First Comes Marriage (Aster Bay #3)

Chapter Twenty-seven

Sebastian drove them to the edge of town as the sun began to set over the bay, eventually turning his car onto the Williston University campus. The leaves had begun to change color, and by the end of the month Sebastian promised they’d be a stunning mix of reds and oranges. Sabrina rolled down her window to let the crisp night air in, hoping it could calm the low hum of panic that had simmered through her veins since their conversation with Jamie.

“Aren’t we a little old to be going back to college?” Sabrina asked.

One corner of Baz’s lips quirked up. “Taking a short cut.”

Sabrina chuckled at the irony. It seemed all they did was take shortcuts.

“What, you don’t like shortcuts?”

“I guess some shortcuts are good. Like using store-bought puff pastry instead of making your own—though Tessa would probably disagree.”

“Tessa would definitely disagree.”

“She’s going to be the kind of mom who makes Pinterest-perfect school lunches with sandwiches shaped like dinosaurs and vegetables cut to look like little trees, entire dioramas in every lunchbox. I bet she won’t even need the fancy cookie cutters to do it. She’ll just freehand a brontosaurus on a Tuesday morning. Like it’s easy.”

Tessa probably didn’t have any trouble talking to Jamie about their future, didn’t look for any shortcuts to get out of those hard conversations.

“You alright?” he asked, glancing over at her as drove down the winding roads of the college campus. “You’ve been tense since we left the restaurant.”

“Just hungry.”

He frowned and shot her a look that made it clear he didn’t believe her lie, but he let it go.

The road curved to the right and turned into a dirt path that disappeared into the trees. Baz pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car, climbing out before she had a chance to register where they were. Sabrina drew in an awed breath as she took in the view over the roof of the car.

They’d parked on the edge of the road, where the pavement and gravel gave way to dirt and then sand, sloping down to form a shallow beach, mere steps from the first set of pilings that held up the suspension bridge spanning the bay. At this angle, the bridge shot out above them, a steel slash across the sky, the lampposts that lined the edges blinking to life as the last of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. It was breathtaking.

Sebastian slid his hand into hers. “C’mon.”

He led her down to the beach, where he lay out a soft, red flannel blanket in a little protected cove at the edge of the clearing. The early October air was still warm in this little section of the beach, even if the sand beneath the blanket was a good ten degrees cooler. As he unpacked the bag from Lemon and Thyme, opening Styrofoam containers and arranging food on actual China, he spoke in a low voice, a continuous stream of words blending with the gentle lapping of the water against the shore.

“When I was a kid, my mom used to bring me here any time she had anything important to tell me.” He gestured with an open container of wild mushroom ravioli to a spot further down along the shore. “That’s where she told me about my dad. I never knew him. He left before I was born. Mrs. White used to say there was an epidemic of absent fathers in Aster Bay. I hated being a part of that statistic.”

Sabrina’s heart clenched as she lowered herself to sit on the blanket, watching as Sebastian worked. He never paused in his movements, never made eye contact. She got the sense that this—the unpacking, the arranging of food—was the distraction he needed to keep talking, to bare himself to her with such vulnerability, like an animal showing her his belly.

“This is where she told me when Gavin’s dad died. Where she told me I couldn’t go on the high school trip to Europe because we couldn’t afford it. I used to think that made this a bad luck spot, but I know better now. She came here because it was peaceful. She could hear herself think. She could hear the things I didn’t say.” He paused, glancing up at her with a self-deprecating smirk. “I didn’t talk much.”

“You don’t say,” she replied with a smile.

He chuckled and turned back to his work, spooning sauce over the ravioli, separating pieces of garlic bread. “I started coming out here on my own any time I needed to think. Something about the quiet here… It’s easier to hear my own thoughts. And I’m pretty sure it’s the only place in town where there isn’t some busybody eavesdropping on everything you say.”

Sabrina leaned back on her hands, stretching her legs out in front of her. Sebastian’s gaze snagged on the bare skin, and he grazed the curve of her calf with his thumb, almost as though he couldn’t resist touching her.

“It’s your secret spot.”

He hummed an agreement.

“I bet it was very popular with the ladies,” she said, and immediately regretted it. Popular with the ladies? Ug .

He wrapped his hand around her ankle, squeezed slightly. “You’re the first woman I’ve brought here.”

“Oh.” The word gusted out on a surprised breath, the admission wheedling its way deeper into her heart.

He cleared his throat, breaking their eye contact, and handed her a plate, each item arranged with care. A lump worked its way into her throat and she blinked back an unexpected wetness in her eyes.

