Sebastian: 17 years old
“Absolutely not. No. Not happening,” Sara says as she slams a cabinet closed in the kitchen.
I cross my arms over my chest, trying my best not to explode all over my stepmom, but she was being unreasonable, and I was so tired of this same old conversation.
“Sara. I am trying to be responsible. We both are.”
“Responsible?” she says as she slams a tomato against the cutting board and begins chopping aggressively for the vodka sauce she’s preparing for dinner. “Good one.”
“I want to go on birth control,” I repeat.
“Because you and Sebastian are having sex.”
I swallow before letting out a deep breath. “Yes.” Wild probably won’t be happy when he finds out I approached Sara about this alone when we agreed to talk to her together, but I thought it would be easier to talk to her woman-to-woman without him present.
“The answer is no, Halle.”
“Do you want us to get pregnant?”
“No, I want you to stop doing what you’re doing. Letting you go on birth control seems like I’m condoning this behavior, and I don’t. It’s wrong.”
“Sara, I love him, and he loves me. You know how we feel about each other. You can see it when you look at us, and that’s what scares you about all of this.” A tear falls down my face, and I wipe it away. “It’s real.”
“It’s not real, and it’s not acceptable! No one will be okay with this. I am not okay with this!”
How can she tell me it’s not real? She doesn’t know what I feel, what Wild feels. God, I can’t stand her sometimes. It’s times like this I wish I didn’t have two dead parents. I wish I had someone whose DNA I shared and who could try to understand me because they brought me into this world and loved me unconditionally, even if they didn’t agree with my choices. “It’s not illegal. We aren’t related. He’s at most my stepbrother, but if we want to get technical, step anything is defined by marriage, and you aren’t married to my father anymore in the literal sense. The step part of our relationship died with my dad.”
I notice her flinch at my words, and I realize I probably could have phrased that differently and more sensitively. I open my mouth to clarify in a less harsh way when she speaks. “That’s not how it works.”
“You’re my guardian, yes, but that doesn’t make me your actual daughter.”
Her lips form a straight line as she nods. “I’ve been raising you as my own for almost eleven years… since you were five years old. You are my daughter, Halle. And I don’t want you having sex.”
“You don’t want me having sex with Sebastian,” I clarify.
“We’d be having this conversation if it were anyone. I think you’re too young. But yes, the boy in question being Sebastian does make this situation even more complicated.”
“If you think you can stop us from being together, you can’t.” I swallow. I hadn’t meant to come off as rude or disrespectful, but ever since Sara found out about Wild and me discovering our feelings for each other, we haven’t been getting along well. I hated that she thought she had the power to tell me who I could love.
She closes her eyes slowly and lets out a deep breath before setting down the knife on the cutting board. “Halle! The answer is no. And if you don’t want to be grounded for the next week, I suggest you go to your room.”
I’m still thinking about my argument with Sara as we’re walking toward my friend’s table. Dex already knew we were there and had probably told them as well, so I wanted to at least say hi before we left.
“Take a shot with me first,” he murmurs in my ear, and then I’m ushered to the bar in the back of the room. It’s gotten slightly more crowded, so I have to squeeze between two people, and Wild stands directly behind me. It doesn’t take long for me to order our shots from the pretty bartender whose gaze may have lingered on Wild a little too long for my taste. But luckily, the person next to me vacates the spot so Wild can move to stand next to me. I take a deep breath, inhaling his sexy scent, and I’m instantly calmed. The anxiety brought on by Quinn and memories of Sara just melt away. He picks up the shot glass of tequila and hands it to me. “Get out of your head. I can hear you spiraling.”
I’m about to respond when my phone vibrates, and I see a text on my screen from Jase asking where I am. I look up just in time to see Wild roll his eyes and down the shot without me.
“I need you to relax. He’s probably drunk and might say something to irritate you.” I put my hand on his arm and squeeze gently. “It doesn’t matter. I’m yours, and you know that.”
“I know. Let’s just go.” He nods toward their table, and I take the shot, letting it burn the whole way down before I let himlead me across the room. Wild and I have been in some sort of a relationship our entire lives, but we’ve never let anyone see this side of us, and the thought of letting people in—letting people in who may judge us—made me tense and anxious.That last shot was definitely a mistake.
We make it to the round table nestled in the corner, and Addie’s brown eyes light up instantly. Addie was one of those women who always had men’s attention in some way or another. She’s smart and funny and has tits that usually made a guy more familiar with her cup size before they even looked in her eyes. She comes from money and has impeccable fashion sense, and, to top it off, she was kind and personable, with a way of making you feel at ease. I wouldn’t call us best friends, but she was definitely one of the few girls I’ve really felt like I connected with since I’ve been in New York. But at this moment, I kind of hate her. I hate the way she’s looking at Wild and the excited squeal she let out when she saw us. I hate that she’s pouring us shots before we even sit down, and I hate that before I could blink, she’s sitting on the other side of him.
“About time you guys got here,” she says as she slides our drinks toward us and bounces in her seat. “We’re way ahead of you, so you guys need to catch up. Let’s play a game,” she says.
I hadn’t planned any formal announcement like “before we start, Sebastian and I have actually been together since I was sixteen, so we’re off limits.”Still, now I’m wondering if maybe a little preface is necessary based on the way Addison is eyeing him.
“What are we going to play?” Jase asks. He’s not sitting next to me, thankfully. But he is sitting across from me, and I’ve caught him eyeing me more than once. Bryce is between us, but he has a long-distance girlfriend who he spends most of his time texting slash arguing with when we’re out, so I’m not surprisedto see his face buried in his phone and not paying attention to what’s going on.
