Chapter Twenty-Three - Sebastian
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sebastian
I CAN’T HIDE the smile on my face as I watch Thalia run straight into the ocean immediately after throwing all her things in the sand. She didn’t even think twice.
I quickly pull my shirt off, following her to the water as she pops up, a beaming smile on her pretty face. Thalia’s joy about being at the beach is infectious. Thalia is infectious.
She goes under the water again, before reappearing further out. “Are you coming in?” Thalia calls out, and I don’t need to be told twice. Despite the warm air, the water is a cold chill that goes straight to my bones.
“Fuck, it’s freezing,” I swear, wading deeper into the waves.
“Dunk your head under. You’ll get used to it faster,” Lia suggests, laughing as a wave propels her forward toward me.
“Well no shit. You’re acting like this is my first time at the beach,” I reply sarcastically, submerging myself to swim forward. Everything is peaceful under here. No wonder Thalia is always pretending she’s a mermaid .
When I come back up for air, Thalia immediately splashes me. “Sorry, didn’t see you there,” she teases, causing me to shake my head.
I wipe the saltwater off my face. “Sure you didn’t.”
Thalia’s grinning as the waves lap at her shoulders. Her eyes seem especially green today with the reflection of the water, and I know I shouldn’t be thinking it, but she’s so goddamn pretty. She tips her head back, wetting her hair, exposing her neck and collarbones. I’m going insane. I shouldn’t even consider looking at another woman right now—let alone Thalia—but the sight of her skin is sending my head into a tailspin.
“I love it out here. Maybe one day I’ll buy a house right on the beach. There’s a never-ending demand for pictures of sunrises and sunsets on the ocean,” she thinks out loud, forcing me to look away from her goddamn collarbones.
“You should do it,” I say, clearing my throat.
Thalia glances over at me with a shy smile. “You think so?”
“Life is too short to have any regrets.” Lord knows I have enough of them—the worst ones all surrounding the woman standing in front of me.
She swims closer, poking my chest with her finger. “No, we’re not getting all sentimental today! This is meant to be a break from everything going on in your life. Stop being so uptight, and let it go for the day,” Lia says determinedly.
I roll my eyes just like she would if I were to say something like that to her. “Me? Uptight?” I joke, and she raises her eyebrows.
“Bash, I think you’re the most uptight person I know. Going with the flow is impossible for you. ”
I look down at where her finger still rests on my chest, and her cheeks flush as she realizes she was still touching me. This was an awful idea. I have a hard enough time doing my best to not cross any lines in our friendship when we talk over the phone. Now we’re at the beach wearing minimal clothing, and I have to pretend like I’m not affected by Thalia.
“I was joking, but I can go with the flow. I’ll feel better when things calm down and I don’t constantly feel like I have to be on the lookout for people waiting to catch me doing something wrong—even more so now, thanks to Nina.” A sour taste forms in my mouth at the thought of Nina, Kiera, and the press.
Thalia nods, smiling sadly. “You’ll feel better if you stop thinking so much about what other people think. I know that’s easier said than done, but the only people who are going to judge you today are the fish.”
“Okay. Today I’ll do whatever you want. I can be chill,” I say. It doesn’t sound convincing, but it does make Thalia laugh.
“What do I get if you freak out when you aren’t in control of something?” she teases, trying to lighten the mood again.
“What do you want?”
“I’ll let you know when I think of it, but for now, turn your brain off, Bash. It’ll be good for you.”
Being around Thalia is good for me. That’s the only thing I’m certain of right now.
I act like I’m pushing a button on my head, causing her to grin. “Brain has been turned off. What’s next? ”
Thalia shakes her head, trailing her fingers through the water. “You don’t get to know. I’m going to try to float while trying not to get water in my mouth.”
“I thought mermaids could breathe underwater?” I point out, chuckling as she tilts her head back, her body floating just underneath the surface of the water.
“Well, as much as I wish I could be a mermaid, I’m not one. As a human who is unfortunately forced to walk dry land every day, I do mind breathing in water,” Thalia sasses back. The waves in this area aren’t calm enough today to float, so the only thing she’s going to end up with is a mouthful of water. All I have to do is sit back and wait for it to happen.
I almost wish it took longer than thirty seconds for a wave to go over her face because in those thirty seconds, she looked serene. Lia sputters and coughs, finding her footing as I offer my arm for her to hold onto while she catches her breath. She doesn’t resemble a mermaid anymore, but instead a drowned rat. I can’t help laughing as I gently brush her hair out of her face. “How’d the water taste?”
Thalia makes a face as she continues coughing, trying to expel the saltwater from her windpipe. “Salty,” she croaks out. “If that’s what being waterboarded feels like, I never want to have that done.”
“It didn’t taste like fish pee?” I ask, finding this amusing as hell.
“I hate being reminded that fish pee, and you know it.”
I can’t resist smiling at her. “I’m just going with the flow, and that’s part of it.”
The look she gives me is priceless, and Thalia shoves me away as I laugh at her again. “I’m going to go take a drink of my water. I need to rinse my mouth out; all I can taste is the salt and I think there’s a little sand in there too,” she grumbles.