Don’t be ridiculous. It’s dinner. Who cries over dinner?

But it wasn’t just dinner. It was every precise movement he’d taken to create this exact plate of food for her, to provide this experience for her, to open himself up, and she suddenly knew the lump was made of things she needed to open up about, too, pushing their way up and out and—

“Sebastian.”

“Eat, Sabrina.” He held her gaze as he extended a fork her way—an actual metal fork from his silverware drawer at home. “We can talk after.”

She wasn’t sure if she was grateful for the reprieve or not, but she accepted it, digging into the eclectic arrangement of foods—mushroom ravioli, calamari with little roasted tomatoes and balsamic drizzle, fried plantains, a soft loaf of garlic bread with crusty edges, green beans with little slivers of almond. None of it made sense together, but all of it was delicious.

“Good?” he asked with a knowing grin when she moaned around a bit of calamari.

“So good.”

“It’s all my favorites from the restaurant. Well, and Tessa’s latest pregnancy craving,” he said, gesturing with a plantain on the end of his fork.

They ate without speaking, and she was surprised to find the quiet wasn’t awkward. Instead they slowly drifted closer together, until she was half leaning against his chest as she took her last bites of ravioli. The sun had fully set by then, leaving them cloaked in the deep blue black of night, the only light from the handful of stars and the lampposts on the bridge. Sebastian set their plates aside and wrapped his arm around her, tugging her against his chest. She sank back against him, watching the bay ripple in the starlight, the reflection of the bridge a flicker on the waves.

“I’m glad you moved back.” Sebastian’s voice was deep and smooth, a stone polished by the bay. He nuzzled against her temple.

“I am too.”

“I know we didn’t plan on any of this, but—”

“I don’t think I want kids.” The words burst from her before she could stop them, and then hung there between them, almost like she could see them twisting in the air, taunting her. She turned so she could see his face in the half-light from the lampposts. “I might not even be able to have children. PCOS can make it harder, and I was always told… I never let myself think about if I wanted them. And the other day when you said you wanted a mural, I should have told you then. Because the thing is, it wasn’t about a mural.”

His lip twitched. “I’m aware.”

“And I don’t want you thinking that I’m going to paint a mural with you when I might not be able to, or I might not want to. It wouldn’t be fair to you. Since you do know that you want, you know, a mural.” Her voice faded away as she realized how absolutely batshit she sounded rambling on and on about murals for the second time in as many weeks.

“Can we stop calling our potential children murals now?” There was that lip twitch again.

She shoved him with a little burst of indignation. “Don’t laugh. It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

She tried to shove him again, but he caught her wrist, stroking his thumb over the sensitive skin there. “First of all, I said maybe. I don’t know if I want kids either, Sabrina. After your sister—” He stopped himself, rolling his lips between his teeth. They didn’t talk about Holly, not anymore, not now that there was so much more between them. “I didn’t let myself think about it either.”

“What if you decide you want them and I can’t give them to you?”

He pressed his lips to her palm. “There are lots of ways to become parents. If someday we both decide that’s something we want.”

Someday.

There was so much tied up in that little word.

When Sebastian was close like this, trailing his lips along the inside of her forearm, looking unfairly handsome in the moonlight, talking about someday , it was so much harder to remember that she wasn’t supposed to want any of it. Not the someday promises, not the sweet dating, not the marriage.

But she did.

She wanted it. She wanted right now and she wanted someday and, God help her, she wanted the marriage, even knowing how much he could take from her—not just her business and her sense of home, but this feeling that someone finally saw her, that for once she wasn’t a disappointment, that for once she was enough, nervous babbling and questionable career choices and all. Her father’s paperwork could safeguard her business, but what about the rest of it?

“Wildflower,” he rumbled against her hair, the tip of his nose tracing the shell of her ear, “you’re thinking too much.”

She met his eyes, like those ice blue irises could anchor her. “This was only supposed to be temporary,” she breathed, some strange mix of wonder and worry wrinkling her brow.

“Health insurance and sex,” he said with another one of those lip quirks.

She wanted to bite it, to taste the amusement on his lips. Maybe then she could also be amused instead of so damn scared.

He smoothed the crease between her brows with the pad of his thumb, traced her cheekbone, dragged his thumb over her bottom lip, and she felt it everywhere. Her skin sparked to life under his too gentle caresses and careful touches.

“I don’t think we’re cut out for temporary,” he said.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

His face softened and he cupped her cheek. “I know. Me too. Let’s be scared together.”