The Sweet Spot (2 page)

Chapter Two

The bakery suddenly seemed overwhelmingly quiet after Sawyer and Raffi left, and Sebastian and Ani stood staring at one another, drinking each other in in the silence. 

“
You look beautiful,” Sebastian finally said softly.

“I’m old
er,” Ani laughed, ducking her head shyly.

“Yes, ancient,”
Sebastian agreed with a teasing grin. “But the grey hair and wrinkles are kind of sexy. You’re like one of those hot grandmas…”

“Bite you’re
tongue!” Ani exclaimed, swatting Sebastian in horror. “Grey haired, wrinkled grandma my ass!” she gasped. “I just turned thirty-two last week!”

“Thirty-two
,” Sebastian murmured wonderingly as he reached out and wrapped a finger around a strand of Ani’s golden blond hair. “You still look sixteen to me.” He let Ani’s hair drop from his fingers as he gazed at her thoughtfully.

“You smell different,” Ani
confided, leaning forward and inhaling the air around Sebastian deeply.

“Like prison?”
Sebastian joked, raising an eyebrow at Ani.

“
I don’t know,” Ani admitted, trying to put her finger on the difference as she inhaled the air between them again. “You smell the same but different. I think you smell like a man now,” she finally decided with a wistful smile.

“Hmmm,”
Sebastian chuckled. “Well, horny seventeen year old boy probably did have a distinct scent,” he agreed, his brilliant green eyes holding Ani’s gaze intently as they stood only inches apart from one another.

“You still smel
l like the sea,” Ani murmured in sudden realization. “How is that possible?” She stepped back slightly, searching Sebastian’s face with her eyes.

“
I’ve been out for almost nine months now,” Sebastian admitted softly.

“
Nine months,” Ani repeated, staring at Sebastian with an unreadable expression. “Where are you living?”

“
I’m living here in Boston, down by the wharf,” Sebastian answered quietly, stepping forward to close the distance between them again. “I’ve got an apartment over my cousin Sean’s bar and I’m trawling for lobster with my dad.” Sebastian reached out a hand and trailed his fingers lightly over Ani’s face.

“You’re hauling lobst
er with your dad?” Ani whispered in reply, suddenly flooded by the memories of Sebastian’s passionate speeches about getting away, how he’d never be a lobsterman like his father and uncles. He was a beautiful artist and he wanted to be an architect and designer.

“Don’t Ani
-” Sebastian held up his hand at Ani’s mournful tone to stop her from saying anything further. “I’m not the kid you remember from fifteen years ago A. I’ve spent half my life in prison,” he reminded Ani softly. “You have no idea how I feel about anything anymore, so just don’t-.” He ran his fingers across his buzzed head.

The gesture reminded Ani so much of the boy who used to run his fingers through his thick mane of curls when he was frustrated
, and she bit down on her lip to stifle her cry at the memory.

“I’m sorry.
I guess there’s a lot that we don’t know about each other anymore,” Ani conceded ruefully.

“Like the fact that you’re a mother
now,” Sebastian whispered, reaching his hands back up to Ani’s face and trailing a finger across her lips.

“And a wife,” Ani
whispered back, closing her eyes to Sebastian’s touch.

“And a wife,”
Sebastian repeated softly, letting his fingers drop from Ani’s lips.

“Did you
know it would be this hard to see each other?” Ani asked Sebastian hoarsely, opening her eyes and staring into his unreadable face.

Sebastian
nodded in reply. “I’ve tried to come every day since I got out,” he confessed. “I asked my cousin Sean to look you up for me and he told me that you owned this bakery, but I just couldn’t face you….” His voice trailed off as he stared at Ani helplessly. “God, I just couldn’t face you A,” he repeated again, turning away from Ani and staring out into space.

“I’m glad you finally came,” Ani whispered behind him.

“Sean told me that you got married and had a daughter,” Sebastian admitted quietly.

“
Bast,” Ani began helplessly.

“
I can’t believe you named her Raphael,” Sebastian whispered, interrupting Ani.

“
Well I couldn’t name her Eva,” Ani choked back in reply.

When Ani found out she was pregnant
sixteen years ago, she was afraid to tell Sebastian at first. She was only fifteen, almost sixteen, a sophomore in high school. Sebastian was almost eighteen and in his senior year. He had gotten accepted to B.U. and was so excited about being the first kid in his family to go to college and not be a fisherman. But two months later, Ani finally broke down and confessed. She was an emotional wreck, hungry and nauseous, crying all the time.  Sebastian was starting to think that she had an eating disorder so she finally told him, breaking down and crying sloppily all over his football jacket after a big game. 

“I’m pregnant,” Ani
had wept that night, and Sebastian had kissed a path from her tear-filled eyes down to her belly in response, lifting up her sweater and pressing his cold face against Ani’s warm skin. He made Ani promise not to worry, he assured her that he would work it all out, and he told her if the baby was a girl, they would name her Eva, after the mother Ani had lost to Breast Cancer when she was twelve.

“Raffi was my fault you know,”
Sebastian whispered to Ani now, as he stood with his back to her in the bakery, staring out the window blankly.

“Oh
Bast, no!” Ani’s voice was thick with grief as she finally gave into her longing and wrapped her arms around Sebastian, burying her face in his shoulder blades.

“
It was karma A. You know it was,” Sebastian choked, leaning his head back into Ani’s arms. Ani could feel how tightly Sebastian was holding it all in and she could feel his body shaking with the effort not to break down.

“I don’t believe life works that way
Bast,” Ani whispered back, holding Sebastian tightly against her as they stood in the bakery, silent in their sorrow.

