Chapter 13
TAYLOR
I woke to Sebastian’s arm heavy across my chest. For a moment, I simply listened to his breathing—slow and even, and completely relaxed. His dark hair was a mess against the pillow, and there were sleep creases on his cheek. He looked younger like this. Less cautious.
I reached out, feeling along the nightstand until my fingers closed around my phone. The screen lit up, revealing the time. It was late, but not obscenely so. I never slept in like this. Then again, I rarely stayed up as late as I had been the past few nights.
I extracted myself out from under his arm and slipped out of bed.
The hardwood floor was cool against my bare feet as I padded downstairs.
In the kitchen, I measured out coffee grounds, and while I waited for the machine to work its magic, I leaned against the counter and watched the woods behind my house through the window.
The sun had already crept past the shade line, illuminating the undergrowth in golden patches.
I wasn’t used to good things happening to me, and I didn't know if this could last, but for right now, Sebastian was here, and he was mine again.
I pulled two mugs from the cabinet, and steam rose as I filled each one, adding cream and sugar to mine and leaving his black.
Sebastian was awake when I went back upstairs, propped up against the headboard, his brow furrowed as he stared down at his phone.
“Hey, sleepy head.” I moved next to him, holding out his coffee.
“You’re a lifesaver.” He set his phone face down on the mattress and reached for it.
I sat down in the few inches of free space next to him, one foot braced on the floor to keep me from sliding off the bed.
“I was thinking about going for a run. There’s a trail about ten minutes from here that’s one of my favorites.
Want to come?" I asked, curious to see how he'd respond after our conversation yesterday.
But it wasn't just a test.
Back in Vegas, I’d promised myself that when I got home, I’d stop coasting. I was tired of showing up to camp just good enough not to puke my way through it, tired of treating my career like something that happened to me instead of something I actively wanted.
My leg started bouncing with nerves, and I forced myself to be still.
“Yeah, I'm down."
“Do you need shoes or anything?”
While Sebastian was a few inches taller than me, back in college, we'd worn the same size shoes and shirts.
I'd filled out since then, while he'd gotten a bit leaner, so we probably wouldn't be sharing clothes anytime soon, but I had a few pairs of New Balance sneakers still in their boxes he could borrow.
"Nah," he said, setting his mug on the nightstand. "I always travel with running gear. I've probably run a couple of marathons on hotel treadmills already this year."
I made a face. “That’s depressing.”
He shrugged. “What kind of trail?”
“Mostly flat. Some roots.” I stood up and extended my free hand toward him. “Come on. It’ll be good for you. Fresh air. Trees. The revolutionary concept of running where you actually go somewhere.”
He clasped my hand and laughed, that same full-throated sound I remembered from college, the one that used to make people turn around and stare. I’d forgotten how much I missed being the one who made him do it.
Forty minutes later, we pulled into a small gravel lot at the trailhead. The air was warm with a slight breeze, the type of perfect late-August morning when summer was just starting to think about becoming autumn.
I stretched against the car while Sebastian re-laced his running shoes.
“How far?” he asked.
“Four miles out and back, but we can turn around earlier, if you want.”
He snorted. “I can handle eight miles, Taylor.”
“Just checking.” I stretched my quads, using the roof of my car to balance myself. “Didn’t want you blaming me when your treadmill-soft legs give out.”
“Treadmill-soft,” he repeated, shaking his head and rolling his eyes in exasperation. But I caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “We’ll see who’s begging for mercy when we’re done.”
We started at a leisurely pace, falling into step beside each other. The trail wound through dense forest, our footfalls muffled on packed dirt that was dappled with sunlight filtering through the canopy.
“Okay, you were right. This is nice,” Sebastian said after ten or so minutes. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Told you.” I couldn’t quite keep the smugness out of my voice as I picked up the pace just enough to make him work for it.
“Don’t gloat.” He tried to elbow me in the side, but I dodged out of the way and sped up.
We were both sweaty and breathing hard when we looped back to the parking lot.
“That was great,” he said, as I pulled my keys from my pocket.
“Told you the treadmill was depressing.” I pressed the button to unlock the door and stretched my arms overhead, feeling the pleasant burn in my muscles. “We should probably hit up the grocery store on the way back. My fridge is pretty empty.”
“Oh, yeah. Good call. Last night was kind of dire.”
