Chapter 23 Now #5
One of the perks of this adorable little room is that the beds (the fact that there are two suddenly seems rather wasteful) aren’t far from the kitchenette, and we stumble toward the closest one now.
I fumble for his belt just as he reaches into his back pocket and produces a square blue wrapper.
I think again of the cologne and wonder if Sebastian was thinking of this possibility when he was getting ready for tonight, or if he’s just the kind of guy who carries condoms around in his wallet at all times, just in case.
I reach for the wrapper so that I can open it but he sets it on the nightstand instead. “Not yet,” he whispers, pushing me back onto the bed.
I used to think a lot about what it would be like to sleep with Sebastian Nikolaou. But as he reaches behind me to unhook my bra, then dips his hand below the hem of underwear while pressing his mouth to the curve of my breast, I find that I’m more than happy to wait a little longer to find out.
He takes his time with me, but he’s a quick learner, taking cues from my body’s responses to his fingers and his mouth. Part of me wants to let him keep doing the things he is doing to me all night, but eventually I come up for air long enough to place a hand on his chest.
“I want you,” I say, meeting his eyes.
He cups my cheek in his hand and presses our foreheads together. “Have me, then.”
He covers my body with his and I pull his hips toward mine, a little impatient now. I don’t want to wait another second not knowing what he feels like.
I’ve waited long enough.
After, he holds me against his chest, stroking my hair while we talk late into the night.
He tells me more about his vision for the restaurant, his mom’s treatment plan, even the end of his relationship with Claire.
I go into more detail about the year I spent in New York City and its abrupt end, Maren’s glamorous life in London, the stories I dream of writing one day when I’m finally brave enough to leave the safety net of Shore Life behind.
Like always, we do not reminisce about the years we knew each other as teens.
We expertly avoid any topics that might inadvertently trigger thoughts of what happened back then, the night after he kissed me in the snack bar. Why we fell out of touch for so long.
I wake up early the next morning with one cheek pressed against Sebastian Nikolaou’s left bicep, our legs entwined like a tree’s twisty roots.
I peer at the clock on the nightstand: 6:00 a.m. Sebastian is still sound asleep, his chest rising and falling in an even rhythm.
Half of me wants to nuzzle against him and close my eyes again, but the other half jitters with nervous energy.
I realize I need a few minutes to clear my head and think about everything that happened last night—and I’m not going to be able to do that as long as my mouth is in the vicinity of his.
I peel myself out of his grip and tiptoe past the kitchenette and into the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me, then assess myself in the mirror.
I’m wearing a far too big waffle-knit shirt that Sebastian had offered me out of his duffel bag some time before we fell asleep.
Last night’s makeup is smudged around my eyes, and my hair is a mess.
Images from last night come back to me in a jumble—not just the things we did but the conversations we had, and the things left unsaid. The uneasiness I’d felt upon waking develops a voice, and it has a lot to say. Careful, it warns. Remember what happened last time?
Don’t get carried away.
I’m craving coffee, but I don’t want to wake Sebastian by brewing a pot in the room, and the café downstairs doesn’t open for another thirty minutes.
I decide washing my face is a good first step, so I grab a makeup remover towelette from my toiletry bag.
But when I tuck my hair behind my ears to get it out of my face it sort of crunches in the process, and I decide that what I really need is a shower. I always think better in the shower.
I lean against the sink while I wait for the water to heat up—I like it almost too hot for my skin to bear. As the room fogs up I pull Sebastian’s shirt over my head. I’ve just stepped out of my underwear when I hear footsteps padding down the hall.
Two gentle knocks on the door, and then his voice from the other side: “Everything all right, Lina?”
And then, before I can think better of it, I’m slipping through the shower door and saying, “Come in.”
Through the frosted glass I see a smudged outline of him. He’s standing very still.
“Come in … like, all the way?” I detect a note of self-consciousness in his voice that makes me smile. Could I, Lina Mariano, be making Sebastian Nikolaou nervous?
“I’m guessing you need one as much as I do,” I say, as if I am the type of woman who invites men to shower with her all the time. “So you might as well get in.”
There’s some movement, and then the shower door opens.
He slides in quickly, and I take a step back to make room.
We’re both still and silent for a moment.
Even though we’re naked—and even though his body is objectively something to behold—the moment doesn’t feel sexually charged.
As the water runs down my back I think about how strange it is that two people can feel comfortable enough to take their clothes off in front of one another, yet do anything to avoid an awkward conversation.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe I could tip my head back, look Sebastian in those beautiful eyes and finally ask him what the hell happened that night.
Maybe he’d say I had it all wrong, offer an explanation I hadn’t considered, some piece of information that made it all make sense.
Or maybe he’d confirm my worst fear: That there was, in fact, nothing wrong at all with the way I remembered what happened back then.
Just something wrong with me.
Sebastian tips my chin up so I’m looking at him. I blink away the sting of tears, thankful to have the water from the shower as an alibi. His thick, dark eyelashes are flecked with droplets, too.
“What are you thinking, Lina?”
Instead of answering I pull him down to me by his neck. I kiss him as the water keeps falling, streaming off our bodies in rivulets.