“I’m glad she’s supportive,” I say. “Is there any way that you could finish her training and she could work with you?”
He nods. “Yeah. She’d have to pass some tests before it would be official, but I think after she graduates from high school, as long as I keep working with her, she could pass.”
“Is she interested, you think?”
“Absolutely,” he says. “She is fascinated with my job.”
“And you’ve told her about the school,” I say.
“Yeah. Do me a favor and don’t tell your dad that,” he says. “Strictly speaking, she isn’t supposed to know anything about Spy School, but I trust her.”
“How do people get married if they can’t tell their spouses about their job?” I ask.
“There is a clause,” he says. “Whenever somebody from Spy School gets engaged, they’re allowed to tell their fiancé about Spy School. But they have to sign this relationship form and it’s a whole big thing. And considering she’s only seventeen, we’re not getting engaged right now.”
“Probably for the best,” I say.
“Hey, aren’t you eighteen now?” Sander asks.
I nod. “But I’m not getting engaged, either.”
He laughs.
Because as much as I love the idea of forever with Sebastian, I like the idea of it later on. Right now, I want to enjoy the time we spend dating each other—stolen kisses, holding hands, late nights on the phone, butterflies in my stomach.
I’m going to enjoy every single stage of Sebastian’s and my relationship.
A keeper.
That afternoon, when I’m hanging out with all the guys, Dad calls me into his office. And I’m not too unhappy about going. Because all the guys are teasing me about dating Sebastian. And Sebastian is just laughing along with them! Traitor!
I go inside his office and Dad shuts the door behind me, meaning we’re about to talk.
Oh, gosh.
This can’t be good.
He takes a seat at his desk and I sit in one of the chairs on the other side, facing him.
“What’s up?” I ask.
He laughs. “Usually when I talk to people in here, it’s a very formal thing.”
I grin at him. “Well, I’m your daughter, so don’t expect me to be formal.”
“Never,” he says. “But I do need to talk to you about something kind of serious.”
“Okay,” I say, swallowing hard.
I’m suddenly nervous.
“It’s not going to be long before Steven comes,” Dad says.
“I figured,” I say.
“I just want to make sure you are aware of exactly what that means,” he says.
“Okay.”
“We are good at what we do,” he says. “But he went to this school, too. He has trained his whole life from birth. And when he decided that his loyalty was no longer with Spy School, he put his all into his new job.”
I nod. “Yeah, I know. He’s good.”
“We don’t have to do this right now,” he says. “I can get you and Sebastian on the run again. You can be in a new country every week.”
“I don’t want to do that,” I say.
“I just want to make sure,” he says. “Because Steven is going to put up a good fight. There is going to be bloodshed. And possibly lives lost.”
My chest hurts. “I know.”
“And you still want to do this?”
“Yes,” I answer. “I don’t want to spend my life running. And I don’t want to do that to Sebastian either. I know he misses his mom and little sister. I want to end this for me. But I also want to end this for him. And I want to end this for Mom. She deserves justice.”
“I agree completely,” he says. “And I’m glad you want to stay and fight.”
“Why did you even ask me then?” I ask. “Why give me a choice?”
“Because in the end, it is your decision,” he says. “Someday, you are going to take over Spy School, and it’s my job to train you and make sure you’re ready. I want you to make decisions.”
“Oh,” I say. “You think I’ll be good at what you do?”
“I think you’re going to be great,” he says. “You were born for this.”
I smile at his praise.
“Do you think I am making the right decision?” I ask.
“As your father, I want you to run far away,” he says. “I want to keep you safe. And I know that once Steven gets here, your safety isn’t guaranteed. But as your... boss... I know that this is what is best. It’s time.”
“My boss,” I say, grinning at the term. “My safety isn’t guaranteed whether I stay here or if I leave.”
“That’s true,” Dad says. “But I still worry.”
“I love that you worry about me,” I say. “I’ve never had anybody to worry about me before. It’s nice to feel... loved.”
“You may not have known it, but you have been loved your entire life,” he says. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you. I love you so much. And your mom loved you so much. More than you can imagine.”
His words make my heart swell.
I know he loves me. He proves that in his actions every single day.
“I love you, too, Dad,” I say.
He smiles.
“Now, we need to talk about you and Sebastian,” he says.
“What about him?” I ask, trying to remain calm.
“You two are dating,” Dad says.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Do you love him?”
Uh.
Why is my dad asking these questions? Does he not realize how awkward this is for me?
“Yeah, I do,” I answer, deciding to be honest with him.
“A few rules,” he says.
Rules?
About dating?
“One, I don’t want the two of you in your bedroom alone with the door shut,” he says.
That is reasonable.
“Okay,” I say.
