19

tabby

 

In my line of work, it’s necessary that I possess the ability to get along with anybody and everybody. I know how to make everything they say look interesting. I know when to smile, to nod, to tip my eyebrows with concern. I’m a professional, and I am always in tune with my social cues.

This was what I had prepared myself for when meeting Sebastian’s mother. I had known she was coming over, and from the moment I met her, I had every intention of putting on my “game face” and appeasing her until she was gone.

In my line of work, I also find myself in instances where I genuinely become friends with the client, as was the case with Mrs. Worthington. I don’t know why I hadn’t anticipated this also being the case also with Ronnie Morrison.

“Well, now I know where Sebastian gets his cooking skills from,” I complimented, finishing my second piece of lasagna.

The praise wasn’t also meant to boost his ego, but he puffed his chest and reached out to clap his mother on the shoulder, gripping and shaking. “She had to give me something other than this amazing hair.”

“I do wish you’d cut that mop,” Ronnie quipped, brushing his hand away. “You always have it in that stupid knot.”

My laugh burst from my lips and Sebastian narrowed his gaze at me. “Sorry. Nobody looks good with a man-bun.”

“That’s not true,” he countered, pointing his fork at me with a raise of his brow before turning it on his mother. “And by the way, missy, I don’t always have it in a stupid knot. I let it down when I’m playing. It looks badass, and the ladies love it.”

“I don’t need to know about you and your ladies,” Ronnie snorted, waving a frantic and dismissive hand. “And you shouldn’t be talking about that garbage with your son around anyway. You don’t want to be a bad influence on him.”

Immediately, Ronnie had taken to Greyson for who he was in the family: her grandson. Sebastian’s son. While it was something I was still getting used to, there hadn’t been any resistance period for her. It just was. And Sebastian seemed to teeter on some invisible line, not yet ready to commit to titles and formal names. Maybe he was just afraid of scaring the kid away.

“He’s fifteen, Mom,” Sebastian grumbled.

“Yeah, and do I need to remind you of what I was catching you doing at fifteen?” She shook her head, stifling a smile as she turned to Greyson. “You can assume that if he’s done it, you shouldn’t.”

Greyson’s eyes sparkled with laughter, flitting his gaze between Ronnie and Sebastian. “What were you doing at fifteen?” he asked, challenging Sebastian with a grin I hadn’t seen in months.

“Don’t you dare answer that,” Ronnie scolded her son, as Sebastian raised his brows before uttering a stern, “Don’t you worry about what I was doing. Just worry about yourself.”

I think Sebastian doubted his ability to mature and be a father just as much as I did. I think maybe he also thought he was too far gone. His eyes met mine, as though looking for my approval and reassurance—as though it mattered—and I offered him a smile and a gentle nod.

“Come on,” Greyson laughed, grabbing another piece of garlic bread.

“Nope,” Sebastian shook his head.

“Man!” Greyson whined, the volume of his voice ringing through the dining room. I giggled under my breath. “I need to know what I’ve gotta do to get into the lifestyle.”

“What lifestyle, honey?” Ronnie asked him, not using the brash tone she used with Sebastian.

“You know,” Greyson responded, “rock and roll.”

I shook my head. “Greyson, you don’t need—”

“What was I saying earlier?” Sebastian interjected, his steely glare aimed across the table at the scowling, shrugging teenager. “I told you to focus on drumming and your schoolwork. Right?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with, like, girls and stuff?”

Sebastian’s eye roll piqued my interest. “Let me tell you something about all that, okay? Girls and stuff? That shit is a distraction. Nobody really gives a fuck about how many chicks you’ve slept with. Nobody behind the scenes is saying, ‘Oh, yeah, that dude Greyson’s banged six hundred women.’ No. Behind the scenes, they’re talking about how well you play and how well you play with others. Trust me. Nobody wants to work with a fucking douchebag, okay? Don’t be a fucking douchebag.”

Greyson grumbled, slouching in his chair and resuming his dinner. Ronnie smiled at her son, an aura of pride clearly emanating. Sebastian just continued to eat like he hadn’t just made the most brash, most enlightening speech either of Greyson’s parents had ever made before. And me?

