by Cara Bastone
Seb chuckled, because his son was home and there was nothing to do besides laugh. He touched her bun, high and a little crooked now. “I’m gonna put some jeans on.”
He heard Via and Matty packing snacks for the outing and attempting to track down Crabby’s leash. When Seb came back out, he blinked. Kid, dog and woman were all completely ready and smiling at him. He couldn’t remember if that had ever happened before. When Muriel helped get things ready, she was efficient, but Matty always ended up in a foul mood.
Right now, though, he was holding Via’s hand and grinning ear-to-ear.
Right. Okay. Wow.
The walk to the park only took about fifteen minutes. The sidewalks were dyed a dark gray from the rain, and the sodden trees drooped against the steely sky. Seb was just getting ready to warn Matty that Joy might not be there today because it was still drizzling, but sure enough, Joy was building some sort of fairy house on one side of the structure, and her parents sat side by side on the bench as always, matching ponchos covering both of their heads.
“Are those Joy’s parents?”
Seb nodded, waving at them. Via walked over and sat right next to them. “Hello.”
They nodded at her, smiling politely. Seb had been through this same thing with them before. They were always friendly, but it was like they really, really didn’t want to speak out loud. Via reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She typed something into it and held it out.
“Vee-yah,” Mrs. Choi attempted and had Seb’s chin dropping down. He’d literally never heard the woman speak before.
Via handed the phone to Mrs. Choi, and Seb watched while the women typed things into Google Translate, trying things out in one another’s languages. Matty and Joy played for an hour and a half before the Chois decided to head home.
Matty held both their hands on the walk through the park, Crabby sniffing along beside them.
“How did you know to do that?” Seb asked. “With the phone translator thing?”
She shrugged. “My dad was fluent in English when they came over from Italy, but it took my mom years and years. When I was a kid, she was really embarrassed of her thick accent. She always kept a pen and paper with her so she could write things out instead of speaking out loud. I thought it might be the same for them. Sometimes having it written takes the pressure off.”
“I want you to come back to the house with us,” Seb said, overwhelmed by her and starting to feel anxious at the thought of her going home.
“All right,” Via said quietly, her eyes on Matty.
They cooked again, an early dinner. After dinner, Seb knew that she was preparing to leave. “You could stay, you know,” he whispered against her lips while he kissed her in the kitchen. Matty was playing with Crabby in the other room.
“I know, but Matty will need some time alone with you. Today was a lot of new stuff for him to process. He needs some normal bedtime with his dad.”
“I always forget that you went to college for this. Child psychology stuff.”
“I went to graduate school for this, too,” she reminded him, one eyebrow raised.
Seb growled a little, pulling her a touch closer. “Your master’s turns me on.”
She laughed. “If you say so.”
Via slipped out of his arms and went to say goodbye to Matty. Seb followed after her.
“We’re coming with you,” Seb told her.
“What?” She knelt next to Matty and Crabby.
“We’re gonna walk you home,” Matty replied, already well aware of the drill. Seb felt a swell of pride in his son. Look at him, being all gentlemanly.
“You guys don’t have to walk me home. It’s only 6:00 and a ten-minute walk, if that.”
“Violetta, don’t argue. Dorners walk people home.”
“He’s right,” Matty said. “We even walk Mary home. And she lives really far away. And Daddy doesn’t even kiss her.”
Via laughed and threw her hands up. “If you say so,” she repeated again, but Seb didn’t miss the joy in her eye.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
IT WAS STRANGE that Matty and Seb were the only people who existed anymore. She couldn’t quite explain it. She went to work, joked with Sadie, kept up on appointments and ate dinner with Fin. But then she’d see Matty and/or Seb, and every image got sharper, brighter, that much more real.
Which was why Via was at loose ends when the boys went to White Plains for Thanksgiving break. The Department of Education had made the Monday and Tuesday of the holiday week professional development days. So, with the free Wednesday off as well, the kids had a full week off starting the Friday before Thanksgiving.
Via skipped that happy hour—gratefully, considering she still wasn’t quite ready to face all the questions about her relationship with Seb—and headed straight home with Matty and Seb. She wasn’t trying to be nosy, but her organized little heart nearly seized up when she saw the manner in which Seb and Matty were packing for their trip.
Perhaps that’s how she wound up on Matty’s floor, teaching him how to lay out outfits for the week. Next on the agenda was how to properly fold a T-shirt. But when he asked her how to choose which books to pack? She threw up her hands.
“That’s like trying to tell an artist which colors to paint with,” she told him.
Seb laughed from the door and hauled her to her feet. “You’ve helped my kid enough. Now it’s time to help me.”
Via followed him back to his bedroom, Crabby winding through her feet and hopping up on Sebastian’s bed like he owned the place.
She paused at his doorway, like she still wasn’t sure if she was invited inside. Seb came to stand right behind her, one hand up on the door frame next to her head. He brushed the hair from her neck and placed a kiss, a perfect kiss, on the back of her neck.
