22. Sebastian

Chapter 22

Sebastian

“ I ’m sorry.”

She’d looked half peaceful, half frozen when I found Nelly passed out on the couch. She must have fallen asleep waiting for me to get back from the airport. With the television on, she’d been sprawled out in nothing but an oversized shirt and tight black shorts, every hair on her body standing on end as her teeth chattered endlessly.

Before I’d found her, I’d wanted nothing more than to relieve her of her childcare duties and go the fuck to bed. We’d won tonight, but I was exhausted, and all I’d craved was the comfort of my own mattress and the sweet relief of sleep. But then I heard the television, and curiosity got the better of me.

The temptation to carry her out the back door, into the guesthouse, and through to her bedroom had gnawed at me as I swiped my thumb across her cheekbone. But I was far more tempted to lift her and take her up the stairs instead, slot her into bed, wrap myself around her, and join her in whatever dream she was having .

But I was barely capable of carrying Matty to bed without waking him. I doubted I could do the same for a grown woman.

So, instead, I’d covered her in a blanket, knelt down beside her, and just… stopped. I gave myself a moment to stop. I gave myself the time to stop moving, to stop doing , to stop trying anything and everything that pushed its way into my mind. I sat on the hardwood beneath the couch, watching as she stopped shivering and fell back into a deep sleep. And I let myself take a break.

Maybe if I took a break, I could figure out how to fix everything.

————

I hadn’t intended to fall asleep right there on the ground.

A small, confused finger jamming into my bicep was what finally roused me from my hunched-over slumber. I was still there, cross-legged on the hardwood, my feet asleep and buzzing, with my arm on the couch and my head atop it just inches from the top of Nelly’s pillow.

Fuck .

“Dad—”

“Shh,” I hushed him, my shoulders and lower back screaming at me as I sat up straight. My jeans dug in uncomfortably against my hips, my shirt wrinkled and set in hard lines across my stomach. I must have been there for at least five hours based on the early sunlight coming in through the windows.

Matty stood by the side of the couch in his hockey stick pajamas, clutching the little stuffed manta ray that matched the much larger one he and Nelly had bought me from the Georgia Aquarium. A massive, beaming smile covered his cheeks as he threw himself at me quietly, nearly knocking me backward into the coffee table with his inertia.

Even with the soreness of my body, even with too much shit hanging over my head, all of it was dulled by him when I had him in my arms. Even the worry of Nelly waking up and seeing us two feet from her first thing in the morning didn’t phase me nearly as much as it should have. I had Matty, and he had me, and his insatiable, adorable, undying love for someone who couldn’t seem to get his life in order was all I needed right then.

“Hey, bud,” I breathed against the side of his head, cradling his little body in my arms.

“Hi,” he whispered. Tucking his legs up into my lap, he settled right in while I leaned back against the coffee table, his head dropping into my chest. “I’m hungry.”

I bit back the chuckle that threatened to burst from my throat and wake up Nelly. “You barely saw me yesterday, and all you want is food ?”

“Food and a hug,” he snickered.

I pressed a kiss to the top of his head before ruffling his hair. I was fucking exhausted, and the little sleep I’d accidentally gotten on the floor was barely enough to keep me going, but if I could just get him fed and ready for school and out the door with Nelly, I could go back to bed properly. “What do you want for breakfast, then?”

He snaked his little hand up between us and poked my nose, a little giggle from him sending me glancing at the woman sleeping soundly on the couch. “Pancakes.”

Of course, he couldn’t just have cereal. It had to be difficult .

Taking a deep breath and daring my body to cooperate, I wrapped one arm around him and used the other to push us up off the floor, my feet barely working after hours without proper blood flow, and slowly, carefully, carried us both out of the living room.

————

At three-thirty in the afternoon, as I lay in darkness in my bed with the curtains drawn shut, I woke back up to the sound of my phone alerting me that the front door had opened.

Nelly must have been back from picking up Matty.

I knew I should go down there, knew that I should welcome him back home with open arms and offers of snacks and hugs and quality time since he’d missed me almost all day yesterday and only had a short window with me this morning, but the calm that I’d felt as I’d held him this morning was gone, and my mind was wide awake, running and running and running .

Nelly would be down there if I made my appearance. I doubted she was awake when I’d put the blanket on her, but there was no telling if she’d woken up at any point in the night and saw me there, asleep with my arm thrown onto the cushions and my head atop it, scrunched up beside her on the floor. If she had, she certainly hadn’t said anything about it this morning, but she hadn’t said much of anything in the brief moments I’d seen her rushing around before she took Matty to school. She’d looked at me exactly once , and there was something there, something unreadable that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around or understand.

I was tired. Tired of the situation between us, even though she’d agreed to be civil. Tired from the game last night and my horrible sleeping arrangement this morning. Tired from everything moving too fast, non-stop problems seeming to hit me one after the other. Tired from the situation with Bryan. Tired from Coach trying to talk it out with me before the game yesterday.

But more than anything, I was tired of not being able to be comfortable around her. I missed the comfort we’d grown, missed how easy she was to speak to, missed the brief window of time where I’d been able to touch her because I wanted to and didn’t have to hold back from it.

She was the first person I’d slept with since Taryn that made me feel interesting as a human being. And maybe that was insane of me, maybe I was out of my goddamn mind after sleeping with her a whopping two times, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d found myself in bed with someone who wanted to hear me talk about things that weren’t hockey. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been happy about my choices in that regard. There was Taryn, and there was chaos, and then there was her.

The idea of her should have scared me. The idea of letting someone in who was more than just a passerby was something I’d dreaded for years. But she didn’t scare me — at least, she hadn’t . Not before I’d blown up.

I missed not dreading it. I missed feeling valued as a person instead of as a wallet or a free ticket machine. I missed her .

——— —

“How’s the car?”

Nelly paused with her hand on the handle of the sliding glass door, milliseconds from opening it and escaping to the guest house. She’d been distant all evening, and I’d let her be, hopeful that if I just gave her enough time, she’d settle in and we could just talk . But the moment she’d headed for the door, I panicked, hopeful that I could just nudge her back.

She turned to look at me over one shoulder, that same look back in her eyes that I just couldn’t place. “Exactly the same as it's been since I started driving it.”

Right. I hadn’t given her anything to go on, really. “Do you like it?”

“It’s a nice car.”

A heaviness settled between us as I watched her from behind the couch, nothing but the idle chatter of the television and our breathing to fill the space. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say . And in my stupid, misplaced desperation to keep her in here, to reel her back, utter shit stumbled out of my mouth. “Stay,” I said. “Maybe we could do another lesson or something.”

She huffed a breath as she opened the door. “Goodnight, Sebastian.”

————

“Seb! On the ice!” Coach shouted, his arms going out to either side of him as he skated backward toward Luke.

“One second!” I called back .

I clicked through the checkout process on my phone, hoping, praying that maybe my old peace offerings to Taryn would somehow help and improve the situation. A simple bouquet of flowers, delivered directly to the house. I’d tried to think back to the day Nelly had moved in, tried to recall the flowers she’d brought for the guesthouse — baby’s breath, calla lilies, and… eucalyptus? That had to be right.

I checked out, adding the option for a little note on the side, but Coach’s insufferable shouting to get back on the ice cut through, and I typed as quickly as I could. For the house.

I wanted her to know that she had a place there. Even if she didn’t want it.

I checked out my basket and put my phone back in my bag, popped my skate guards off, and got back on the ice.