Chapter 16
Grace
I didn’t remember walking home. The apartment was empty when I arrived.
With shaking hands, I dropped my things at the door and retreated to my bedroom.
In the aftermath of Sebastian, I was lost, floating somewhere between elation and denial.
I could still feel his lips dusting kisses along the slope of my neck, his hands braced on either side of my hips.
My body felt at ease in a way I’d never known before, not even with Matt.
What had happened between Sebastian and me was more in every sense of the word.
It was a terrifying realization, one that made me reach for my phone and FaceTime Sam.
“’Sup, bitch,” she answered on the third ring.
The video feed was dark; I could barely see more than the outline of her face and the whites of her eyes.
“I did something I probably shouldn’t have.”
A bright light flashed across the screen, and she came into view. She was dressed in scrubs and sitting in her car. I looked at the time and realized she must have been on her way home from a shift at the hospital.
“Okay, don’t panic yet. Just take a few deep breaths and tell me what happened,” Sam commanded.
“You were right,” I said, recalling the conversation we’d had after Sebastian’s birthday party. “It was only a matter of time.”
“You’re not making any sense, though I do like to hear that I’m right.”
“I had sex with Sebastian.”
The was a long pause and then Sam was shouting, her face so close to the phone camera that I could only see her nose and mouth. “That’s it? That’s your big mess-up? I thought you were about to tell me you’d murdered someone! I was already thinking about ways to hide the body.”
A strange sound somewhere between a laugh and a choke escaped me. Sam was still talking, rambling on about how much I’d freaked her out. Apparently, she believed me capable of murder. At least I knew I could trust her to help me get rid of a body if I ever did find myself in that situation.
Totally not the point, Grace.
“But I hate Sebastian.” It was the only thing I could think to say.
“Do you?”
“I wish I did,” I admitted. “It would be easier to resist him if I really did. I can’t believe I let him fuck me in the women’s locker room.”
“I will refrain from saying something dirty and instead take this moment to remind you that you’re a twenty-two-year-old single woman. Being horny is normal.”
I let out a huff of exasperation. “But it was Sebastian.”
“Yes, and as we’ve already established, he’s a fine piece of ass. You should be clapping yourself on the back for bagging such a hottie.”
I rolled my eyes. I needed someone to shake some sense into me, not congratulate me.
“Seriously, Grace. Don’t feel bad about embracing your desires. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She was right, but there was more to the story than embracing my desires. I was scared of this thing between Sebastian and me because it had the power to shift into something that went beyond physical attraction.
“I’m not ashamed of myself for sleeping with him. I’m scared that this could turn into something more than just sex. I’ve never felt that good before. It was incredible.”
“Better than Matt?” she asked.
“It’s hard to compare. With Matt, we knew each other for over a year, and I trusted him with my heart. He did everything right.”
“And Sebastian?”
“Everything is more intense with him. When we’re together, I feel like I have no control over myself,” I admitted.
“Having no control and letting go of your control are two different things. It can be scary to let go, but I think that’s what you need.”
I shook my head. “I’m not scared to let go. I’m scared that when I do, I’ll find out this was all just a game to him.”
“Maybe it’s worth taking that chance. Think about how things were with Matt. It took you months to let him even take you out on a date. This kind of raw attraction means something—don’t you want to find out?”
“It’s too late.”
She tilted her head to the side and frowned. “Let me guess, you self-sabotaged?”
“I told him that it couldn’t happen again.”
“You care about him.”
I nodded my head reluctantly. “I don’t want to.”
“You don’t always get to choose who you care about. Sometimes it just happens.”
I wished she was wrong. If I could choose to, I’d erase every memory of Sebastian from my mind.
How could I trust him after our past? I was terrified that everything between us was a lie, a way to punish me for invading his precious arena.
As much as I wanted to give in to this overwhelming desire, I couldn’t risk letting myself go there with Sebastian.
>> <<
Sleep evaded me. I spent the night staring at my ceiling, failing to silence the voice in my head.
Despite my best attempt at counting sheep and progressive muscle relaxation, I was woefully unsuccessful.