Via leaned backward an inch and let her eyes wander around his room. The walls were a dark, masculine blue that was still a little romantic somehow. He had a big wooden dresser on one side, a floor-length mirror on the open back of a closet door, and she could see an en suite bathroom, mostly white, on her right. There were two big windows over top of the bed.
Via let her eyes rest on the matching copper bedside lamps, the half-drunk glass of water, the dog-eared book and the—gulp—reading glasses. Everything in Via’s body pulled tight when she pictured Sebastian lying in bed—shirtless, because hey, this was her fantasy—with those black-rimmed glasses on, reading.
Finally, finally, she let her eyes fall to the bed. That same green comforter she’d seen in a picture once was smooth over top of the queen-size frame. The bed was made nicely, but not obsessively so, a little rumpled in one corner. And the headboard was a raw slab of wood, obviously something that Sebastian had made on his own. The whole effect was gorgeous and sexy...and completely intimidating.
She felt his warm hand at her lower back, and Via realized he’d threaded his fingers through the belt loop at the back of her trousers. He gave her a gentle tug forward and backward, his mouth dropping to her neck again.
“You know,” he whispered hotly over skin he’d just dampened, “every time I’ve pictured you in my bedroom, it was never for that reason.” He pointed into one corner that she hadn’t looked at yet.
A sound of total horror exploded out of her. She winced and covered her eyes with her hands.
“Oh my God, Seb. How can you possibly stand that?”
Her trepidation about his intimidating bedroom completely forgotten, Via pulled away from him, striding in and planting herself on the floor next to the open suitcase. She grimaced at the pile of unfolded clothes, the half-full travel bottles strewn about, the mismatched socks.
He chuckled. “I’m hoping you find this charming and not grounds to break up with me.”
Via tried not to startle at his words. She hadn’t realized that they were in a place where the
y could break up yet. Did that mean that he considered them to be together? Did that mean that they were exclusive? The idea utterly thrilled Via, but not as much as it shocked her.
Sure, they’d texted the entire week. Made out in his living room three times. And talked on the phone, just because, twice. But in Via’s world, that could mean anything. Shit, she’d been sleeping with Evan for six months before he’d even admitted that they were dating.
Via yanked the suitcase toward her and fiddled with it, hoping to cover her reaction.
“Charming or not,” she told him in a totally normal voice that she thanked the heavens for, “I’m about to have a coronary. Go fill these up while I start folding.”
She shoved the travel bottles into his hands and turned to the pile of clothes. He set the bottles aside.
“I just totally freaked you out, didn’t I?”
“What?” She didn’t look up at him as she started pairing socks, tucking them into one zippered pocket as she went.
“Fuck,” Seb swore suddenly. He sat abruptly on the ground and leaned his back against the bed. When she looked up at him, his head was down, and he was roughly scraping a hand over the back of his neck.
“Seb, what’s wrong?” Alarmed, she dropped the socks she was working on and leaned toward him, one hand on the ground.
“Nothing. I just...feel so fucking old.”
“Why?” she asked incredulously.
“Because I’m fucking this up. I don’t know how to date a woman in her twenties.”
“Seb.”
“I’m making you pack for me, for fuck’s sake. Like what the hell is that? And then I say the words break up and you look totally freaked out. Which is fine. Because I’ve obviously committed some sort of dating faux pas. But the problem is, I haven’t dated since my twenties, honestly. Cora and I weren’t even really dating when she got pregnant.” He lowered his voice, aware that Matty was awake and playing in his room down the hall. “We were just kind of regularly messing around. And then we were getting married. Nothing in between. And before that, there hadn’t been anyone serious in—God—years. So yeah. Basically, I haven’t done something like this,” he gestured between them, “in fifteen years, and—”
She cut him off when she crawled between his legs. He looked down at her. He was so big and she was so small that his bent legs pretty much surrounded her, and when he rested his elbows on his knees, well, she was completely inside Sebastian world.
“Seb,” she said as she leaned forward and messed with the buttons on his old blue work shirt. “I think we just freaked each other out.”
“So I did mess up with the breakup thing?”
“No.” She shook her head. “You didn’t mess up.”
His hands looped behind her as she gathered her thoughts.
“I was just surprised was all. I think because you have to be, you know, together to break up. And Evan didn’t consider us together for, I don’t know, half a year. I didn’t even know if he liked me for months after we started sleeping together and—”
The look in Seb’s eye had the words dying in Via’s mouth. He looked like he could set paper on fire with his mind.
“Seriously, if I see that kid again, I’m punching him straight in the dick.”
Via’s mouth dropped open and she threw her head back to laugh. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Cosmically, you kind of already did.”
“What?”
“I mean, I broke up with him because...” She paused. Wow. Sitting here in this warm little Sebastian cave was making her all kinds of comfortable and she was apparently just spilling all the tea. The words were tumbling right out of her.
“Because...”
The look in Seb’s eye told her he’d already guessed exactly what the because was. Via took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to skitter away from this moment. She wanted stability in her life? That meant leaning her weight against something that was strong. Things with Evan had been predictable toward the end, sure, but there’d been no substance. No strength.
