Page 82 of Some Sort of Happy (Happy Crazy Love 1)
“I’m sorry about your skirt. I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”
I stared at him, blinking twice. “My skirt?”
“Yeah. I got…stuff on it.” He stood and did up his pants.
“Jesus Christ, Sebastian.” I scrambled to my feet, feeling warmth trickle down my leg. “I don’t care about the damn skirt. I care that you’re closing yourself off from me, right after I told you I love you.”
“I’m not.” This without even glancing at me.
“You are. Why?”
He was silent for a second, staring out at the water, and I recognized the stubborn set of his jaw. He wasn’t going to talk.
“Fine. Be stubborn.” Instead of engaging in the argument, I leaned down to pick up my shoes and my binder and stomped off the dock and up to the cabin.
Inside the bathroom I cleaned up with a wet washcloth, fighting tears as I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. This is him. This is what you’ll have to deal with every time your relationship hits a milestone that freaks him out.
But what milestones would there be? He’d just said the other night that he doesn’t want the forever things—getting married, having kids. I’d played that off, and then we’d gotten distracted with sex—amazing, hair-pulling, wall-thumping, name-screaming sex—but later, as we lay next to each other in his bed, I felt sad that there was a possibility he didn’t want those forever things with me. Maybe he was just scared of that kind of commitment—a lot of guys were. Or maybe he worried about passing his OCD on to his children if he had any. Maybe he’s scared he’d stab me with the cake knife at our wedding. But who the fuck knows, because he won’t talk to me!
A gentle knock sounded on the door.
“Just a second,” I said. “Actually, just come in. I don’t care.”
The door opened and a downtrodden Sebastian appeared behind me in the mirror. I met his contrite eyes before rinsing out the washcloth in the sink.
He entered and stood beside me, taking the washcloth in his hand. Without a word, he wrung it out and dropped to his knees, and turned me to face him. Then he gently ran the cool, wet cloth up the inside of one leg.
I sighed. “I already did that,” I said, although it was so sweet that he wanted to do it, I didn’t protest when he stood, rinsed and wrung again, and knelt down to wipe the other leg, and then tenderly washed in between them.
He looked up at me. “I do love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
I cupped his jaw with one hand. “Then let me in, and let me stay.”
“I want to.” The fear in his eyes broke my heart. “I’ll keep trying.”
I started slipping the night Skylar told me she loved me. I knew I would.
It was all kinds of fucked up, I knew that too. Because I’d spoken the truth—I did love her more than I’d ever loved anyone before. My heart knew the truth, but it was as if my head refused to cooperate. Refused to believe in a future with her. Refused to let me feel secure in the knowledge she was happy with me.
She hadn’t brought work clothes for the next day, so I had to take her home that night. Halfway down the driveway, I had to go back and check the locks on the cabin doors. The second time, we reached the road, and I had to reverse to check them again. A quarter of the way to the farm, I felt the need to go back and check them again, and I nearly turned around. I was so agitated, my hands shook.
“Hey.” Skylar put three fingers on my wrist. “Stop. You locked the doors. I saw you.”
I swallowed. “OK.”
“What’s going on with you? Talk to me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Is it…what I said? Maybe that was too much.” The worry in her voice was like a punch in the stomach.
“No, Skylar.” I glanced at her, saw her chewing her bottom lip. I took her hand and kissed it. “I’m so glad you said those words to me, and I meant what I said to you.”
Which was why I counted lines in the center of the highway, there and back.
And why I made sure I kissed her goodnight eight times and told her I loved her twice, praying she wouldn’t catch on to what I was doing.
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