Sebastian's voice softened, reminding me of late nights back in our dorm room, when everything was still so new and confusing. We’d lie there in the dark, talking about everything and nothing until one of us eventually fell asleep.
“I shaved my beard off tonight,” he told me.
I smiled for the first time in days. “Yeah?”
“David told me I looked like shit, and I couldn’t argue, so ...”
“I liked the beard.”
I liked him clean-shaven, too. I liked every version of him.
“It was a mess.Iwas a mess. These past few weeks have been terrible, Tay.”
Hearing Sebastian so easily admit that this separation had been just as hard for him as it’d been for me finally settled the constant roiling in my stomach. I hated that he’d been hurting, but I liked knowing that I hadn’t been alone in my misery.
“Taylor?”
“Hmm?” I said, slowing down to take the exit at a safe, reasonable speed.
“Are you driving?”
“Nope,” I said, suppressing a grin.
“I can hear road noise.”
“That’s the, uh … the street. I’m sitting outside. A motorcycle just drove by.” It was the worst, most convoluted lie I’d ever told, but no one had ever accused me of being quick-witted.
“It’s November,” he countered skeptically.
“I run hot after games. You know this.”
It wasn’t unusual for me to wander around the house in nothing but boxer briefs after games, my skin still radiatingheat hours later, while Sebastian sat on the couch wrapped in a sweatshirt and blanket like a human burrito.
“You had a game tonight.”
“Yeah,” I said, not bothering to turn on my blinker as I slowed down and took a hard right turn. “We finally managed to beat Brooklyn.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I should let you sleep,” Sebastian said, his voice filled with apology.
“I’m not tired.”
Tired wasn’t even in the same universe as what I was feeling right now. Every nerve in my body was lit up, a constant spike of adrenaline sending a tingle through my limbs. I was going to crash spectacularly at some point, but that was a problem for Future Taylor.
“You’re always exhausted after games, though.”
“Not tonight.” I scanned the empty road and blew through a four-way stop, only slowing down when I crossed Franklin and entered the Old Port district.
“Hey, Seb?”
“Yeah?”
“What does your building look like again?”
“What? Why?”
“Just curious. I’m … uh, trying to picture where you are.”
Another terrible lie.
