they wouldn’t be able to stop until all the Coleman grandkids had a turn.
Unfortunately for him, he was more likely to quit his job than he was to say no to Hadley Jane.
“Anything for you,” he told her.
A few more minutes of the concert droned past.
“Is it almost over?” she asked.
“One never knows.”
As soon as Eugene finished and took his false-humble bows, Hadley Jane grasped Sebastian’s hand and Ben’s hand and pulled them toward the family room.
“Are we playing fighting horses?” Ben asked Sebastian, correctly reading the situation.
Before Sebastian could reply, Hadley Jane yelled, “Fighting horses!” loud enough to alert her cousins.
“Had I known to expect this, little girl,” Sebastian commented, “I’d have brought my knee pads.”
“Exactly.” Ben lowered onto all fours. “Fractured kneecaps weren’t really part of my weekend plans.”
“If anyone’s going to fracture their kneecaps, it’s going to be me. You only weigh a buck fifty.” Sebastian went to his hands and knees a few feet from Ben.
Ben laughed. “Unlike some people, I’m fit.”
“Thin isn’t the same thing as fit.”
“Heavy isn’t the same thing as fit, either.”
“It’s a good thing for me, then, that muscular is.”
Hadley Jane climbed onto Sebastian’s back and commanded her little cousin to run and go get two pool noodles out of the hall closet.
Two of the boys tried to climb onto him behind Hadley Jane, who protested loudly. Three or four other kids all rushed to beat the others onto Ben’s back. They ended up getting there at the same time and entering into a king-of-the-mountain-type struggle, which turned into a wrestling match. Sebastian and Ben tickled the kids and, at the same time, attempted to prevent them from hurting one another.
He hadn’t wanted to play fighting horses, but now that he was covered in laughing kids, belonging settled over him. He didn’t fit in here perfectly. But this was as close as he ever came to fitting in. He’d eaten Coleman family pot roast a hundred times before. He knew that the lamp on that sofa table hadn’t worked for a year and that the door to the hallway bathroom stuck. He knew when to humor CeCe and when to compliment her. He understood the rivalries and personalities of the nieces and nephews. And he knew that Ben Coleman was the best friend he’d ever have.
In time, with work, he had to believe their friendship would be all right.
Typically when they played fighting horses, Ben and Sebastian were an even bet. Ben was quicker. Sebastian was stronger.
Tonight though, Sebastian took his punishment, allowing Ben’s riders to whack him in the head and shoulders with a pool noodle.
Since he was the one eating dinner with Leah tonight, taking it on the chin during fighting horses felt like the least he could do.
All day Leah had told herself not to concede too much time or mental energy to her upcoming visit to Sebastian’s house. It was merely an engagement on her calendar that promised to be diverting. Nothing more.
However, the commonsense self-talk hadn’t stopped her from going through the same time-consuming process she’d taken when preparing for dinner out with Sebastian. Long shower. Makeup. Time styling her hair into tousled waves. She dressed carefully in an orange V-neck sweater, gray capri pants, and silver flats.
All this made her feel, sheepishly, like an animal undertaking elaborate mating rituals when said animal had heretofore been too smart for elaborate mating rituals.
She parked in front of his house, then carried the miniature plastic disco ball she’d purchased up the walkway. The lawn, she noted, looked to have been expertly mowed.
If a stranger were to approach this house or study Sebastian’s career, they might assume that he’d lived a charmed life, that he’d had every advantage handed to him. When, in fact, the opposite was true.
He opened his front door before she had a chance to knock and surveyed her with eyes both piercing and warm. His black hair was combed starkly into place. The severity of his slate-colored crewneck shirt and low-slung jeans emphasized the rugged planes of his body.
“You’re wearing the necklace I gave you,” he said.
“I am.” Where was her brain? Why couldn’t she think of anything to say? “I . . . realize that some of the demands I conveyed last night may have been challenging to meet.” She lifted the disco ball. “I brought this in order to save my reputation as a low-maintenance dinner guest.”
“Very clever.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where he gestured to an identical disco ball already sitting on the island. She laughed. “Did you buy yours at Riverside Drugstore?”
“Yeah. You realize, right, that these matching disco balls represent our perfection for each other?”
“No.” She set her ball next to his. “They simply represent that we both pay attention to detail—a conclusion anyone could reach based on our academic records.”
He punched a command into his phone and the song “With or Without You” flowed from unseen speakers.
“1980s music,” she noted.
He pointed out the rest of his preparations. “Grapes.” Several small triangular bunches of grapes rested on a plate. “Cheesecake from Tart Bakery. Can you tell that the thermostat’s set to sixty-nine?”
“Oh yes. I’d recognize this temperature anywhere.”
“Anything else I can do to please you?” He gave a wolfish smile.
“No. These are exactly the conditions I require when cooking dinner.”
He’d already set out some of the items needed for enchiladas. Groceries. A baking pan. A mixing bowl. “I printed out a recipe,” he said.
“An easy one?”
“I challenge you to find an easy recipe for chicken, white cheese enchiladas with a salsa verde sour cream sauce.”
“‘Let’s keep a little optimism here.’ That’s a—”
“Han Solo quote.” He held her gaze. “I memorized his twenty most famous lines in order to impress you.”
