8. Sebastian
8
SEBASTIAN
Hailey whimpers against my lips again, and the sound goes straight to my cock. If it weren’t for the freezing water we were just submerged in, I’d definitely be sporting a raging hard-on right now—as it is, I’m sure she can feel that half staff that’s pressing against her lower belly as I tighten my grip on her damp hair, tipping her head back as I devour her lips with mine.
There are a lot of people still hanging out around the lake after the plunge, so it’s easy to use that as an excuse for why I’m kissing her.
We’re putting on a show, just like we all agreed.
But it’s not quite as easy to find an acceptable reason for why I don’t want to stop kissing her.
I tilt her head to one side a little, dragging my lips away from hers only to find the soft curve of her jaw. I scrape my teeth over the delicate skin just below her ear, and she shivers against me, letting out a plaintive little squeak.
Fuck, those sounds she makes .
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t drive me wild knowing that I can elicit such involuntary noises from her. I fucking love how easy it is for me to get a reaction out of her. She’s so damn responsive, even if this is all supposed to be a lie.
Her fingernails scrape across the nape of my neck lightly, and I hiss out a breath as my cock jolts again, even more of my blood rushing south.
I’m not quite sure what came over me as we were bantering a moment ago, but something about hearing her call me a gentleman made me want to show her just how ungentlemanly I can be.
How easily I could ruin her if she let me.
How perfectly I could make her fall apart.
Shit. Get ahold of yourself, Sebastian .
Even though my body seems to physically resist my command, I reluctantly draw back, letting a small space open up between us. This is my best friend’s little sister, and what I’m doing with her here would be totally off-limits if it weren’t for this charade we’re putting on.
I need to remind myself that that’s what this is—just an act, and nothing more than that.
Her cheeks are flushed, more than they were even in the cold water of the lake. I like that too.
Fuck , I like everything about her.
It’s as though the second I started pretend dating Hailey, I’ve suddenly become hyper aware of how fucking gorgeous she is. Not that I didn’t notice it before, but at least I was able to shove it all down back then. Now it seems to be rising to the surface regardless of how hard I try not to think about it, or about her .
“Um, point taken,” she says, clearing her throat as a pretty flush creeps up her cheeks. “I don’t think gentlemen kiss like that.”
As she picks up her coffee from the roof of the car and sips on it, looking perfectly mussed and flustered, I wonder how the hell I’m going to get all of these things I’m suddenly feeling back inside the bottle when it’s time for this whole fake dating thing to be over.
But when she looks over and smiles at me, I push those thoughts away. I don’t want to deal with that yet.
“You want to go someplace to warm up?” I suggest, deciding not to follow up on her comment about our kiss.
Hailey nods quickly as if she’s been waiting for me to ask. The coffee isn’t doing a good enough job of chasing away the chill.
I grab her donut so she won’t forget it, and we both climb into my car.
“My garage is close by.”
“Please tell me it’s warm in there.”
She shivers as she slides into the passenger seat, and I’m tempted to reach out and touch her again to help her warm up, but I keep my hands firmly on the steering wheel.
“It is,” I promise.
But as we near the garage, a bit of doubt starts to creep into my mind. I was pretty sure Hailey would end up having fun at the Polar Bear Plunge, but the garage where I service a good portion of the vehicles in Chestnut Hill isn’t exactly in “date worthy” condition. It works great for what it is, but there are spare parts scattered around, oil stains on the floor, and it smells more of engine fuel than champagne and chardonnay.
Maybe my brothers were right to have laughed at my great idea for a date.
“Shit, this probably isn’t the best fake date.” I reach up and sweep my damp hair out of my eyes. “I should have?—”
“What are you talking about? It’s great.” She takes a bite of her donut, making an appreciative noise. “Besides, the fake part of the date is over. We’re not in public now, so this is just the two of us hanging out.”
The thought of that seems even more dangerous somehow than the Polar Bear Plunge was, and I find myself oddly disappointed that I won’t be able to use public exhibition as a reason to pull her into my arms again.
When we get to the garage, I pull inside and turn the thermostat up as soon as we get out of the car. The place isn’t huge, so it should heat up fairly quickly.
“I always liked hanging out in here.”
Hailey runs her fingers over some tools that I left lying out on the workbench, expression nostalgic, as if she’s lost in her memories.
I can’t help the grin that spreads over my face at that. “Yeah, me too. It’s like my home away from home.”
My dad used to run this garage, and I can remember working with him on cars in here as a kid. Then, after my parents died, I took over running the garage as a way to cope with the loss. I always felt safe and completely at home here, and I like that we share that feeling about this place.
