Chapter 33

Naomi paced around her living room as warring thoughts wreaked havoc on her already trembling nerves. Alternating between crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her arms out at her sides, Naomi berated herself for acting impulsively. She didn’t owe Sebastian her story. This wasn’t the kind of situation that necessitated a tit-for-tat sharing session. He probably wouldn’t even want to hear it.

But maybe he would. Maybe he’d feel more comfortable opening up to her rather than nearly drinking himself to death if he knew just how deeply she understood. Not that what she’d gone through could ever compare to what he’d experienced, but maybe it didn’t have to compare. Maybe it was enough that it existed. That they shared a kind of kindred pain that had shaped who they’d become.

A knock at the door had her feelings scattering to hide in the corners of her mind, bumping into one another until there was a near riot of emotion—a chaos that nearly made her dizzy. Pulling the door open, she took in the wary countenance of Sebastian Blake and promptly shut the door in his face.

She spun around and leaned heavily against the door, scrubbing her hands over her face.

“That would explain why you don’t get a lot of second dates,” came his dry voice through the door.

A gust of air left her that almost resembled a laugh. “Can we forget I asked you over here?” she asked loudly enough for him to hear her.

“No.” The response was firm and a touch condescending, so like Sebastian that immediately her nerves took a backseat to the general feeling of agitation she always had around this man.

Taking a breath, she opened the door a second time and gestured him in, though he hesitated.

“You’re sure this time? I don’t know how your split personalities work, and I don’t want to take a door to the face.”

She couldn’t hold back the eye roll. “Just get in here.”

“I wonder if this is always how it feels to be lured to your death,” he muttered as he moved past her and entered her home. “Huh, I imagined more homemade quilts.”

“They’re in my bedroom,” she deadpanned before gesturing to the couch. “Want anything to drink?”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Something with a sealed cap.”

She couldn’t contain the laugh that time. “You’re such an ass.”

His lips twitched, showing how pleased he was with his own wit.

She grabbed two bottles of water and handed him one before settling onto the opposite end of the couch from where he sat. Taking a long pull from her bottle, she tried to figure out where to start. Thinking about that before he got there probably would’ve been a more effective use of her time than wandering around panicking. She put the water on the coffee table and turned slightly so she faced him, but it still took a few seconds before she began speaking. “I’ve never told anyone what I’m about to tell you. It’s like the words are rusted to my vocal cords. Getting them out is proving a little difficult.”

Sebastian unbuttoned his blazer with one hand and leaned back against the arm of the couch, draping his other arm over the back of it. His face was relaxed and open. It made him stupidly attractive. Broody Sebastian was sexy, but kind Sebastian was appealing on a whole different level. “I’ve got time,” was all he said to her.

She rubbed her palms over her denim-covered thighs, the repetitive action calming her a bit. “I made a lot of stupid choices in college.”

“Most of us did,” Sebastian said.

“Yes, but mine all had names.” She let out a humorless laugh before realizing how she’d made herself sound. “Not that…I didn’t sleep around or anything…there were just a lot of relationships, well I thought they were relationships, but—”

“Naomi?”

“Yeah?” Her voice was a little breathless and her face burned with embarrassment.

“I’m here to listen, not judge.”

Naomi took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I met my dumbest choice junior year. His name is Troy and he was in my biology class. He was incredibly attractive, but horrific at science. Or school in general, if I’m being honest. He asked me out and I was too naive to realize he just wanted someone to do his homework for him. He dumped me right after we finished our final exam.”

“Sounds like a stellar human being,” Sebastian muttered.

“Yeah, I really knew how to pick ’em. Anyway, I went home for break and got the worst stomach bug in the history of stomach bugs. I chalked a lot of it up to being depressed over Troy, so when my mom wanted to take me to the doctor I managed to talk her out of it. The sickness came and went, anyway, so I promised her that if it didn’t get better when I got back to school, I’d go to the clinic on campus.”

Sebastian shifted on the couch and his face got a pinched look that made Naomi think he suspected where this story was going, but he remained silent.

“I had a tough semester that spring. A lot of lit courses with intense reading schedules. I was burned out by mid-February. I was so tired I could barely stay awake in class, and there was a general feeling of malaise that never went away. Finally one of my friends convinced me to go to the clinic because she was afraid I had mono. The symptoms fit, and I was convinced that was what was wrong with me. Until the nurse asked when my last period was. I’d always been irregular, so I didn’t think much of having missed a couple.”

Naomi’s throat got tight and her eyes burned. She tried to inhale through her nose to keep her breathing even, but it did nothing to keep the tears from streaking down her cheeks. With the release of them, the knot unfurled from her throat and she was able to continue. “It was the weirdest thing. When the nurse read the results of the pregnancy test, I was obviously terrified, but I was oddly calm too. Part of me had almost felt like I was going crazy or something up until she told me I was pregnant. And after a couple of days passed, I was actually excited. Still terrified, but yeah, I was definitely excited too. I was twenty years old, I had just been told I was having the baby of a guy who forgot about me like I was a bad acid trip, and I had no income, but there was no question I wanted the baby. I would figure it out and do whatever I had to do.