I was wishing for the control to repel him.

 

***

 

“I love your mom,” I told him, after Ronnie had left.

“She likes you too,” he replied, his tone unmoving as he loaded the leftovers into the fridge.

“A lot of people like me, Sebastian. Believe it or not,” I teased, resting my back against the counter.

He closed the refrigerator door and eyed me with a blend of irritation and skepticism. “Why would you think I wouldn’t believe that?”

“Because you don’t.” My arms crossed over my chest, and I watched the deep line between his brows form. “You like to push my buttons. You don’t like me.”

Sebastian scoffed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I don’t? Since I met you a few days ago, you’ve done nothing but taunt me. Honestly, I have no idea how you turned out the way you did when your mother is so wonderful.”

Slowly licking his lips and studying me with a critical eye, Sebastian shook his head. “Remember how boys would pick on the girls they like in Kindergarten?”

With a light roll of my eyes, I turned to grab my phone from the counter. “Don’t try to act like your immaturity is your own special way of showing that you like me. That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I do like you,” he insisted. “It might not be in a romantic way, but it’s sure as hell in a friendly sort of way, and definitely in an ‘I’d love to fuck you’ way.”

The abrupt mention of sex pushed my legs to involuntarily lock as my spine shivered with excitement. Calm the hell down. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Say the things you want to say when you want to say them.” I turned around to face him, my phone in my grasp. “I can’t do that.”

Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t always want to say them, but they’re always better out than in.” He stepped forward, dipping his head to seek my eyes. “And, this is your cue to say, ‘Oh, Sebastian, I like you too. Let’s be fuck buddies.’ ‘Cause I’d really like that.”

“You’re disgusting,” I snickered, shaking my head.

“Why is that disgusting?” He cocked a questioning brow.

“Because it’s wrong,” I countered with incredulity.

“There you go again, putting those right and wrong labels on shit.” He shook his head, chuckling gently. “You’re not a kid, and neither am I, despite what you want to believe. Adults can have sex if they want to, without it being anything more than sex. It just is, Tabby.”

There he went again, it just is. I didn’t understand how he could do that; live his life so carefree, without any worry of consequence. But then, look at what happened when he did act with maturity and thought. I reminded myself that he had attempted to do the right thing, to be an adult when the time called, and my sister had denied him the privilege of growing up for his son. But he had tried, and I wondered, was that more mature than the life I was living, where I denied myself every pleasure presented to me?

Would it kill me to let go, just this once?

Grasping for the surge of electricity I’d held the night before, I stepped forward. My feet weren’t my own and my legs were foreign, driving me forward nearly against my will. The toes of my Converse met the white-caps of his, and his fingers pulled the barrette from my hair, tossing it to the floor, before threading themselves between the strands as his neck craned. Concealing the rights and wrongs of the moment with his mouth over mine, I stood on my toes and looped my arms around his neck. He was so tall, so much taller than five-foot, and I had to balance on the balls of my feet. To balance the time our tongues spent in my mouth and his, to increase the pressure of lips on lips, to let go and drown in something other than responsibility and the forever lingering pain of my grief.

My grief. Where did that come from? I hadn’t thought about it in weeks; I couldn’t. When could I? I was always too busy. Too busy with work. Too busy with Greyson—shit. Greyson.

I untangled my tongue from Sebastian’s and began to pull away as he shook his head. “No, don’t stop,” he urged, pressing kiss after kiss against my lips.

“We need,” my words muffled, “we need to,” another kiss halted my words, tongue met tongue, moan met moan, until another reluctant withdraw, “Greyson.” And then, he understood.

One, two, three more kisses against my lips, and he groaned, pulling away. “Fuck, I think I’d be totally content just kissing you.”

The feeling was mutual, but I wouldn’t say it. He could say whatever it was that passed his mind, but I wasn’t there yet. Maybe I never would be.

Wrapping his arms around my waist and tearing a gasp from my lungs, he lifted and unceremoniously tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He carried me, despite my repeated protests, toward the stairs, taking them two at a time. And with every step my complaints faded, first into light giggles and then a bubbly laughter I couldn’t control, even if I wanted to.

I was having fun. He was fun.

Not right, not wrong.

It just is.