And then I did.
There he was.
Sebastian Callahan.
He was leaning against his car door, arms crossed, wearing a smile that could get him almost anything he wanted. It usually did.
Sebastian was always good with timing. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did to see him again. It wasn’t like we hadn’t played out this scene a dozen times before. But he had this irritating habit of digging his way under my skin. He knew how to be cruel without ever raising his voice; knew how to twist compliments into insults and vice versa; knew exactly how to kiss me so I’d forget why I should hate him.
We’d spent nights in hotel rooms I had no business being in, shared drinks in quiet corners of bars where no one would recognize us. He knew me better than I’d ever admit to anyone, and the worst part was, I’d let him.
Sebastian was the worst kind of familiar—the kind that reminded you of who you used to be; of all the bad decisions you’d made willingly, eagerly, as if consequences were just something that happened to other people. He’d been my escape, my secret indulgence, my destructive comfort. And when he smiled at me now, looking at me like he knew exactly how fragile my grip on sobriety was, I hated him for it almost as much as I hated myself.
“Sobriety, Valentina? That’s rich.”
I kept walking.
“That’s it?” he called after me. “No hello? No ‘Sebastian, what are you doing here?’”
I didn’twantto stop, because I knew what stopping could mean. It could ruin everything for me.
But I did stop, because I was curious.
Curiosity had always been my problem, especially with Sebastian.
I turned slowly, as if I couldn’t be bothered. As if he were the inconvenience. He was still standing there, one hand tucked lazily into his pocket, his dark brown hair slightly messy in that intentional way that drove me insane.
“Fine,” I said as I indulged him like a vice. “What’re you doing here?”
His smirk deepened. “Waiting for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Jesus.”
“You don’t believe in Jesus,” he said, looking at the church behind me. “Don’t you think it’s a little freaky to confess your sins in the basement of a church?”
“You’d know all about sins, wouldn’t you?” I huffed, shifting my weight. “Go home, Sebastian.”
“Chicago is home,” he corrected. “New York’s temporary. You know that.”
I ignored him, walking faster.
“Valentina.”He said my name as if it were a warning itself.
And that voice. That fucking voice. The one that used to whisper the filthiest things in my ear.
“Chicago isnotmy home,” I corrected.
“You used to like it there.”
“I liked theshopping.”
“And me,” he said with a smile that made me wonder if he was right. Then he continued. “Youhateit here, Valentina.”
I didn’t answer.
“You hate Max.”
No argument there.
