“I thought you’d patched things up at the hospital.” Taylor rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. We’re still friends. It’s cool.” Helen pushed up a bright smile, chatted for a few more minutes, then said goodbye.
She crossed the street and made her way to the Waterfront Hotel.
Sebastian had said he loved her?
Still pondering this twenty minutes later, Helen plonked herself onto a barstool in front of Liz.
“So, get this.” She told her friend everything Grice—dammit, Taylor—had said, then pushed her debit card across the shiny counter. “Sod your ridiculously high prices, I need wine.”
Liz dutifully poured her a glass.
“Sebastian tells me all about his swimming and his training,” Helen said, after taking a long sip. “He tells me about his team mates. I know half their competition stats, and even that this one guy has a pet rabbit called Loopy.”
Helen took another sip, all the texts Sebastian had sent her these past months so fresh in her mind. “I know all about his grueling regime, that he pushes a car around a car park several times a week to strengthen his thighs. I know the name of his mother’s therapist and on what days she has counseling. I even know what he cooked himself for dinner on Tuesday night, and now—”
“You also know he loves you.”
Helen swallowed more wine, its sharp bite zinging through her system. Sebastian told her so many things but never, not once, had he told her how he felt about her.
She shook her head. “It was the shock and adrenaline talking. We were both a mess that day.”
And Helen had hated seeing that anger and anguish in Sebastian’s eyes every time he’d looked at her cuts and bruises. He’d looked so guilty, so scared. So mixed-up. And with all that stuff going on with his mother, too, he was out of his depth, his neat, orderly world in pieces around him.
“No, Liz, he definitely wasn’t himself that day. I shouldn’t read anything into what he might’ve said in a moment of crisis—especially as he hasn’t even hinted at it again since.”
“I agree about the crisis thing, but …” Liz leaned forward. “Sebastian is a sweet, caring guy.”
“I know that.”
Sebastian had called Tom that day, then he’d cleaned her house to remove all traces of Jaxon, and he’d even arranged for a beautiful bunch of flowers to be delivered on her birthday after he’d left for Ottawa.
“You’ve been texting each other like crazy for months,” Liz said.
“Yes.” Helen often woke to find he’d sent her cute pictures, or funny jokes, and he always took an interest in what she was doing. “He’s a good friend.”
“A good friend who’s most probably still in love with you. And you love him too, don’t you?”
Helen nodded. She’d been in love with Sebastian Clarke since she’d straddled him in Weston-super-Mare. Or was it the day before that, when they’d shared a bag of chips at Marine Lake?
Or even before that—in the courtyard of this very hotel, a few meters from where she sat now—when he’d pulled out his notebook and read out his rules?
Maybe she’d always been in love with him? Even when she hadn’t known it.
Liz came around the counter and hugged her because suddenly Helen was crying like some lovestruck fool in a bar. “You’ve been through a lot this past year, chick. It’s okay to want someone if that someone makes you happy.”
“Even if that person only tells me how he feels when I’m unconscious?” Helen grabbed a napkin off the bar and dabbed her eyes. “Even if that person is four thousand six hundred miles away?”
“Why don’t you visit him?” Liz said. “Me and Tony can stay at your place to look after your chickens. Then at least when you see Sebastian face-to-face, you’ll know how he really feels about you.”
“He’d freak out.”
Liz laughed. “I’m not suggesting you just turn up on his doorstep. Sound him out first. You know,ask himhow he feels about you visiting him, and while you’re at it,ask himhow he feels about you.”
Liz emphasized the words as if asking Sebastian anything personal had become a foreign concept, which wasn’t too far from the truth. Helen treasured their friendship too much to rock the boat by diving into those choppy waters where Sebastian’s relationship hang-ups lurked.
Helen drank more wine.
