chapter 31
Remi
IT’S EARLY FRIDAY EVENING, AND I should be getting ready to step out onto the floor at the club; instead, I’m crammed into a plane, wishing the people ahead of me would grab their carry-on bags faster.
My flight from Vegas to LA was packed, and even though the flight only took an hour or so, I’m already dying to get off this plane and get my feet back on the ground, where they belong.
I can’t believe Seb flies around like this all the time, like it’s as normal as hopping into a cab.
I’m now even more grateful that he’s been so willing to fly out to visit me.
Finally, it’s my turn, and I get out of my seat as quickly as possible.
I follow the flow of passengers disembarking from the plane and let them lead me to baggage claim.
LAX is crazy, and as I walk, I grip the strap of my carry-on bag and start to get nervous butterflies in my stomach. Because I’m about to see him again.
In my back pocket, my cell chimes, and I pull it out, glancing down at the screen without missing a stride.
I’m here. Can’t wait to see you. cz
Seb has a thing for emojis, which is adorable. Seeing it makes me smile, and I’m comforted by the fact that he’s here somewhere, waiting for me. Though it makes those butterflies go a little more wild too.
It’s been less than two weeks since I last saw him, and it’s not lost on me how crazy this all is. If someone had asked me a couple months ago if I’d ever take time off work and fly to LA to hang out with a drummer in a rock band, I would’ve laughed in their face.
Yet here I am, my eyes searching the bustling space as I approach baggage claim. There are so many bodies moving around me, everyone seeming in a rush to get where they’re going. It’s not so unlike Vegas in that way.
Then something pink catches my eye: a huge homemade sign. And the face grinning under it is Sebastian’s.
He’s holding the sign up over his head, and Remi is written on the white poster board in gigantic glittering pink letters, surrounded by hearts and lopsided stars.
The people around him are staring, and a few people even snap photos, but whether that’s because they recognize him from LGC or because he just looks so ridiculous and cute at the same time, I have no idea.
When Seb’s eyes meet mine, I swear it’s like time slows down.
Everything in my periphery falls away, becoming a muted blur, and the next thing I know, Seb is grinning that dimpled smile and opening his arms wide, and I’m jumping into his embrace as if I haven’t seen him in a year instead of a couple weeks.
He smells fresh, like a mix of soap and coconut, and his arms are sturdy and warm where they’re wrapped around me.
For a moment, I bury my face in his neck and hold on, my feet suspended off the floor from him lifting me, my carry-on and his glittery sign abandoned somewhere beside us. And it feels so right, like I’m exactly where I belong.
Slowly, he lowers me to my feet, then pulls back just enough to meet my eyes.
“Hey,” he says.
I laugh, the sound light, like the tension that’s been lingering in my chest all week—since my last odd encounter with James—is starting to unfurl. “Hey.”
His brown-eyed gaze flicks down to my mouth. Immediately, I push onto my toes, bringing my lips to his, one of my hands wrapping around the back of his neck. His fingers tighten slightly where they’re still resting around my waist, and he makes a small sound before pulling away.
With a laugh, he says, “You can’t kiss me like that in public.”
For a moment, I glance around. And sure enough, there are people with their phones lifted toward us. I’m pretty sure that they do recognize him now and the sign has nothing to do with it.
“Sorry,” I say, starting to step away.
Seb looks confused for a moment, then notices the people and their phones.
“No, not because of that,” he says, shaking his head. He lowers his voice, his lips turning up again into a sideways smile. “Because you make me want to toss you onto that baggage claim and take you right here.”
I briefly picture us lying on the baggage claim conveyor belt, Seb on top of me as it goes around and around. The image is so silly that I laugh, and realizing he’s not uncomfortable with me kissing him in public makes my muscles soften.
“Sounds like we’d get dizzy,” I say, stooping to pick up my carry-on.
Seb grabs his sign, then slings an arm comfortably across my shoulders. “I mean, I’d do it, if you were into that sort of thing,” he says.
“I think we can find a better place than this.”
I look up at him, and the smile he gives me makes my stomach warm.
Fuck, I’ve missed him.
“Which suitcase is yours?” he asks.
I point it out when it comes around, and Seb grabs it, lifting it off the conveyor belt like it weighs nothing at all. His biceps really do come in handy. Then he gestures toward the parking area and says, “Your carriage awaits.”
The carriage is his charcoal-gray Ford Bronco Raptor, and I’m pleasantly surprised by how clean it is. The floorboards have all been vacuumed, and the interior looks a little glossy, like he had it detailed recently.
But also, it smells weirdly like . . .
I look over at him from my spot in the passenger’s seat. “Why does it smell like burritos in here?”
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Seb reaches into the back seat, and there’s the crinkle of paper as he grabs a food bag and hefts it into his lap. “I figured you might be hungry, so I grabbed takeout from my favorite Tex-Mex place.”
As he reaches into the bag, my heart swells.
Not for the first time, I wonder how the hell this guy was single before he met me.
He puts a heavy foil-wrapped burrito into my hands, and it’s still warm.
While looking down at it, I straight up ask him, “Why were you single when we met?”
His brown eyes widen. “What?”
I gesture to the burrito, then the glitter sign sitting in the back seat. “You’re . . . kind of perfect. Why didn’t you have a girlfriend?”
“Oh.” He gets a shy smile and looks away from me to unwrap his own burrito.
Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he says, “I can be a bit . . . much, I think. I’m not good at playing it cool.
I get attached, and I think I scare women off.
” He takes a bite and chews thoughtfully for a while, still not looking at me.
After swallowing, he adds, “And I’ve had some shitty relationships too.
I like taking care of people, and I’ve been taken advantage of before.
” Then he looks over at me. “What about you?”
My eyebrows rise. “Why was I single?”
He nods once, mouth occupied with another bite of his burrito.
Slowly, I unwrap the foil, and a puff of steam rises up to meet me.
“All the guys I’d been with felt . . . temporary.
” I think of all the late nights in hotel rooms, names and faces that meant so little to me at the time, that were so easy to walk away from when the sun came up.
But after I slept with Seb and the sun rose the next day, I realized I didn’t want him to go anywhere. And looking at him now, I still don’t.
“What about this?” he asks. His voice is softer now. “Does this feel temporary?”
He looks so sincere, his brown eyes focused on me, a small furrow in his brow.
And I tell him the truth. “I hope not.”
That answer must be good enough for him, because his lips curl up into a smile.
Holding his half-eaten burrito in one hand, he cranks up the Raptor’s engine with the other. Then he looks at me and says, “Good, because I’m not going anywhere.”
My mouth wants to form a smile, but it’s full of a bite of burrito. I swallow, then ask as Seb starts to drive out of the parking lot, “So, where are we going?”
With a quick glance over at me, he says, “I’m taking you home.”
And those words feel comforting and scary at the same time.
Home.
I settle back into the seat, roll down my window, and enjoy my burrito while LA blurs past, punctuated by hundreds of palm trees.
Seb turns on music as we drive, some kind of hippie beach band, and I find myself wondering how it is that I already feel so comfortable in a place that I’ve never been before—and how I’ll feel in a couple days when I have to leave.