Chapter 26 Sebastian
He had not seen that coming.
He’d only run back to the Bronco to grab Orly’s equipment. He’d completely forgotten about it, and then he’d had a hunch Brynn
was about to say something beautifully human. He’d already discovered that was when she was the most irresistible. And that’s
when he remembered he was pulling double duty for the day. The world needed to see her that way. Endearingly fragile and freakishly strong, all at once. The more likable and human he began to view her as, the more
he truly wanted to share that side of her with the world.
And, apparently, the more he wanted to keep her all to himself.
He hadn’t been prepared for the sight of her, up on the rocks above him, with her braid blowing in the breeze and the bluest
of clear blue skies as her backdrop as she ignored the bitter wind and soaked in the rays of the sun. The surrender in her
raised hands and the vulnerability and trust in her closed-eyes expression. Complete abandon. The entire scene was as beautiful
as anything he had ever seen.
Brynn Cornell was as beautiful as anything he had ever seen, and he just hadn’t seen that coming.
He still held Orly’s equipment in his left hand, and he wanted nothing more than to set it down and wrap both of his arms
tighter around her. To let her know she was safe from whatever it was she feared. But he was pretty sure Orly would murder
him if he came down from the mountain without the camera in particular. If he was like other cameramen and -women he’d known,
he’d probably prefer Sebastian came down the mountain without Brynn if forced to choose.
Sebastian felt the first of her tears beginning to soak through to his skin, and he juggled the best he could to embrace her
around the shoulder with his left arm, camera and all, and stroked her hair with his right hand.
“It’s okay,” he whispered against her bobbing head as the cries began robbing her of the thin oxygen that surrounded them.
He shushed her, not to try to get her to stop or be quieter—no, she clearly had been in dire need of the freedom she now seemed
to be experiencing, and he wouldn’t have taken that from her for anything. But he did feel it was his duty to keep her from
hyperventilating.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out.
“Don’t be.”
His lips rose in a smile against her hair that smelled like a rose garden. The Rose Garden, actually.
In 1991 his dad had taken him to the White House for the first time.
That was the only time his dad accompanied him there, though he’d been there countless times on his own as an adult.
But in 1991, he wasn’t there as a journalist. He was just a boy excited to meet Michael Jordan and the rest of the NBA Champion Chicago Bulls.
He wasn’t particularly a basketball fan—he and his brothers had been brought up to support baseball, the most patriotic of all team sports, in his dad’s estimation, and particularly the Yankees, the most patriotic of all teams—but there wasn’t a boy his age in the entire universe who wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity to meet Jordan in 1991.
Even a Sudworth boy wasn’t above the appeal of that.
The only thing more appealing had been a day alone with his dad. Darius and Xavier had gotten to accompany their dad to the
White House on various occasions, but until that day Sebastian had never been deemed mature enough. Though Sebastian didn’t
fully understand the political particulars until later, the day had really been about Rose Garden strategy—a technique in
which the president makes use of events happening on White House grounds to hold important meetings somewhat under the radar.
Sebastian had hardly spent any time at all with his dad. But while Martin Sudworth met with the president and who knows who
else in the Oval Office, Sebastian had wandered around the Rose Garden, smelling every single flower and cementing the names
of them to memory to distract himself from the day’s disappointment.
His dad was nowhere to be found when the Bulls were chatting with people in the receiving line, and Sebastian had been too
shy to meet them on his own.
He still remembered the names and scents of every rose he studied that day. So the last time he made the Costco run to Colorado
Springs for Jo and Andi and Cole, and all the other business owners who stocked up on supplies to last them several months,
he’d brought back pretty much a lifetime supply of shampoo and conditioner for the inn, because the scent reminded him of
the dark red Pat Nixon Rose. Jo had hated it and said it was far too potent, but Sebastian had told her if she didn’t like
his choices, next time she could make the eight-hour round trip. She’d never complained again.
And now, against his cheek, Brynn Cornell’s hair smelled like a Pat Nixon Rose. The most beautiful, poignant, perfect scent that had been the highlight of his loneliest day.
