She adjusts a black strap on her shoulder, bouncing as she does.
“Is that a camera?”
A deep line divides her eyebrows. “Yes.”
“You going somewhere with it?”
“I plan on spending the day hiking, taking pictures out at Crowder’s Mountain.”
Crowder’s Mountain State Park is less than an hour from us. Beautiful views especially on a cloudless day like this and warm for the last week of January.
“Mind if I go with you?”
“What?”
I shrug. I can blame my need for fresh air. The absolute sudden hatred I have of being in my house all alone.
Or, it’s something far baser—I’m attracted to this woman despite it being the worst thing for me.
“Yeah. I like hiking and I don’t have anything to do until we fly out tomorrow.” I say it with as much nonchalance as I can to hide my desperation for her to not say no.
“Sure,” she drawls slowly. “You can come, but I’m driving.”
She points to her Jeep Wrangler, bright blue in color that doesn’t surprise me one bit given her love of bright colors in her apartment and hair.
“Lead the way, captain,” I say, teasing. “Will my car be okay there?”
“It’s fine. I’ll text Dad and let him know it’s there so when he gets in, he doesn’t have it towed, but we don’t have deliveries planned.”
“Okay then. Let’s roll out.”
She grins at me, that blinding smile again showing bright white teeth and a gleam in her eye before she lowers her sunglasses and they disappear.
“All right, hotshot.”
Chapter Eight
Gigi
Man. What a strange turn of events I was not expecting this morning. Sebastian’s attitude last night kept me awake, tossing and turning more than it rationally should have.
So I have a crush on a guy I can’t have. It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last. So he hurt my feelings.
Big freaking deal. It’s life. It happens.
The only thing it reminded me of is that Sebastian Hendrix is a man who needs to be kept at a far distance from me. I’m way too susceptible to his sexy hair and beard, the sadness in his eyes, the strength of his body’s frame. Every time I’m around him, I want to brush my finger along his cheek and tease him until he smiles a real smile.
Stupid.
I’m in no position to heal anyone, and the last person I should be trying to heal is someone who makes my heart skip a beat at the mere sight of him.
So why did I allow him to come with me, sitting close to me in my Jeep, his hand tapping his knee to the beat of my country music playlist?
Because I’m an idiot. And glutton for self-inflicted punishment.
We’ve barely spoken since we reached the highway, both of us probably having no idea what to say, so I jump when for the first time in twenty minutes, Sebastian speaks.
“So, you’re divorced?”
“Yep.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not.” I grip the stick shift to my Jeep harder than necessary. Next to me, his gaze is a heavy thing, barreling down on me.
“Don’t want to talk about it? I get that.”
“It’s not that. Evan and I… he’s a good guy. We still get along when we run into each other.” I sigh. Sometimes, the reasons why we divorced seem so trivial. “We were young. Dated in college. I think he proposed and I agreed because our friends were getting married and it was the next step after college. Then we moved in together and realized outside of partying with friends and tailgating at football games, we didn’t have a single thing in common. So we admitted our mistake, divorced, and moved on.”
“And you took off to see the world?”
“Yeah.” I grin at the windshield in front of me as we zip down 485.
“It was that easy? Ending your marriage?”
I peer at him quickly and am stunned by the tightness in his jaw.
“I think my situation is incredibly different than yours. They’re incomparable. And no, it wasn’t easy. It was sad. But Evan and I… I don’t know how to explain it best because he’s a good guy. He’s kind. He’s stable. He’s the first one willing to help someone in need. He volunteers at homeless shelters. He’s great. He’s just… he’s not at all what I want outside of that.”
I watch as Sebastian shoves his hands down the tops of his legs. Veins bulge along the backs of his hands as he flexes his fists.
Before he can speak, because I’m not at all certain what’d he have to say if anything, I continue.
“Listen, we graduated when we were twenty-two. We’d dated for two years before then. He was an accounting major to my art major. He wanted to set up a townhome, start having babies and have me stay home and join the PTA. He wanted a simple life. I wanted to explore. See the world. I have things I want to do in my life. He wanted beige and brown all over our home because it was classic. I wanted to paint walls purple and he was concerned about the resale value. They were all small things, but they were incompatible long-term things. We realized it. We both recognized it, and then we corrected our young mistake. He’s now engaged to a pre-school teacher who’s absolutely perfect for him and I’m happy for him. What we had, that’s a lot different from you and Madison I feel like. Don’t compare my dissolved marriage to yours. No two marriages or reasons for ending them are the same.”
I take the exit to head out west of Charlotte and it’s miles before he speaks again.
“Madison and I, we both come from large families. She’s one of four sisters. I have two as well. All of us are married, and all of them except us have kids.”
He trails off, and I notice him bite his bottom lip between his teeth, staring out the side window. His chest heaves and I give him a second before asking, “Was that… is that something you want?”
“We tried for three years,” he finally says, and God…the pain in his voice is brutal as he says it. “We’ve been trying. Doctors. Medicines. She’s had surgeries for things she’d kill me if I repeated to anyone. We tried the natural way, the medical way… nothing.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs, but it’s tense. I’m pretty sure the sadness growing inside my Jeep weighs as much as the vehicle itself. “She wants kids and the chances of us having them together are pretty much zero. That’s why she left.”
Together? The way he phrases it makes me frown, and I focus my attention on the road and not on the pain wafting off him in palpable waves.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he whispers.
It sounds ripped from his throat and my own clogs for him.
Every part of me wants to reach for him. To comfort him. My grip on my steering wheel tightens so I don’t do something that stupid.
“A part of me thinks I should let this go. I get it. I get why she left. I get why she’s hurting. And it pisses me off to know she can so easily cut off contact with me, end things and walk away without talking to me. I told you last night she’s back in Minnesota, where we’re from?”
I didn’t know he was from there, but I nod. “Yeah.”