6. Sebastian

Chapter 6

Sebastian

L uke and Nico were the only two who hadn’t made it to the showers yet by the time I got back into the locker room. Instead, they sat on the tiled ground on either side of a long bench between lockers, their palms interlocked as they stared each other down while they arm wrestled.

“Do you two just enjoy being covered in sweat, or is there only one shower left and you’re trying to figure out who gets it?” I quipped, plonking myself down on the hard metal bench beside them and starting to unlace my skates.

“Smitty bet me a hundred dollars I couldn’t beat him,” Nico said, his hand moving slightly closer to his side but not quite passing the middle. “So I’m proving him wrong.”

Luke, or Smitty, as we sometimes called him, had a look of pure determination on his face as he took back what little advantage he had. “You’re failing. Will you sing me a celebratory song when I win?”

I chuckled as I kicked off one skate, my feet practically screaming at me from the amount of crossovers I’d run. Nico’s side gig that he’d been doing since he was a teenager was opera , of all things, and in fairness, the guy was pretty goddamn good at it — but he also made a point to sing at anyone that would listen for almost any reason.

“I’ll sing myself one. How’s that?” Nico snapped, a vein bulging through his forehead as sweat started to drip.

Luke yawned as I threw one leg over the bench, pretending to be the referee as I turned to face their joined hands. “Coach said that girl who came to meet you is named Nelly,” he said, sending me a knowing look as he took another inch from Nico. “If I remember correctly…”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snapped, “or I’ll take Nico’s side when he loses and say he won.”

“Hey!” Nico shot me a glare, and, in doing so, lost yet another inch, bringing him dangerously close to being unable to recover. “I’m not gonna lose.”

I’d told Luke and only Luke about what had happened that night at Smokey’s and how it had ended, and all at once, I was thoroughly regretting that choice. “She just happens to have the same name,” I said, staring him down as if to say don’t fucking bring it up.

He winked at me, his brown hair falling into his face and little streaks of blue beneath the top layer popping out. “Either way, she’s cute.”

“She’s hopefully going to nanny for me,” I clarified. “So, as cute as you think she is, don’t get any ideas.”

“I wasn’t! She’s not really my type.” Luke shrugged and took another inch as if it was child’s play for him. “But knowing you, she’s absolutely yours?—”

Moving on base instinct, I wrapped my fingers around their joined hands and pushed, my strength joining Nico’s and easily regaining every inch he’d lost and every inch he needed to win. Luke’s hand slammed into the metal on the other side, his calm and playful demeanor slipping immediately into frustration.

“Fucks sake, Seb,” he snapped. “That doesn’t count.”

“I didn’t need your help,” Nico pouted. “I could have done it myself.”

“You were seconds away from losing. Be happy. Sing yourself a fuckin’ song,” I grumbled, pushing up off the bench. “Smitty, give him the hundred.”

“Hell no! That was rigged!”

“Was it?” I said, throwing a shit-eating grin in his direction. “I’m pretty sure you lost fair and square. Pay up.”

————

I couldn’t admit it to anyone else, but I was fully able to admit it to myself. I was rattled.

With the top down in my black Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet, I popped my sunglasses on and tapped my fingers against the steering wheel in the silence that would soon be filled with screeching children and honking horns. The line of cars ahead of me seemed content to wait another five or so minutes for the kids to be released, and on any other day, I probably would have joined them.

But this wasn’t any other day.

Nelly had plagued my mind for eight days. Eight ruthless, unending days. And she’d shown up today in one of the worst coincidences life had ever thrown my way.

Countless times, I’d pulled up her name on my phone. Countless times, I’d written out a text to send her before deleting it. I’d imagined the way her mouth had popped open in a perfect O as I slid my fingers into her, imagined what it would have felt like if I’d replaced those fingers with something far more destructive. I’d thought about her soft, heavy breasts, thought about her wide hips and little waist, thought about the little crease just beneath her ribcage, her tanned skin, her plump lips.

She’d wormed her way into my brain. And I knew within seconds of her agreeing to take me home that I couldn’t go further than satisfying her and her alone — I’d find myself in far too deep, and I’d sink like a stone.

I wasn’t celibate. I’d slept with a handful of people since the divorce was finalized. But none of them had struck me the same way she had so quickly, and I knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t cross that line with her. Not when I knew I could get attached, and not after what had happened with Taryn.

It didn’t matter if I found out down the line that she was the best person I could have asked for and never did a thing wrong. I didn’t know that now, and I couldn’t give myself the opportunity to, for my own wellbeing and especially for Matty’s. He’d already lost a mother figure, and I wasn’t going to ever put him through that again.

I didn’t want to ever go through that again.

But if this worked, if she was the nanny to end all nannies and could get the job done like Coach had claimed the people working for Rosie Justice could, I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do. She’d be around me constantly.

The doors of the school opened, and children started pouring out, the cars in front of me roaring back to life one by one. The moment I saw a little head of brown hair and a Spiderman backpack, I knew what I needed to do.

I had to compartmentalize and put the idea of Nelly into a neat little box, tucking it away in the deep recesses of my mind where I couldn’t touch it. Just like I’d done with Taryn.

I could do that.