“And Rocco let you tag along?”
“He didn’t say I couldn’t. I think we were both so intent on getting here, everything else was secondary.” Seb shifted from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed and scooped up my hands in both of his and held them to his chest. “It wasn’t about us, Ky. Nothing was as important as you.”
I exhaled a shaky breath and felt a single tear slide down my cheek. “I thought…” I swallowed thickly. “I thought you didn’t want me.” I glanced at my belly and amended my statement. “Us.” Seb jerked back like he’d been slapped. “You left.”
“I did.” He squeezed my hands. “I’m sorry. I should have said something. I needed time to work through everything, but I swear to you, Ky. I was coming back. I just needed to wrap my head around stuff, and get a plan in place.”
“A plan? Since when do you plan anything? I thought you were Mr. Spontaneous.”
Seb smirked. “You mean like sending gifts to beautiful women at hockey games?”
“Yeah,” I said, fighting back a smile.
The smirk fell off Seb’s face. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said, sounding wrecked. “I’m not a good person. You deserve so much better.”
I tugged my hands back and lifted them to his unshaven cheeks. Seb wouldn’t look at me, so I did the only thing I could think of, and kissed him. When he didn’t respond, I did it again. And again. Seb breathed through his nose and shuddered. Finally, he got with the program. Seb palmed the back of my head and slid his other hand around my waist, deepening the kiss with a moan, which I swallowed greedily. I happily let him take charge, and when Seb slid his tongue across my lips in silent demand, I complied. He tasted like coffee and longing and home. We made-out until my lips were swollen and my chin burned from his stubble. Seb pulled back and shifted from the bed to the chair and tunneled his fingers in his hair.
“Seb?”
He peeked over his shoulder at the door. Satisfied no one would interrupt, he turned back to me, his posture different, straighter, rigid. His body thrummed with nervous tension and he licked his lips.
“There’s no good way to say this, so I’m just gonna lay it out there.” The hairs at the back of my neck stood on end and a chill pricked down my arm
s. “When I was fourteen, I-I killed my father.”
I held perfectly still and tried my best not to react. I didn’t want Seb to think he frightened me. Was I confused? Yes. Shocked? Definitely. Frightened? Never. It was that moment I realized I trusted him—with my child, my life, my very soul.
“What happened?” I asked, urging Seb to continue. I didn’t want him to relive what was clearly a painful moment in his life, but I had to know, and not out of some sick curiosity. I wanted to know everything about Seb. All of it, the good, the bad, and yes, even the truly awful.
Seb’s eyes glistened and his neck flushed pink. The rosy color contrasted against his pale skin and, under the fluorescent lighting, his face appeared a sickly shade of green. Or maybe it wasn’t the light, because when Seb described his childhood, I felt sick too.
“Mom died young. Cirrhosis. Dad drank too, but the tough bastard didn’t do us a favor by croaking along with her. When Mom drank, she cried a lot.” Seb blinked, a far away in his eyes. “When Dad drank, he got violent, and Rémy… shit, he was just a little kid. I…” Seb brushed away a tear that slipped out. “I couldn’t let him hurt Rémy. I-I would hide Rémy, stash him somewhere in the house, then provoke the old bastard into coming after me.”
A wave of overwhelming love and sorrow came over me. I knew Seb might not appreciate the gesture, or interpret it as me thinking he was weak, but I couldn’t just watch as he ripped the bandages off of decade old wounds. I had to try and comfort him, even though it was too little, too late.
I scooted to the edge of the bed and grabbed Seb’s hand, threading our fingers. “Go on,” I said as I swallowed back a sob.
My heart broke for this man, for the boy he once was. Seb’s brash arrogance suddenly made sense. He used the abrasive persona to hide his broken childhood, his lost innocence. Created a shield to keep people from getting too close, that way they wouldn’t get a glimpse of the shattered man behind the curtain. I ignored the tears that dripped down my face. They didn’t matter. None of it mattered—not Rocco, not my fears, not Seb leaving. Not when it was so obvious that Seb was scared to death he would turn into his father. I squeezed his hand and he took a deep breath.
“I remember one day, hockey practice went unusually long. Rem wasn’t with me because I aged up to the next league. By the time I got home, Papa was shitfaced and had Rémy cornered. He was terrified. Blood dripped from Rémy’s nose and… fuck, he was only seven years old.” Seb pulled his hand free to cover his eyes. “I had my stick in my hands and saw red.”
Seb’s hand trembled and his shoulders shook. I touched his arm in support, but remained silent. It was Seb’s story, and he needed to tell me at his own pace. Most likely, it was the first time he’d ever told anyone.
“I think I blacked out, or something, because the next thing I knew,” Seb said, his voice thick with emotion, “I was covered in blood. The police were there, putting me in the back of their car, and Rémy was… I heard him screaming my name. He was in some woman’s arms. She was trying to calm him down, but he was crying, fighting her to get to me. I-I tried, but… They handcuffed me. I couldn’t do anything. And after that… I wasn’t there for him.”
Seb buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Screw the bed. I climbed down, wires and all, and curled in his lap. Seb wrapped his arms around me and I did the same. Then I pressed my cheek to his chest. My heart ached for Seb as he let it all out, years of holding in his sorrow, his pain. Nothing I said or did would erase the memories or what they did to him. My hands were as bound as his that day in Québec, even if I wasn’t handcuffed. It didn’t mean I couldn’t share the burden.
“But you were there for him, Seb. You stopped a horrible man from hurting a child. You know he would have eventually killed one or both of you.”
Seb sniffed and stood with me in his arms. He deposited me on the bed as if I weighed no more than a feather, and went into the attached bathroom. The water ran, and a moment later, Seb returned, his face red and damp. He stood awkwardly next to the bed.
“Sorry for unloading all that on you.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” I snapped, furious that Seb’s father not only abused him, but made him feel bad for sharing his pain with me. “I know you don’t believe me, Seb, but what you did doesn’t change the way I see you, or how I feel about you.”
Seb features pinched. “How can it not?”
“Because, I promise you, Rocco would have done the exact same thing for me, and if I had to, I would have too.” Seb was speechless, mouth working open and closed. Eventually, he shook his head and dropped back into the creaky chair.