It was the best night he’d had . . . ever?
The only night that could compete with it was the previous night.
They’d cooked together and eaten at the table he never used when he was here alone. After the sun set, he’d lit a fire in the fireplace that anchored the sitting area on the far side of the kitchen. The windows surrounding the space let in views of his backyard.
They were currently sitting on the sofa, finishing slices of cheesecake.
The necklace he’d given her swung forward as she leaned toward the coffee table to collect another bite. When she sat upright, it settled back into a new position against her pale, creamy skin.
He was in serious trouble.
Be mine, he kept thinking every time he noticed her lips, her profile, her almond-shaped eyes surrounded by thick lashes. Be mine.
Just like the first time he’d met her, he had a powerful desire to keep her with him.
Experience had matured Leah Montgomery. She wasn’t shallow or wrapped up in things that didn’t matter. She made him feel sharply alive, and she also stilled the part of him that was usually grasping and discontent.
“Good?” he asked once she’d finished her cheesecake.
“Unbelievably good.”
“Ready for the disco balls?”
He set the disco balls on the coffee table, turned them both on, then dimmed the overhead lights. Colored dots danced across the walls, across the front of her sweater, across her unforgettable features.
Leah stood, a look of wonder on her face.
It might be that she’d been so consumed with providing for herself and her brother that there hadn’t been much room in her life for things as impractical as disco balls. There hadn’t been much room in his life for them, either.
He opened his playlist, hit Air Supply’s “All Out of Love,” and quickly added four more slow songs to the queue before setting his phone to the side.
When he drew her body against his, satisfaction slid through him, fast and sure, like a knife through a strawberry. Their chemistry was strong enough to bulldoze trees and houses. Strong enough to bulldoze him.
They swayed together. When the final strains drifted away, their motion continued as they waited for the next song to begin.
“This is what I imagine the very best high school prom would be like,” she said.
“I wouldn’t know. I never went to any dances in middle school or high school.”
“Neither did I.” The next song started. “Last night and tonight . . . they almost feel like too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Embarrassingly self-indulgent.”
He grunted. “I bought dinner ingredients at a grocery store, dessert at a bakery, and an inexpensive disco ball at a drugstore. Expect more indulgence than this in the future.”
“What future? This is a non-date.”
“Right. But I plan to take you on more of these.”
“Non-dates, by nature, do not merit the assumption of more.”
“It’s not nice to joke about non-dates.”
She looked into his eyes to show him that she was not joking.
“Leah,” he growled. “Why don’t you want to go on another non-date with me?”
“I’m genuinely concerned about Ben.”
“That’s valid,” he said. “Will you talk to him? I think that might help.”
She pushed her lips to the side, clearly thinking it through.
“What else is the matter?” he asked. He could see there was more.
“Honestly, my singleness is part of my identity. I like being unattached. My job and my brother are challenging, so it’s wonderful to have one aspect of my life that’s simple.”
“I’m not asking you to become attached to me. I’m only asking for a few more non-dates. Simple.”
The music continued, but he stopped their motion.
With the lightest pressure possible, he drifted the fingertips of one hand from her chin along her jaw. His touch circled her earlobe and skimmed down the side of her neck. His heart began to pound. “I have a confession,” he said.
“Do tell.”
“Running into you at the football game was not a coincidence. I volunteered that night because I knew you’d be there.”
“We only talked for five minutes,” she whispered breathlessly.
“It was worth it.”
“Running into you outside your house the day I went walking wasn’t a coincidence, either.”
“Oh?”
“I found out where you lived, parked nearby, and walked your neighborhood.”
“Why?”
“To test my magnetic response to you. And you know what?” She smiled a little. “It was worth it.”
Pleasure poured into him. “You hammered out several terms for tonight’s date. But there’s one term you didn’t insist on this time.”
“I didn’t specify that we would not kiss.”
“Exactly.”
“That was not an oversight on my part. I omitted that term because I no longer wanted to abide by that term.”
His body howled with need, but he made himself move slowly. He supported her jaw with his hands. Shared her breath.
With effort, Leah stayed immobile while her body flushed.
When he pressed his lips to hers, his mouth was warm, soft, confident . . . and her physical form turned to flame.
She tasted him. Smelled his spicy scent. Felt his hands sliding into her hair. Confound it. Kissing him was like standing, exhilarated, at the edge of Niagara Falls. Hearing the roar. Letting the emotions shake through you.
Opulent minutes spun, one into the next.
No wonder women behaved foolishly over men! This was splendid and humbling. She’d been so smug about her good, safe decisions when it came to the opposite sex. But that was before she’d experienced for herself the mighty temptation a man could present.
“Will you,” he said when they pulled slightly apart, “meet me for another non-date?” His voice sounded gravelly.
Her lips tingled. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to kiss him more. And not so that she could enlarge her data set of interactions with men. Because of how he made her feel.
He kissed the inside of her wrist, then drew it up and behind his neck. “Please?”
“You’re a hard man to say no to.”
“So I’ve been told.”
A sound of amusement escaped her. “Fine. I’ll meet you for another non-date.”
His lips met hers again. Demanding and raw. Intimate and tender.
Kissing Sebastian consumed her consciousness and forced her to live so fully in the present that every one of her concerns dropped away.