Sebastian

It had been a week since my night with Delaney, and in that time, she’d blocked my number. When I’d first tried calling her, I’d figured it was a fluke. After realizing she really had blocked my number, I’d been tempted to head over to her place and demand she explain what had happened. My sister had been the one to talk me out of that by convincing me I’d just come across as a crazy stalker. It hadn’t taken long for me to move from bewildered to pissed. I could accept Delaney not wanting to see me again, but to tell me through the bedroom door and then block my number was fucked up. It’s not like I was some one-night stand she’d picked up in a bar and decided to discard. I wasn’t buying her excuse about our age difference. While eight years might seem like a lot, I was hardly your typical twenty-two-year-old. Delaney hadn’t even questioned my age before realizing I was friends with Luke, so I doubted that was the real reason she’d abruptly ended things with me.

I should accept that Delaney didn’t want to be with me and preferred to keep the real reason to herself. Accepting that was the smart thing to do, I tried to convince myself. I was currently standing on Luke’s front porch, having messaged him from just down the street to see if I could stop by. Chelsea was Delaney’s friend, so Luke might have some idea of what had gone wrong. Maybe if I heard the real story, I could let things go.

Luke answered the door with Haley cradled in his arms. “Hey, Sebastian. Come on in.”

“Thanks for letting me stop by on such short notice,” I told him.

“No problem,” he assured me. “It seemed like something is really bothering you.”

I followed Luke into the living room and sat on one of the armchairs before leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees. “I need to talk to you about Delaney.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “I wanted to talk to you about that, too. Chelsea is pissed at you and she won’t tell me why. What did you do to Delaney?”

“Nothing bad, to the best of my knowledge,” I insisted. “I was hoping you’d know what’s going on.”

“Not a clue,” Luke replied. “Neither Chelsea nor Brook will tell me anything.”

“Why are you asking about Delaney?” Chelsea demanded as she stomped into the room. It was clear she was no longer a fan of mine.

“Because she won’t tell me what went wrong,” I explained irritably. “We were fine. She took a shower and suddenly decided I was too young for her. Now, she’s blocked my number. I didn’t have a fight with her, and I have no idea what prompted her to shut me out of her life.”

“She has every right to stop seeing you,” Chelsea said with a huff.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “I also have a right to know why she suddenly changed her mind.”

“Maybe she’s just done using you,” Chelsea suggested. “It could be that you weren’t very good in bed, and Delaney doesn’t want to repeat the experience.”

My eyes narrowed. “Delaney isn’t the one-night stand type.”

“You barely know her,” Chelsea argued.

“I know her well enough to know that’s not the case,” I insisted. “You know it just as well as I do.”

“Why are you pushing this?” Chelsea demanded.

“I like her,” I replied. “It seemed she liked me, too, but now she won’t talk to me. I need to know what happened. I promise, I’ll leave her alone, but I just need to know what went wrong.”

“You’re just lucky she didn’t find Tori’s number and tell her what a cheating bastard you are,” Chelsea snapped.

I had no idea what she was talking about. Luke was laughing quietly from his seat on the sofa.

“There is nothing funny about this,” Chelsea told Luke, looking ready to smack him.

“Yes, there is,” Luke insisted. “Tori is Sebastian’s sister.”

My brain had finally caught up to where Luke’s was. “Delaney heard me on the phone with Tori, and I assume she also heard me on the phone with Charlotte.”

“Who is Charlotte?” Chelsea asked.

“My four-year-old niece,” I explained.

“Oh no,” Chelsea breathed out. “I should call Delaney.”

“Don’t you dare,” I warned.

“She needs to know this was just a big mistake,” Chelsea argued.

“I’m sure Sebastian will point that out to her,” Luke added with a chuckle.

“It’ll be better if I explain it to her,” Chelsea insisted. “I can smooth things over for you.

“Let Sebastian take care of it,” Luke told her.

“Can you find out where she is?” I asked.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Chelsea hedged. “Delaney will respond better if I explain this to her first.”

“She’ll like this. It’ll be just like a scene out of one of her books,” I assured Chelsea.

“I just got off the phone with her,” Chelsea admitted after a long pause.

“Is she at home?” I pushed.

Chelsea shook her head. “She went out for a run. It would probably be better if you did this another time. We could have her over here.”

“You just want to watch,” Luke accused.

“I’m not waiting,” I insisted. “Either tell me where she’s running or I’ll wait on her front porch for her to get home. I’ve been going crazy all week trying to figure out what I’d done. Now that I know what happened, I want to clear up this misunderstanding right away.”

Chelsea hesitated before answering. “She’ll walk over to Lake Chabot and then run the far side of the lake before running back to her place. I really hope she doesn’t kill me for telling you where she is.”

“She’ll love what I have planned,” I assured her as I headed to the door.

“Have fun,” Luke called out.

“I will,” I assured him. I was a little angry that Delaney hadn’t talked to me about this before cutting me out of her life, even if I did understand how she could have misunderstood my phone conversation. Angry or not, I was definitely looking forward to clearing up this misunderstanding.