“Because I realized I had feelings for you. And it wasn’t fair to him or to me to pretend like I didn’t.”
The cave of Seb’s arms and legs got noticeably smaller as he pressed her into his chest. She tilted her head to one side, and he mirrored her, following the nervous path. “I have feelings for you, too,” he told her in that low, low voice of his that reminded her of thunder in the distance. “In case you haven’t noticed.”
He leaned in to kiss her but paused. “Just to be clear, I’m not dating anyone else right now. I have absolutely no desire to do that.”
“Me either,” she replied immediately, and made him smile. He tucked her in a little closer.
And then he did kiss her. His hands linked behind her back, and her hands stayed on his shoulders. But somehow, it was still the dirtiest kiss they’d ever shared. Maybe it was the scent of fabric softener on the sheets at Seb’s back. Or the blue walls that made Via want to blink her eyes lazily closed. Or the fact that he’d just made that confession so much easier than it had ever been before. But Via was starving for him.
Her mouth was open before the kiss even started, her tongue lining his lips and then pressing viciously against his. Their teeth clacked, and she made a little sound into him. She changed the angle of the kiss, and he followed her. She was pressed so firmly against him that she could feel the hard length of him growing against her, and she couldn’t help but press harder.
“Mmph.” He tore his mouth away from hers and looked at the clock on the wall. “I’ve gotta—we’ve gotta—ah. Bath time. For Matty. Not for you and me. I mean. I wouldn’t say no, but—”
He stopped rambling and came back to her mouth. She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and needled it with her teeth. Pressing her forehead to his, she attempted to catch her breath. “Go put your son to bed. I’ll deal with this mess.”
Twenty minutes later, when Sebastian trekked back into the room with a damp and pajamas-clad Matty, Via was almost finished packing. His clothes were neatly folded in the suitcase. All she had left to do was refill the travel bottles.
“G’night, Miss Via,” Matty said, crossing to her, his arms extended. She was already sitting on the ground, so he slid right into her lap, his arms around her neck.
“Good night, you sweet, perfect, little person.” Via couldn’t help the swelling of affection for the sweet kid in her lap.
“I’ll miss you when I’m in White Plains.”
She blinked at him. He’d said it with so much fact in his voice, so little trepidation. “I’ll miss you, too. Eat some green stuff for me, okay?”
He made a face but sighed. “Okay.”
And then he leaned forward, a pucker on his lips. Via gave him a light peck, her heart nearly exploding, before she set him on his feet and he padded out, Crabby following behind.
A few minutes later, she was zipping the bag closed.
“I didn’t actually mean for you to do all the packing,” Seb said from the doorway. “I thought it would be an excuse to get you used to being in my bedroom.”
Via turned and rose up. “I don’t think I could ever get used to being in here, Seb. It’s so...sexy. So intense.”
“Really?” He looked around in confusion at his room. “I think it’s really calming.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Of course you would. You’re sexy and intense, too.”
“Is that so?” he asked, stepping into the room and gently kicking the door closed.
Her eyes widened. This was a turn she hadn’t been expecting.
“Matty’s asleep already,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts. “But I’m not going to ravish you. I just wanna see something.”
Two steps forward and he lifted her up into his arms. He turned and tossed her through the air. Via yelped as she landed on his bed, bo
uncing and laughing.
“Yup. I was right.”
“About what?” she asked, gasping, perfectly flustered.
“That you look absolutely stunning all mussed up and lying across my bed.”
She straightened her blouse and smoothed her hair. “I’m not mussed.”
“You’re mussed.” He prowled toward her and crooked her blouse again, tangled his hands in her hair. “And I like that I’m the one who made you that way.”
Seb kissed her again. He stood; she kneeled at the edge of the bed. His hand smoothed around to the top of her ass and she had the suspicion he was lacing his fingers into her belt loop again.
Via’s arms went around the barrel of his chest and up to press against his shoulders. “God, you’re big,” she whispered. “I can barely touch my own fingers behind you. How much do you weigh?”
“Excuse me?” he chuckled against her lips, and the hand at her ass deftly untucked her blouse. His thumb traced a circle on her bare skin, electrifying and melting her all at once.
“You’re just, I don’t know, built like an animal. So big. So sturdy. I feel like if I could unzip you from here—” she pressed on the bottom of his throat “—to here—” and down to his navel “—I could probably fit all the way inside you.”
“That is very weird. And really sexy somehow.” He chuckled again; this time his other hand got in on the untucked shirt action as well.
Suddenly, Seb used his considerable weight and leaned her backward, her back hitting the bed. He crouched over her, one hand at her back, one holding himself up and one knee on the bed.
“We won’t have sex,” he gasped, practically into her mouth. “I just have to touch you a little bit.”
“Yes,” she whispered, incapable of more than that small amount of speech at the moment.
Seb’s mouth fell to her neck and the hand at her back circled forward. He tugged her shirt all the way from her belt and let his hand trace over the hot skin of her belly, up to her ribs. He wasn’t letting his weight down onto her and Via was pretty sure that was because if he did, there’d be no telling where all this led. He held himself just a few inches away from her.