Chapter 37

Sebastian arrived at work the next day with a cup of tea and a muffin. It made him feel slightly silly, for doting this way, but when he handed them to Naomi and was gifted with one of her perfect smiles he decided he wouldn’t change a thing about his actions.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yup. I took some Tylenol and woke up feeling fine.” She took a sip of her tea. “Sorry I had to cut our night short,” she said as she eyed him in a way that let him know where her mind had gone. And that it was somewhere dirty.

“Guess you’ll have to honor your promise to make it up to me,” he said, trying to feign nonchalance and likely failing.

“Guess I will,” she replied, breaking off a piece of muffin and placing it seductively on her tongue. “Any interest in going to dinner tonight?”

Interest in dinner? Not really. “Sure,” he said instead, hoping dinner was a euphemism for feasting on one another.

But as it turned out, she did mean dinner. Sebastian settled across from her in a small bistro on the opposite side of town from campus. If Colvin popped up here, Sebastian was calling the police.

The hostess handed them menus and gestured toward the wine list before saying their server would be right over and making her way back to the front of the restaurant.

When Sebastian looked up, Naomi was looking at him strangely. “What?” he asked.

“I have to ask you something, but I don’t want it to come out wrong.”

“Since when have either of us ever worried about that?” he asked her.

She laughed. “True.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “You said you hadn’t had a drink in a year before Thanksgiving, right? So is it difficult for you to, um, be around it?”

“Are you saying you want a drink but are worried it’s going to make me fall off the wagon?”

“No. I actually don’t drink often either. But I can’t say I’m not concerned about it. In terms of you being healthy.”

Sebastian sighed. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have—ever—but it was also one that she had a right to. “After I lost them, I definitely turned to alcohol to help me cope. But then one day, I looked in the mirror and realized that Celeste would have hated the man that I’d become. Wouldn’t have looked twice at him. And that was a wake-up call for me. So I got myself together and stopped drinking…for the most part.” Sebastian paused, not wanting to admit what came next. Not wanting Naomi to see just how weak he was sometimes. “There are times, though, as you’ve seen, where it becomes too much. And I fall into the old habit because it’s the only one that I know will let me escape for a bit. I know it’s unhealthy and I know I need to stop relying on it, but that’s…easier said than done.” His mouth was suddenly dry, so he took a drink of water. “It doesn’t bother me to be around it, and I don’t crave it in a physical way. I’m not addicted to the alcohol itself, but maybe I am a little addicted to the peace it can provide, even though I know it’s temporary.”

“Your house didn’t look very peaceful,” she said quietly.

He smiled, but it was stilted and false. “I hadn’t had enough yet.”

That caused her to look down at her lap, and Sebastian hated that he’d upset her. He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “It’s something I’m willing to work on, if that makes you feel any better. And something I can promise to be honest with you about. That’s really all I can offer.”

When she looked up, her eyes were glassy, but there was also a firm resolve there. “I can accept that.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled. “Good.”

Their conversation was lighter after that as they talked about any and everything. Like Sebastian’s aversion to green vegetables and Naomi’s childhood dream of being an acrobat. It was the best night Sebastian could remember, which was why, once the bill was paid and they made their way outside, he suddenly became incapable of keeping his hands off of her. When they got to the car and he opened the door for her, he couldn’t resist a second longer. He dipped his head to take her mouth in a crushing kiss that made his heart beat wildly.

And the best part about it was that Naomi seemed to be right there with him.