I felt half dead as I pulled myself from bed an hour before my alarm was set to go off.
The only thing with the potential to quiet my mind was losing myself on the ice, so I began the process of dressing and preparing my schoolbag for the day.
The moon was low in the sky when I left the apartment, bundled in my thickest coat and winter boots.
DU had been visited by its first snowfall of December overnight, and it was unusually bright despite the lack of sunlight.
A thin blanket of white encased the campus, crunching underfoot as I walked to the arena feeling like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Operating on autopilot, I scanned my badge and pushed through the front doors.
My half-functioning brain barely detected the unmistakable sounds of hockey: the hiss of blades across ice and the crack of a stick meeting puck rubber.
Who the hell would be here at four-thirty in the morning?
I dropped my things off in the locker room and headed out to the rink, curious to see who was willing to punish themselves at such an early hour.
Two forms appeared on the ice as I entered the players’ bench, one significantly larger than the other.
Quietly, I sat down to observe the training session in secret.
It looked like they were working on edge control, based on the series of cones set out across the ice.
“Lead with your head, Tanner. And you’re digging in too much; you need to glide.
” Sebastian’s voice was unmistakable. The command in his tone pulled me right back to the memory of us in the locker room.
I forced away the image it conjured and pressed my legs together to contain the heat spreading through me.
“Trust your edges,” Sebastian said, weaving through the cones in a display of the proper form.
After watching Sebastian’s example, Tanner nodded his head and pushed off. This time, he weaved through the cones with a little less dig and a little more glide. Still, he wasn’t low enough to the ice, and he wasn’t leading with his head.
“That’s better, for sure,” Sebastian said when he came to a stop. “But there’s a few other things you should focus on.”
Sebastian went through a few minor tweaks to his form, suggesting that he bend his knees more and skate with confidence.
He too had noticed that Tanner wasn’t low enough to the ice and that he wasn’t leading with his head.
Afterward, he showed Tanner a few drills to help improve his edge work.
I’d never seen this side of Sebastian. He was patient with the younger hockey player and explained things in a way that was understandable.
He was confident, not cocky. It was refreshing to see this side of him.
“All right, let’s get some rest in before practice. Coach will wring my neck if I work you too hard.”
I realized too late that they were headed in my direction. For a moment, I considered fleeing, but Sebastian had already seen me. Tanner reached the bench first, pulling off his helmet as he stepped off the ice. I recognized him from our shared practices. He was a freshman.
“Hey, Grace,” he said in greeting.
I was immediately grateful to have heard Sebastian call him by his name. “Hey, Tanner. Nice edge work out there.”
He flushed under my praise. “Not as good as you or Sebastian.”
“There’s no need for flattery,” I teased, glancing up to where Sebastian stood behind him. “Sebastian already has way too many adoring fans singing his praises”
I’d slipped so easily into our normal banter, almost as if nothing had transpired between us yesterday.
Playful seemed safer than serious. As long as it didn’t turn into anything more than that.
Sebastian’s expression was hard to read.
For a moment I braced myself, half expecting him to spew something cruel at me, to see that familiar anger in his eyes once again, but it never came.
Instead, he clapped a hand over Tanner’s shoulder and said, “Mind giving me a moment with Grace?”
Tanner gave us a goodbye salute before stalking to the opposite bench. Once he’d disappeared into the locker room, Sebastian returned his gaze to me.
“You don’t usually come in early on Thursdays,” he said, remaining at a distance from me on the other side of the bench. There was no hint of the usual playfulness in his voice. I felt a lurch deep in my stomach.
“I barely slept last night. Wanted to clear my head,” I said, motioning to the rink.
I could tell he was surprised at my honesty. “Was there any reason in particular you couldn’t sleep?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat as his neutral expression started to shift into something much more familiar.
“I would’ve thought that after last night”—he paused for a brief moment, eyes gleaming with delight—“you’d be exhausted.”
My breath caught. I watched him pull his lower lip into his mouth and release it. Images of him, of us, flashed across my mind. My grip on the edge of the bench tightened, fingers squeezing against cold metal.