“Do you remember when I used to come in here and study?” she asks, glancing my way.
Of course I do .
Lucas and my brothers used to come hang out in here with me all the time while I was tinkering around with stuff.
Once I was working on a set of motorcycles—three of them, to be exact. I got them from a scrapyard and was fixing them up for my brothers and me to ride. Lucas joked around about how they were “death machines,” but I was determined to get them up and running and get us out there riding. Plus, after my parents’ car wreck, I didn’t want my brothers being afraid of things. Their accident was a brutal one, and it hit us all hard. Nick and Reid thought that I was just being reckless again instead of dealing with the grief. But I had a purpose. I didn’t want any of us to be so traumatized that we were afraid to get behind the wheel.
And it worked—for a while anyway, until we all got too busy to go riding together. Or maybe the bikes had just served their purpose by then, getting us through the worst of the aftermath of our loss.
Hailey came and hung out in the garage a lot back then, since her brother was here too. But the funny thing was that she didn’t just come by when Lucas was here.
“Yeah, I remember,” I tell her. “You’d come by, and we’d all hang out and eat pizza. Lucas used to tease you about always wanting to get pineapple and pepperoni.”
She laughs, and I take her coat from her and turn my back as she changes out of her wet bikini and into the dry clothes she brought with her. I’m enough of a gentleman not to turn and look while she’s changing, but it takes every last ounce of my self-restraint to keep my gaze fixed straight ahead.
“I used to come by after school sometimes.”
Her voice is right behind my back, and I try to stay focused on what we’re talking about so that I don’t start picturing what she must look like right now, her nipples peaked from the cold and her lightly tanned skin flushed.
I nod. “I remember that too. Sometimes you even snuck out of school on your free periods and came here. That clique of mean girls—what were they called?”
“The Divas,” she says with audible distaste. “God, they were horrible. You can turn around now.”
When I turn and look at her, Hailey is back in blue jeans and a sweater that looks soft enough that I want to bury my face in it. But it’s the way her jeans hug the curves of her hips and perfectly showcase her long legs that makes it a little hard to breathe.
I turn around for a second and pretend to look for something in the garage just so that I can get my shit back under control, clearing my throat as I glance at her over my shoulder. “They really used to give you a hard time, didn’t they?”
She grimaces. “They did. Which is why I came to the garage to escape. It was nice to just get away from the cliques and drama for a bit, and to be here with you.”
Hailey’s eyes dart away from mine after she mentions the last part, and I round the workshop bench to stand beside her. It feels good to talk like this—natural, normal, the two of us alone instead of putting on a show for everyone else. Not that I don’t enjoy the spectacle. I definitely do. But I also like having her all to myself behind a closed door too, where we can just talk and be real with each other.
Something about Hailey makes it feel easy to be myself, as if she doesn’t judge me the way almost everyone else here in Chestnut Hill does. I got a reputation for being the town bad boy a long time ago, and that’s never really shifted over the years. Usually, it doesn’t bother me, but I think it would if that’s how Hailey saw me. Or if that’s the only thing she saw in me.
“Well, those Divas are a bunch of shallow bitches,” I tell her. “Brielle started hanging out with them too, you know.”
Hailey rolls her eyes at that piece of information.
“I’m not surprised. I thought she was my best friend, but obviously that wasn’t the case. Looking back on it, Brielle always wanted to level up socially. She was never content with where she was, and never content just being my friend. I wonder sometimes if that’s part of the reason she fucked around with Dylan behind my back. I mean, his family is wealthy and connected, and he was always super popular.”
My blood boils just thinking about how either of those two people could have hurt Hailey as much as they did.
A fiancé and a best friend? Those relationships are supposed to be worth something, not the kind of thing you betray just because you want to climb the social ladder or get your cock wet with your bride-to-be’s bestie.
“Fuck both of them. Neither of them deserves to have a place in your life or even in your head. You deserve so much better, shortcake . ”
She smiles when I use the nickname I used to call her when she’d come to the garage and hang out with me alone. She’s not even that short at five foot five, but compared to me and my brothers, who are all well over six feet, she’s always felt petite to me.
“You know, I wish I could’ve come back to town in a blaze of glory.” She lets out a sad little laugh, as if her entrance back home was a pitiful one. She looks vulnerable, standing in my garage in the dim light with her blonde hair drying slowly around her shoulders. “I haven’t though. To be honest, I wasn’t really doing that well with my dream of becoming a singer. I was gone for two years, and in that time, all that I managed to achieve was working a shitty job in LA that just happened to be related to the music industry. I never even went on one singing audition.”