“Don’t forget the fish pee,” I taunt, unable to resist the opportunity. She sticks her tongue out at me.
“Now you’re just being mean.”
Thalia walks back to where she’d dumped her stuff, and I take a minute to scan the beach instead of watching her walk away. It’s not like it was at Alec’s; that beach was private and this one isn’t. Granted it’s the middle of the day on a Thursday, and we’re three hours away from Charlotte, but still. Based on the last few weeks, I’m a little anxious that our quiet day will be interrupted by the chaos surrounding my life.
Except, I’m not allowed to be thinking about any of this. Besides, it’s not like Thalia and I are here making out in the sand or in the water. It’s innocent. We’re just friends. There’s no reason for anyone to notice us.
Truthfully, I hate being friends. Now that Lia’s back in my life, I want her in it the way she should have been all along. My feelings for Thalia never went away. I was only kidding myself when I thought if I suppressed them deep enough inside me that they’d eventually disappear.
I was so incredibly wrong about so many things.
When Thalia comes back out, she’s frowning. “I thought we said no thinking?”
I give her my most charming smile. “But what if I was thinking about you?”
“This is your final warning. No thinking, Sebastian, I mean it,” she threatens, fully intending to be intimidating, but I only find it endearing.
I smile at her, pulling Thalia back into deeper water with me as she shrieks in surprise.
~
I didn’t realize how much I needed today until it’s almost over. It’s getting late, and I’m dreading the drive home. I want to stay in this moment forever.
Thalia’s lying against my chest between my legs. She said it was to keep warm after the sun went down, but I know that despite all her talk about friends, Thalia wants to be with me too. Still, I went along with it.
As much as I’d love to be with her right now, I need time. It sucks admitting after I’ve been apart from Lia for so long already, especially when all I want to do is be with her…but I need to figure out who I am without jumping into a relationship.
So for now I’m greedily living in the moment.
Thalia’s been quiet since getting a phone call at dinner. I asked if she was okay, but she brushed it off, bringing up a nearby ice cream parlor before we came back to the beach.
I’m afraid to ask again because I don’t think I want to know if it was Eric.
She shifts in my arms, and I tighten my hold on her as we watch the sun start to set over the horizon. “Why do people bother getting married?” Thalia asks softly, her words almost swept away in the breeze coming off the water.
A lump quickly forms in my throat that I attempt to swallow, but my failed engagement is a pretty big pill after my previous proposal went poorly. “I think it has something to do with love. I’m not quite sure, though. Clearly, I’m not very good at it,” I try to joke, but it falls flat. Probably because it wasn’t very funny to begin with .
“Sorry, I wasn’t talking about your situation—I meant in general. What happens to people to make them realize one day that they want to spend their lives with that person forever, and then one day, the love is just gone.”
Thalia sounds like a huge cynic right now, and I run my fingers up and down her arm lazily. “Well…I think it should be less about the person they want to spend forever with, and more about who they can’t live without. At least that’s what Chris told me anyway when he asked why I was marrying Kiera. I was an ass to him when I should have listened to him,” I admit quietly. I probably owe him an apology phone call.
“I’m sorry, I’m bringing the mood down, and this isn’t how today was supposed to end. I just don’t understand why some people are together for sixty years and others aren’t.”
“It’s fine, Lia. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t,” I say, wondering what could have happened on that phone call to trigger this switch in her.
“Chris is moving to Charlotte. Allie filed for divorce yesterday. That’s who called.”
Oh fuck. I definitely owe Chris an apology. “What are they going to do about Henry?”
“He doesn’t know. Chris is going to try to get full custody, but it could get really messy for him,” Thalia says tiredly, and I feel for the guy. This is his kid and his marriage. I know almost half of the marriages in our country fail, but I didn’t know things were that bad for them. “It seemed like things were getting better. At least that’s what Chris was telling me anyway. I guess I just don’t know if I see the point anymore. ”
I don’t want her to give up on love. I don’t want to give up on love. “I think the point is that you have someone unconditionally there for you. There’s no doubt, only love.”
“Did you love Kiera unconditionally at one point?”
“I wish I could say I did, but I think the only person I’ve ever loved unconditionally—in a romantic sense anyway—was you, Thalia.” There’s no point in leaving things unsaid between us. Honesty is the best way to go. I’m not ashamed of that part at all. I’m ashamed of the way I treated Lia, but I’ll never be ashamed of loving her.
Thalia shifts to look back at me, the glow of the sun behind her head casts her in an ethereal light. “Do you mean that?”
“Have I ever lied to you?” I’ve withheld plenty of things, but never lied.
She shakes her head shortly before leaning up to press her lips gingerly against mine. I don’t dare move in case I spook her, but once she pulls away, I watch her face carefully to see what she’s thinking.
“What was that for?” I ask as Thalia pulls away from me to stand up. I follow her lead, wiping the sand off my legs.
She shrugs meekly. “Because I wanted to. Shit, I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
I pull my phone out to check the time, doing the math in my head. “There’s a hotel right across the street that we can stay in?” I suggest, and Thalia hesitates for a moment.
“We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” she says, mustering a smile.
Me and Thalia in a hotel room? Sounds like a recipe for disaster when it comes to our plan to be friends.