“And I’m sorry that even though I was looking for a girl like you, it took me so long to see you. To understand that I was holding on to a past that would always be a part of me, even after I let it go. This was my home once, Georgina. But now, you, Bruno, and Opal—that’s the home I want, and where that is doesn’t matter.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as hope crept back in. That was a home I’d envisioned many times since he’d left me on the curb at the vet, but never with any hope. Only as something I’d lost and hadn’t known how to get back without sacrificing a part of myself. “You’d come to Boston?”
He opened his arms. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Standing there is one thing. Can you be happy here? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if it was torture for you day in and day out.”
“I have a confession.” He dropped his arms at his sides. “This is my third time here in the last month. I’m sorry I didn’t come see you sooner, but I had shit to work through.”
I clasped my hands over my heart. He had to want to face those demons, and now, he was ready. I silently promised him I’d do whatever possible to be by his side while he did. “You went to the house?” I guessed.
“I did. First with Justin to see if I could do it. Then with Libby to start on the plans to restore it. We’re going to sell it.” He shifted on his feet, looking like he could use a hug. But more than comfort, he needed to get the words out, so I stayed where I was. “It won’t be easy, but I’m going to work through it by doing as much of the labor myself as I can.” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “Something about physically working on the house feels like a way of, I don’t know . . . honoring her. My mom.”
I closed my eyes a moment and pictured Sebastian as a boy in the kitchen, his mom teaching him the best way to scrub grease from the stove. Doing homework at the table. Bickering with his twin sister. And then, as a grown man, tearing down the walls that’d protected—but also limited—him.
With my help too.
“Yeah?” he said.
I opened my eyes. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but I nodded. “Next time you go there, I’m coming with you. I want to help.” I hazarded a smile. “At the very least, so it doesn’t turn into a bachelor pad.”
He grinned. “Bring your colored pencils. I want it to be a house worthy of someone’s windowsill height chart.”
I nodded. “Then it will be.”
He glanced out the window beside me, scratching his chin as silence settled between us. Sensing he needed time to gather his thoughts, I waited until he was ready. “When I stood in front of the house for the first time since her death,” he said finally, slowly, “I asked myself some things. Where do I want to be? Who do I want to be? Who do I want to spend my days with? The answer is simple, Georgina.”
My heart thumped. I was nearly on the tips of my toes waiting for him to say it, to close this distance between us for good. “Tell me,” I implored.
“I want to be a man worthy of spending his days with you, wherever you are.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore. I started across the room, bolstered by the fact that I had no doubts he meant what he said. When Sebastian cared about someone, he did with all of himself. He fought. He came back. In the end, he didn’t run away. The proof stood in front of me now.
“Wait,” he said before I reached him, and I stopped. He drew an imaginary line between us with his index finger. “I want that gone completely. If you cross this line, it doesn’t exist anymore. Got it? There’s only one side.”
“Between love and hate,” I said, my voice equally soft and rough with unshed happy tears, “I’m on love’s side.”
“Don’t whisper it, Georgina. Get over here and tell me.” I took the final steps toward him, and he held my face in his hands as he added, “And say it loud.”
“I . . . I love you,” I said clearly, overcoming the urge to cry. The confession didn’t scare me like it should. More than anything, I was relieved to say it after weeks of holding it in, trying to pretend it wasn’t true.
“I’m on love’s side,” he repeated. “I love you.”
“I knew it when I saw you with Bruno at the vet. The way you were with him. The way you looked at me.” It’d hit me all at once, merciless and overwhelming. Along with the truth—that I’d lose him. But he was here. I clutched his shirt, keeping him there as he lowered his mouth to mine. “It doesn’t scare me anymore,” I whispered. “I won’t lose myself again because you won’t let me.”
He brushed the tip of my nose with his. “And if you happen to, I will light your way back to ensure you always find yourself. And then you find me.”
I found him, first his lips with mine, then his roughened cheeks with my hands. I lost myself in his kiss, and there, I found something I never expected—an enemy made to love me.
Epilogue
Sebastian
Balanced on a ladder in the kitchen of my mom’s house, I tightened the screws of a brass ceiling canopy Georgina and I had found to match our latest purchase, a vintage lighting fixture. I set my tools on the top cap when the front door opened and closed. The familiar click-clack of paws and nails sounded on the hardwood floors as Opal and Bruno came bounding in, wagging their tails and zigzagging around the ladder.
Georgina entered the kitchen in a green Tartan button-down tied at the waist and jeans that made me want to take a bite out of her ass. “Wow,” she said, surveying the ceiling. “That fixture turned out so well. Not only handy, but you have an eye for design too.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “You picked it out.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She grinned.
“Will you test it?”
She flipped the light switch and the lamp lit up. “My work here is done,” I said.
“Not quite,” Georgina said. “But we’re getting close.”
Opal barked at the base of the ladder. Feeling a tinge of nostalgia over what was to come, I brushed my hands off and descended.
“You’d think they hadn’t seen you just this morning,” Georgina said as the dogs jumped on me. She opened the back door for them to sprint into the yard.
“Mmm, speaking of this morning,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her to me. I wrapped my arms around her waist. “I’ve been thinking about it since I left the apartment.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she said. “It’s not healthy.”
“But it’s so fucking good.” I kissed her and could’ve sworn I still tasted the cinnamon bun frosting from our breakfast.
“We’re not in our twenties anymore,” she said. “We can’t eat like that every day. I only got them to celebrate the fact that the house is finally done.”
“Ah,” I said. “I thought celebrating was the reason for the blow job.”
She shimmied closer to me. “I don’t need an excuse for one of those, do I?”
Remembering the real reason for my great morning—Georgina’s smoking-hot smirk a moment before she’d ducked under the sheets—made my jeans tight. She squeaked as I lifted her by the waist onto the counter and made myself at home between her knees. “I think it’s only fair we christen the house before we list it,” I said, nuzzling her neck.
“We have christened it,” she said. “Several times. Once on this very counter, not long after it was installed.”
“I couldn’t help myself,” I murmured into her hair. “The way you haggled over the price per square foot got me so fucking excited.”
She laughed softly, wrapping her legs around me to pull me in. “Then there was that time in the laundry room . . .”
“That’s one thing we’re missing in our apartment,” I said with a sigh. “A large vibrating machine.”
“Ohh.” She moaned. “Imagine if we never had to go to another laundromat.”
I fingered the plaid collar of her shirt. “Does this choice of outfit mean what I think it does?”