Say the Word

by Julie Johnson

  “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 convi
nce 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, t
he 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.