“Working up the nerve to tell my parents was the hardest part, but I decided to break it to them over spring break. I had a list of how I was going to make it work, and I was going to walk them through it and make them understand that I could be a single mother who still finished school and had a career. They’d be disappointed, but I’d make them see that I could still have it all.”

The tears that pooled in her eyes began falling again, but she maintained eye contact with Sebastian. “A week before I was scheduled to go home I started bleeding.”

Naomi swore she could see the heartbreak on his face as he shifted closer. He didn’t say anything—just wrapped an arm around her and held on tightly.

It was what she’d never had but exactly what she’d needed.

She wanted to stop the story there, but it wasn’t done. It would never truly be done. “I figured out what was happening pretty quickly, but I didn’t want anyone to know. I holed up in my dorm room and waited for it to be over.” Her voice broke at the end of the sentence, but she forced herself to keep going.

“You went through that all alone?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” It was a decision that had rippled. When she didn’t reach out to her parents immediately, every passing day it became harder and harder to do so. Until she stopped thinking of telling them as an option altogether. And without having told them about the miscarriage, it made it seem acceptable to never share the part of the story that followed. “Once I graduated, I finally worked up the nerve to talk to a doctor about my miscarriage. She said it wasn’t necessarily something that would be repeated. But she ordered a few tests just to be safe.”

Naomi took a deep breath. “What I found out was a nightmare. I don’t remember all the specifics, especially since I was still in shock from the miscarriage. But basically my hormones were all out of whack. She said that some of it could be my body still recovering from the pregnancy, but she couldn’t be sure that was the case. She had me come back a few months later to recheck everything, and she ordered an additional test that apparently checks for the quality and quantity of eggs.” She dropped her gaze to where she settled her hands on her lap and played with a chip in her nail polish. “Turned out the miscarriage wasn’t some fluke occurrence.”

Sebastian placed a hand on hers to still them, and the action caused her to look up at him.

“The results of the test basically said that future pregnancies would be difficult, if not highly unlikely. She recommended I go to a fertility specialist to have additional tests and discuss my options, but I wasn’t in any place emotionally or financially to do that. I went eventually…a few years ago, and I haven’t gone back since.” Somehow she was able to find a laugh through the tears. “It seemed silly, I guess—sitting in a waiting room filled with couples while I was there alone.” She wiped a few tears from her cheek before adding, “I knew all I needed to know.”

When Naomi ran out of words, she sank against Sebastian, who pulled her even closer and let her burrow into him. And somehow, the silence they shared spoke louder than any words of condolence could. No one had ever offered her this before. She’d never given anyone the opportunity to. Never…until Sebastian.

She couldn’t deny that she felt…better. She was under no delusions that telling Sebastian would fix anything for her. It wouldn’t give her back what she’d lost, and it certainly wouldn’t give her something she would never have. But acknowledging the loss made the edges of her pain feel a little less sharp.

Pulling back from him, she wiped some of the moisture away with her fingers. “Sorry,” she murmured, because she didn’t know what else to say. She kept her gaze averted, because looking at him after she’d cried all over him was impossible.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replied. He hadn’t moved back from her, and Naomi was torn between desperately wanting space and craving his proximity.

She opted for staying still, but kept her eyes cast down. Now that her story was out, a new worry infiltrated her brain and made her feel slightly nauseous. “I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to compare what we went through. I didn’t tell you this as some kind of warped competition for who’s the most traumatized. It just felt—”

She was interrupted by a finger under her chin tilting her face up. Her eyelids seemed to close of their own volition.

A warm chuckle caused a gust of warm air to wash over her face. “Very mature, Dr. Price.”

“You’ve been calling me immature since we met. This shouldn’t surprise you,” she replied, not moving an inch.

A thumb caressed her jaw. “Open your eyes, Naomi.”

She did so slowly. His vibrant blue eyes were so close that she felt as though she were falling into them. They stared at one another for a beat, speaking a language that was all feelings but no words. Naomi’s mind had never felt so blank, so peaceful. But her skin prickled with the intensity of the look they shared. It was as though she could feel every pulse point in her body throb with the awareness of him.

His voice, deep and rumbling, broke the silence between them but didn’t disturb the moment. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Naomi. I get it.”

“You do?” Because Naomi wasn’t sure she even understood completely. Her motives seemed somehow deeper now. Like she’d subconsciously known he was the person she could entrust her secret to even when her brain had consciously battled with the decision.

“Yes. It’s not about comparing our scars, Naomi. It’s about finally letting someone else see they’re there.”

And there it was, summed up in the most succinct words possible, which didn’t remotely detract from how profound they were. Naomi let out a small chuckle. “Dammit.”

“What?” he asked, his eyebrows pinched together.

“You really are better with words than I am.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s about time you realized it.”

A small smile played on her lips as they sat together, soaking up the comfort that stretched between them. Sebastian didn’t stay much longer, but even after he left, it felt as though a piece of him remained.

And Naomi knew then it was about time she realized a lot of things.