“Two, please don’t run off to Vegas and get married,” he says. “It might seem romantic, but it’s not. And I want to be there for your wedding. I’ve dreamed of the day I can walk you down the aisle.”
“Dad,” I say, my face growing warm. “I’m only eighteen. I’m not going to run off and marry Sebastian right now.”
“People in Spy School tend to get married younger,” Dad says. “If you know what you want, why wait?”
I look at him, tilting my head to the side.
“You should wait, though,” he says. “Because eighteen is young.”
I laugh.
I think he just realized what he said.
“Don’t worry, Dad. I am not getting married to Sebastian anytime soon,” I say. “But if I do decide to marry him soon, it won’t be in Vegas.”
“Okay,” he says, now looking a little worried.
I laugh. “Look, you don’t have anything to worry about. It took five months for Sebastian to ask me to be his girlfriend. I imagine it’s going to take him a very long time to ask me to be his wife. That’s a much bigger commitment.”
“You’re not making me feel any better,” he says.
“Maybe you should talk to Sebastian about this,” I say. “He’s the one who would do the asking someday, in the very distant future, anyway.”
“I’ve already spoken to him,” he says. “And he knows where I stand on the issue.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” I say.
But I’m also freaking out.
My dad talked to my teenaged boyfriend about marriage.
If that didn’t scare him off, I am not sure anything would.
How embarrassing.
“That is all I needed to talk about,” Dad says.
“Okay,” I say, getting up from the chair. “But, uh, Dad?”
“Yes, Serenity?”
“Could you maybe not talk to my teenaged boyfriend about marriage again?” I ask. “Because... I know that you and Mom got married when
you were teenagers, but teenagers now days don’t exactly talk about marriage. At least, I don’t think so. And I’m worried that you’re going to scare him off.”
“If the thought of marrying you scares him off, then he needs to go,” Dad says. “But I talked to him about this in New Zealand, so don’t worry. He’s not going anywhere.”
Dad talked to Sebastian about this back then?
And he still asked me to be his girlfriend.
Wait.
“No wonder it took so long for him to ask me to be his girlfriend,” I say. “You probably scared him.”
“Maybe,” Dad says.
“What did you say?” I ask.
“A lot of what I told you,” he answers. “But I also told him to not make a move on you unless he was absolutely certain he wasn’t going to break your heart.”
“Oh, my gosh! Dad!” I scold him.
“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to protect my teenaged daughter from her first broken heart,” he says. “Sebastian is a keeper.”
I stand there, looking at him with my mouth open.
“Would you shut the door on your way out?”
I nod, still not sure what to think.
Still, I leave the office, thinking about what my dad said.
Sebastian Soto is a keeper.
But I’ve always known that.
Stolen kisses.
True to his word, Sander keeps everybody occupied tonight so I can hang out with Sebastian alone. Though, I’m pretty sure everybody knows what we’re up to.
Sebastian and I can’t go outside since it’s too cold, so instead, we hang out in the basement—I didn’t even know we had a basement until earlier today. Dad was showing me where the panic room was and I was shocked to see that there was a basement here.
In Florida, we don’t have basements, so it was a shock. But even more shocking was the fact that it looks like the rest of the house down here, except there are no windows. I always imagined basements were creepy with unfinished walls, concrete and lots of spiders. But that’s not the case.
In our basement, we have a second ‘living room,’ kind of. There is a huge sectional, a giant TV, and a few video gaming systems. Not that I’m interested in video games. Come to think of it, Dad doesn’t seem like a video game kind of guy either, though he probably got it for when he has guests.
“I didn’t know we had a basement until earlier,” I tell Sebastian, as we sit down on the couch. I sit right next to him. Sure, there is plenty of room to sit anywhere, but I like being close to him.
“That’s funny,” he says.
“We don’t have basements in Florida,” I say.
“That makes sense,” he says. “They’d probably flood. And you also probably don’t need them for your foundation.”
“People need basements for their foundation?” I ask.
“I don’t know a lot about it, but they have to dig a certain number of feet underground, depending on where you live,” he says. “I think the colder it gets, the deeper it has to be.”
“Huh,” I say. “We also don’t have many two-story homes.”
“Because it’s hot in Florida,” he says. “The upstairs would be miserable in the summer. Since heat rises.”
“I didn’t think about that,” I say. “No wonder my room is so nice and warm at nighttime here.”
“You’re cute,” Sebastian says.
I turn so that I am facing him. “Dad said I have the final decision on whether we stay here and fight or if we keep running.”
“What did your dad want?” he asks.
“He wanted me to keep running,” I say. “He felt like that was safer.”
“And what do you want?”
“Part of me wants to run,” I say. “To keep going on like we have. But that is only a temporary solution. I know that we need to stay here and bring this fight to an end. That is the only way any of us will ever have a chance of really living.”
“Good,” he says.