Sebastian kept trying to juggle the equipment, desperate to comfort her without knocking her in the head with the edge of
the heavy plastic. And just the idea that she was trusting him with not only her vulnerability but not to knock her unconscious
after all the horrible things he had said to her was enough to make him reevaluate the order of his priorities.
“Hang on.” He released her from his arms and pulled away, and his heart broke as her eyes darted around, seemingly looking
for explanation. Escape, maybe? She expected to have to fend for herself, just as much as he always had. “Just...” He raised
his hand, and she looked at it, then up into his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Don’t move.”
He shucked his right arm out of the jacket and then switched all of Orly’s equipment to his right arm so he could repeat the
shucking motion with his left. “Yowza!” The bracing wind assaulted his bare arms, causing him to dance around and her to laugh
at him.
“What are you doing? And who says, ‘Yowza,’ you dork?”
Sebastian threw his jacket down onto the snow and then leaned over to spread it out as much as he could before gingerly setting
the expensive equipment down on it, freeing his hands completely. When he rose and looked at Brynn again, the humor had faded
from her face.
“Hang on. Are you...?” The tremble began in her tightly clenched chin and then traveled up to her bottom lip, clenched
between her teeth. “Just so I...” She looked down at his jacket and then back at his bare arms. “You’re insane.”
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around himself, just as the hopping began.
“Well, perhaps. But in my defense, there was a lot more body heat being shared when that started.” He looked up at the sun—getting close to its midday position directly overhead, but currently hidden behind a family of puffy white clouds.
“There was also more sunlight. I’m not sure we have much control over that, but .
. .” His arms opened to her again, but she didn’t move.
Fantastic. Nothing like ruining a moment and acquiring hypothermia all in one fell swoop.
“I hate my job.” As soon as the words escaped, she gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my gosh.” Her muffled
voice spoke through her fingers and nearly closed mouth, but her eyes were wide open. More than just literally, it appeared.
“I’ve never said that before.” Her hands left her mouth and slid to her cheeks. “I’m not sure I’ve even thought that before.
I’m not sure I knew that.” She glided her palms up to her forehead. “I don’t actually hate my job. Right?”
Sebastian lowered his arms and wrapped them around himself again, still hopping. “Well, I suppose—”
“I have the best job in the world, Sebastian. Everyone wants my job. People do horrible things to land a job like this.” She
dropped her hands and quickly pointed at him. “Before you wonder, no... I didn’t do horrible things. Not to get the job,
I mean. Not to get this job, specifically. Sure, I skipped my own mother’s funeral, but that really had nothing to do with the job. How could I hate
this job? I don’t. I love this job. Right? How could I not love it?” Her voice was carried away with the wind.
He knew Brynn was in the middle of a major breakthrough. A real catharsis, from the looks of it. He couldn’t help but contemplate
the consequences of asking her to continue said catharsis in the car. He eyed his jacket. Thirty more seconds, then it was
going back on.
“Mark Irvine is so dull. Have you met him?” He nodded, and she kept going. “I mean, apart from abandoning me last Friday,
he’s been nice enough. But yeah. I really can’t stand him. He’s so fake.” She scoffed. “Who am I kidding? I’m so fake. I’m the worst!”
Seb remembered telling Cole and Laila that. Exactly that. And he began growing warm again at the realization of just how wrong
he’d been.
“The stuff they write for us to say?” A loud, painful guffaw erupted from her. “You almost forget how you really talk. You
just know that no one talks like that. And yet you sort of do. I don’t know. That probably doesn’t make any sense. Or maybe it does. To you, I mean. Is it possible that I just
like being famous? It’s got to be more than that, right? If not, how shallow am I? Or maybe it’s not about being famous, exactly.
I just kept moving up and moving up, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, why bother doing something
if you aren’t going to try to be the best at it? And yeah, sometimes, eventually, being the best makes you famous. So I like
being famous. But I also sort of hate it. Right now, I mostly feel like I’m stuck between the top seat on that couch and the
fetal position.”
His teeth were chattering, but he managed to ask, “What about ‘Good night, and good luck’? The power of words? The power of
television? All of that?”
Her face contorted into a pained expression. “Okay, don’t hate me, but I made that up. I’m sorry. It was just another open