The Hannaford closest to my house was quiet at this time of the day, with just a handful of other shoppers parked in the lot. Inside, I grabbed a cart, and Sebastian fell into step beside me, our shoes squeaking on the old linoleum.
“What are we thinking?” he asked, rolling a red bell pepper from one hand to the other.
“Grilling's pretty much the extent of my culinary skills.”
“I can work with that.” He tossed the pepper in the cart, then added two more—a yellow one and a green one. “I can handle the sides. How do you feel about salads?”
“As a side dish, I feel fine about them.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who thinks salads can’t be a full meal.”
I gestured down my torso. “You think lettuce could maintain all this?”
He chuckled, his hand lifting toward my chest as if on instinct, then stopping short. He huffed a quiet laugh and turned to grab a couple of zucchinis instead, glancing back at me with a crooked smile. “Uh, fair point.”
We moved through the produce section together, Sebastian gravitating toward the fresh herbs and fancy lettuces while I grabbed the basics—potatoes, onions, corn, and whatever else looked good.
He held up a container of microgreens. “These okay?”
I squinted at the label. “Is that like … baby broccoli?”
“The seedlings, anyway.”
“How very …”
“Healthy?”
“Sure,” I agreed. “And super bougie.”
He chuckled. “I don’t have to get them.”
“But do you like them?” I asked, trying to keep the dubiousness from my voice.
He shrugged. “Yeah. They’re good in salads and in smoothies.”
“Then sure. Get the fancy baby broccoli.” I grabbed the cart handle and started pushing. “But when I’m still hungry after your rabbit food, I don’t want to hear you complain about the sounds coming from my stomach.”
“Counterpoint,” Sebastian said. “When you realize how much better you feel after just a week of eating healthy like me, I want to hear you admit I was right.”
“You’re the worst,” I said, laughing.
The truth was, I ate plenty of vegetables. I just liked fucking with him.
He smirked at me and tossed the container into the cart, along with a couple of pints of cherry tomatoes, a cucumber, and several bunches of fresh basil, dill, and chives.
We moved on to the meat section, where I loaded up on steaks, chicken thighs, and hot Italian sausage. Sebastian studied the seafood case and asked for a pound each of monkfish and shrimp.
“I thought you were sticking to salads,” I teased, eyeing the monkfish dubiously. It was ... not a pretty fish. “You know how to cook those?” I gestured toward the butcher-paper-wrapped packages the woman was handing him across the glass case.
“Thank you,” he told her before turning to me. “Unlike you, I actually know how to cook.”
“Of course you do.”
Sebastian Carruthers had always been the type of person who oozed competence. I’d once watched him fix a broken lamp chain with a paper clip and talk his way out of a parking ticket by politely citing the relevant municipal code. “You’re good at everything.”
“I mean … kind of. Yeah.”
“And so humble,” I snarked.
“And yet you love me anyway.” The second the words were out of his mouth, his eyes went a little wide. “Umm, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do,” I said, my pulse racing.
I could have meant “I understand what you’re trying to say” just as easily as I could have meant something a lot more honest than that. And from the way Sebastian’s gaze held mine for half a second too long, he knew it, too.
I huffed out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and me trying to cover up the way those words made my heart skip.
I grabbed the cart handle and walked quickly toward the next aisle. “Okay, what else? Pasta? Yeah, pasta sounds good,” I babbled.
There, I grabbed a box of store-brand penne, which Sebastian immediately swapped out for a different brand. “Trust me,” he said. “This is way better.”
“Is this going to be a running theme—you trying to turn me into some bougie foodie?”
“Only when I’m right.” He grinned. “Which, as we’ve established, is most of the time.”
“You realize when you’re wrong, I’m never going to let you hear the end of it?”
I heard the assumption in my own words—when he was wrong, not if. Like we’d have time for more grocery runs. More cooking.
More of this.
We turned the corner into the snack aisle and stopped at the same time, staring at the wall of chips, cookies, and other processed food.
“Remember when this shit was basically our entire diet?” Sebastian asked.
The same flavor of Doritos we used to demolish after parties caught my eye, and I pulled it from the shelf. “Back when we could eat anything.”
Sebastian grabbed a bag of Funyuns. “These things are disgusting, but I couldn’t get enough of them.”
“I can’t believe I used to make out with you after you ate those.”
He snorted. “I’m pretty sure I could have eaten a whole tin of sardines, and you still would have wanted me.”