“Do you think I’m making the right decision?”
“I am ready to stop running,” he says. “No matter what the outcome, this is the only real decision we have.”
I nod.
He’s right.
I just hope I don’t regret it.
“No matter what happens, know that I don’t regret any of this,” he says. “Meeting you is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
I can’t help but smile at his words, even if they are a little morbid.
“You can tell me all about how meeting me is the best thing that’s happened to you after your dad is behind bars,” I say.
He smiles. “This is why we are perfect for each other. We are a lot alike. We are both stubborn. We are both fighters.”
“You are way more stubborn than I am,” I say.
“Most of the time,” he says. “But when you want something, you fight for it harder than even I do. And you put up with me, which makes you the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
I laugh. “Yeah, you can be a pain.”
Because, seriously.
I’ve spent every day with him for the past five months and while I love him, he is also the most frustrating person I’ve ever met in my life. But he’s well worth every bit of the effort.
“Serenity, I love you,” Sebastian says. “A lot. I don’t tell you that enough. But I want you to know that.”
“I know,” I say. “I love you, too.”
“I know,” he says.
“My dad had an interesting talk with me today.”
“Oh, yeah?” he says, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. He gave me the whole speech about not being alone with you in my bedroom with the door shut,” I say.
He laughs. “He thinks I’m going to try and seduce you?”
I nod.
“He’s probably right,” he says.
My face grows warm. “Sebastian!”
“What?” he asks. “You’re beautiful and we’re in love. It’s completely natural.”
True.
Still...
“He also had a talk with me about not running off to Vegas to get married,” I say.
He laughs. “He talked to me about that in New Zealand. And basically, threatened me. If I ever break your heart, he would make my life miserable. And he’s my boss, so if anybody can do it, it’s him.”
“Yet, you are still dating me,” I say.
“I’m not planning on breaking your heart,” he says. “I wouldn’t have dated you in the first place if I weren’t certain about my feelings for you.”
“We’re teenagers. You can’t make promises about the future. You don’t know how you will feel about me when you’re older,” I say.
“We’re adults,” he says. “We are eighteen, which makes us legal adults in every country. And we’re both mature for our age. We have been forced to grow up quicker than most people. If anybody is ready for this, it’s us.”
He pulls me closer to him so we can snuggle.
“Does the thought of forever not scare you?” I ask.
“Why would the thought of forever with you scare me?” he asks. “I’m so lucky to have you. If anybody should be scared of being stuck with somebody, it should be you. I still don’t know why you like me.”
“It’s ’cause you’re hot,” I say.
I’m joking.
I like a lot about Sebastian. His looks don’t matter to me, though I definitely find him good looking.
Very good looking.
He knows I’m joking because he laughs.
“Why do you like me?”
“I could say a lot of things about your personality or how quickly you learn or how you make my heart race with one look. Maybe I could even say something about your charisma or sense of humor. But since you only like me because of how I look, I will just say I like you because you’re beautiful. Like, so unbelievably beautiful that sometimes it hurts to even look at you. And the best part is that you somehow like me b
ack. You’re mine and I’m yours.”
And then he goes and says something like that.
“You’re not a bad kisser either,” he says.
“We should kiss more often,” I say, trying to be bold.
There is no reason to be shy with Sebastian. He feels the same way about me as I do about him. There is no reason to be shy. Not with him.
“Oh, really?” Sebastian asks. “You want me to kiss you?”
I nod.
“Right now?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kiss you first,” I say.
“You can kiss me any time you want,” he says. “Just, not in front of your dad. That would be—”
I want him to stop talking. So, I lean closer and press my lips against his in the middle of his sentence, which shuts him up instantly.
I don’t think he thought I would actually initiate the kiss.
Maybe I can surprise him after all.
Even though I am the one who initiates the kiss, he takes the lead. For that, I am glad. I like it when he leads. I still have no clue when it comes to kissing and romance and all the things that go along with all this. All I know is that I am so in love with this boy that I can’t even think straight around him.
The only kiss I have to compare this to is our first kiss in Louisiana. That kiss was good. Passionate. It was heated and intense. But this kiss... it’s soft. And slow. Intense still, in its own right. But the kind of kiss that only makes me fall more in love with him.
I am surprised by how soft Sebastian’s lips are, because the rest of him is not soft. His hands are calloused. He has muscles from his intense work outs. And even his very nature is manly and rough. But his lips... this kiss... it makes me see a whole new side of him I’ve never seen before.
Even though the kiss is soft and slow, my heart is racing so fast I fear he will be able to hear it. But it’s not because I’m nervous. Not this time. It’s crazy how quickly I am getting used to this—to him.
I don’t know how long we spend together just like that.
Not saying anything.
Just letting our lips do all the talking.
Letting our tongues explore each other’s mouth.
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