“What? Why not? You have a great voice.”
I can still remember catching her singing to herself when she would come to study in the garage. I’d be working under a hood, and she’d have her headphones on while doing her schoolwork. She’d always start off kind of quiet, but then the music would take over and she’d belt out a tune. Her voice always sounded like silk to me, melodic enough to tame ocean waves or calm dragons. It added to the many reasons why I liked having her keep me company as I worked.
Hailey shrugs, pinching her lips together.
“I tried, but… every time I set up an audition, I would end up bailing on it and canceling at the last second. I’ve got terrible stage fright.”
“Since when?
“Since I listened to months of Dylan subtly belittling me and my abilities.” She wraps her arms around herself, looking over at my wall of tools. “He always made me feel crazy for wanting to pursue music as a career. He would tell me how competitive it was, and how the odds were so low that I would never get anywhere with it. Even though I tried to shed all that negativity when I moved to LA, I guess it left a mark. And now I just feel kind of like I’ve failed.”
My jaw clenches as I listen to her talk about how that bastard hurt her.
“That’s just one more reason why Dylan Montgomery is a goddamn idiot,” I growl. “You haven’t failed, Hailey. Everyone’s path is different, and it doesn’t have to be a straight line. You haven’t made it in LA yet? Fine, you haven’t made it— yet . That doesn’t mean you can’t or that you won’t. Your voice is beautiful. Like, otherworldly level beautiful.”
I can see the effect that my words have on her as she swallows hard and then parts her lips like she needs to get more air.
“Thank you, Sebastian.”
She smiles, almost tentatively, and my fingers twitch with the impulse to reach out for her. I curl them into fists lightly, wishing I had something to do to occupy them.
We aren’t in front of anyone else in here. There’s no one to put on a show for, no one watching. And that means there’s no good reason for me to want to kiss her right now. No real excuse.
But god, I want to.
I take a step toward her, and I think she does the same. Unbidden, my gaze drops to her full, pink lips, and my throat tightens as her tongue darts out to wet them. Her delicate throat moves as she swallows, and she tilts her head back almost imperceptibly, like she’s just begging me to?—
A car pulls into the garage, and the rumbling sound of the engine makes us both jerk slightly.
Fucking hell . I left one of the bay doors open, and some invasive ass has decided to barge right in.
As soon as I see Maeve Gaskin step out of the car, I’m not surprised by the audacity. She’s part of that Divas group that was in Hailey’s class at Chestnut Hill High, and she’s almost as prissy and stuck up as Brielle and the rest of that entourage of vipers in heels.
“Hey, Sebastian.” Maeve’s voice is like nails on a chalkboard, the annoying sound rivaled only by the incessant clicking of her heels against my concrete garage floor. For fuck’s sake, how can one person take so many tiny steps? Does she have Dachshund sized legs under her skirt? “I need you to fix my car. It’s broken.”
“Sorry, the shop’s closed at the moment. And it’s obviously not that broken if you drove it here,” I point out. “I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow.”
I couldn’t care less about being rude. I don’t need anyone’s business badly enough to be barked orders at.
Maeve makes her way toward me, her face morphing into a pout that shifts into a look of surprise when she notices Hailey standing there too.
“Oh, Hailey Bennett, I heard you were back in town!” She smiles. “All the girls have been talking about your recent homecoming.”
I heard Hailey mumble something under her breath, but Maeve doesn’t catch it. Especially not when Hailey’s smile hides things so well.
“Your mom must be so thrilled to have you back home. I know she’s missed you. And just in time for the holidays too, that’s great! You’ll have to come help us get the Santa’s Workshop display ready for the holiday bazaar!”
“No thanks. I haven’t really had time to settle back in yet, and I?—”
Maeve holds up a hand. “Nope. I’m not taking no for an answer. You helped every single year when you lived here, and we have to revive the tradition. It won’t be the same without you.”
I can tell Hailey doesn’t want to, and I have to stop myself from speaking for her and telling Maeve to go sit on a giant candy cane and get the fuck out of my garage with her not-so-broken car.
But when Hailey grudgingly agrees to help with the setup, I think I catch a bit of rebellion in her voice as she smiles back at Maeve.
“Sure, you’re right. It will be great.”
I can’t help the grin that tugs at my lips as she lifts her chin a little, squaring her shoulders. Despite the fact that Maeve has clearly been trying to bait her, there’s a quiet fierceness in Hailey’s expression that I fucking adore.
That’s right, shortcake. Don’t let the mean girls win .