Raphae
l was Sebastian’s brother. They were only ten months apart, Irish twins. A drunk driver had killed him on his way home from school just one month after Sebastian’s own accident. He had caught a ride home with a bunch of his teammates after soccer practice because his dad was at Sebastian’s trial and couldn’t pick him up. Raffi wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and was flung against the car window when the other car swerved coming around the corner and rammed into the back of his friend’s car. He was killed instantly, his skull smashed against the window. Two other kids were severely injured, but other than Raffi, everyone else survived the crash. 

Ani always believed that it was Raffi’
s death that turned the tide against Sebastian at his trial. His father stopped coming to court to show his support, and heartbroken with grief, had screamed at Sebastian in front of the jury that it was his fault that Raffi was killed. After that day, Sebastian just crumbled into himself, no longer even willing to fight for his freedom. And when the jury returned with a guilty verdict, and the prosecutor asked for a maximum fifteen-year sentence, Sebastian didn’t even blink. It was an election year and they wanted to make an example out of him for their fight against drunk driving.

“
Are you smelling me?” Sebastian asked with a grin, interrupting Ani’s memories as he turned around in her arms and drew her into his chest.

“Yes,” Ani admitted with a small laugh. “I’m trying to memorize
your new smell.” She pressed her face into Sebastian’s neck.

“You don’t have to memorize it A,”
Sebastian whispered, lifting Ani’s face up to meet his own. “I’m not going to disappear again,” he promised, staring into her eyes intently.

“
It’s soap and sweat and masculinity mixed in with the sea,” Ani whispered, blinking back tears. “It’s the smell of the man you’ve become, not the boy I remember.”

Sebastian
stared at the tears streaming out of Ani’s eyes and he traced them gently down her cheeks with his fingertips, brushing his fingers over her lips.

“Bast!”
Ani gasped as Sebastian finally lowered his mouth to her lips. “Take me home with you.”

“Are you sure?”
Sebastian whispered back huskily against Ani’s mouth.

Ani didn
’t bother to reply. She just lowered her lips to the thorns that cradled the Claddagh heart with her name on Sebastian’s neck, and began to lick a slow path up the base of his throat, tracing over the letters of her name and the petals of the rose until their lips met, hovering a fraction of an inch from each other, not touching.

“Take me home,
Bast,” Ani whispered again as Sebastian stared into her deep blue eyes, mesmerized by the feel of her breath against his skin.

Sebastian led Ani to his dark green pick
-up truck, and they spent the short ride to his apartment in silence. He was living down by the harbor near their old neighborhood, and it was only a short distance away from the funky South End neighborhood where Ani had her bakery.

“I
t’s really nice,” Ani murmured after she followed Sebastian into his apartment. She walked around the studio apartment, trailing her fingers over the exposed brick wall and dark wood window trim, taking it all in. “Did you do all this?” Ani gestured around the apartment at the walls painted in soothing shades of blue and green, accented by beautiful dark molding. 

“Yeah, it was p
retty much a dump when I moved in. Sean said I could do whatever I wanted to it and I’ve had nothing but time on my hands so….” Sebastian’s voice trailed off.

“This is amazing
!” Ani exclaimed as she came to a stop in front of a painting of the wharf that was hanging above a futon bed. The painting was a swirl of blue and grey with hints of orange, green and purple. At first glance all you saw was an old weathered dock at dusk, blanketed by a deep fog. But as you looked deeper, searching out the hidden colors and swirls, you saw the bent and tired shoulders of the fishermen as they leaned over their boats stacking their lobster pots. The love of the sea was in their eyes and the weariness of a long day in the set of their mouths.

“Oh my
God Bast, you painted this,” Ani breathed in sudden realization, turning to face him. Sebastian reached out a calloused thumb and traced Ani’s quivering bottom lip wonderingly.

“No more tears,” he murmured
as her eyes began to fill yet again.  “No more tears.” Sebastian closed the distance between them, softly licking the salty stream that was trailing down Ani’s face, until his tongue finally settled on her lips and he captured her mouth against his own.

Ani melted against
Sebastian, returning his kisses with soft moans as she wrapped her hands around his neck and met his searching lips.

“You got taller,” she whispered
against his mouth.

“And you shr
ank,” Sebastian whispered back, scooping Ani up effortlessly and carrying her over to the futon.

“I did not!” s
he protested, swatting him with a laugh.

“Well you didn’t get any taller,”
Sebastian joined in her laughter.

“Actually it
’s true, I stopped growing that year,” Ani murmured softly, looking down at the bed and tracing her fingers across the green patterned cover. “I stopped living for so long you know.” She looked up to meet Sebastian’s eyes.

“I know,”
Sebastian replied hoarsely, staring back at Ani with a haunted expression.

“Why did you refuse to see me?” Ani
choked back a sob. “I came every day for so long Bast. I wrote to you, I took three buses to the prison, I emptied my pockets, I walked through metal detectors and sat in those plastic chairs waiting for you and you refused to see me.”

“Two years and fourteen days,”
Sebastian replied softly, reaching out and running his fingers across Ani’s face. “You came every Saturday and Sunday for two years and fourteen days. You wore my football jacket and sat in the chair alone playing with my school ring on your left ring finger, waiting for me to come to you.”

“You saw me?” Ani gasped. “
You saw me and you didn’t come?” she asked in anguish, staring at Sebastian disbelievingly.

“
There was a guard named Danny Sullivan who had a soft spot for me. He had a little brother who was serving time for stealing a car and I think I reminded him of his baby brother. He used to let me watch you from behind the glass when you came to visit,” Sebastian murmured. “I just couldn’t sit across from you and not touch you A. I couldn’t face you knowing that you were waiting for me, waiting for a life that we couldn’t have together, a life that I robbed us of,” Sebastian choked.

“
Bast, no!” Ani cried, lowering her face into her hands and weeping helplessly. “It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. It shouldn’t have happened.”