The Education of Sebastian & the Education of Caroline (29 page)

Scrabbling through the fridge, I found a jar of peanut butter. I’d bought it for David, not really being a fan, but right now it was just what I needed. I found a dessert spoon and dug in.

I remembered that only this morning Sebastian had told me that he liked peanut butter. Was that really just this morning? It seemed a lifetime ago. In some ways it was.

I started to feel bad for the way I’d spoken to him. I’d thought he was behaving recklessly to insist on coming to my house and taking such a huge risk. Yes, that was foolish, but, truthfully, I was the one who’d behaved badly. He’d looked so hurt as he’d left.
No, damn it! I was right to be angry.

My emotions whirled around, reeling from sadness to anger and back again. It was sometime later when I realized that David was being unusually quiet.

I walked upstairs and found him already under the sheets, his dirty clothes scattered on
my
side of the bed.

When it came down to it, I had to admit that David had Sebastian beaten in the behaving-childishly stakes.

I headed for the guest room. It was cool and calm and untainted by any association with David or any memory of Sebastian. Before I set my phone alarm to wake me in the morning, I wondered briefly about texting Sebastian, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

I fell asleep with the pain on his face burned into my eyes.

CHAPTER 13

David was sulky at breakfast. What a shocker.

Without comment, I served him bacon, pancakes and eggs, pointed out his dry-cleaned uniform and calmly sat down with a slice of toast at my laptop.

I could feel his eyes on me, a silent castigation. Well, as long as it remained silent, that was just fine by me.

True to form, he flounced out of the house without speaking to me. I noticed he took his dress uniform so, with a bit of luck, I wouldn’t see him until tomorrow. A twenty-four hour reprieve I could definitely use.

Before I faced David, it was time to man up and face Sebastian. I sure as hell wasn’t going to apologize for what I’d said last night but we needed to talk. At least, I thought we did. Whatever had happened between him and Brenda, or not happened as he’d insisted … whatever the rights and wrongs of him risking our exposure by coming here last night, I was supposed to be the adult in this relationship. I decided I was going to let him go with a few shreds of my dignity intact.

I pulled out my phone to text him.

Texts were such a useful medium: they could say so much or so little—and yet they side-stepped all the screwed up emotions of a face-to-face encounter. I could see why dumping someone by text was so popular: it was the coward’s correspondence method of choice. Well … perfect for me, then.

I was about to type a message when I heard a soft tap at the back door. It seemed Sebastian had beaten me to the punch. At least he wasn’t going to dump me by text. I supposed that was a good thing.

God, he was so beautiful. I couldn’t help taking one long, last, devouring look.

Even if this was goodbye, I felt lucky to have had him in my life. Knowingly or not, he’d been the catalyst for changing my life. I’d always be grateful.

“Hi. You want to come in?”

He nodded silently and I pushed the door open wide to let him through.

“I’m just having a coffee: do you want one?”

“Why are you being like this?” he whispered.

“Being like what?” I said, coolly.

“Like …
this!
” he gestured helplessly.

His voice pierced my carefully constructed façade—he sounded so bruised. I sat at the table, warming my cold hands on my coffee mug. I began my pre-prepared speech.

“I’m sorry I disappeared without saying goodbye. I didn’t mean for you to worry. I saw you with Brenda and … I thought it was better for me to go.”

“I knew it! I knew that was it! Fuck, Caro!”

He sat down opposite me and rubbed his hands over his face.

“It was nothing with Brenda. Nothing! Why are you being like this?”

Oh no, he didn’t get to be the injured party.

“It didn’t look like nothing,” I hissed, my careful control sliding away. “You say you love
me
and then you just walk off with Brenda? Do you have the slightest idea how much that hurt? Do you? You entered into a relationship with me knowing that I’m a married woman. But it’s okay for you to get mad with my husband, and it’s okay for you to sulk when Bill pretends to flirt with me, and you tell me how upset you are that you can’t be with me in public at the stupid fun day … but you know what, Sebastian? This is what you signed on for. With me. I sure didn’t sign on to see you going off with some girl. Did you really think it was okay for you to take a nice, romantic stroll along the beach with your ex-girlfriend who obviously has feelings for you and wants you back? Did you? Because it isn’t okay. It really isn’t.”

“Wow. You’re … you’re really angry. Caro…”

No shit!

I glared at him and he dropped his eyes to the table, sighing heavily.

“I’m sorry. I am. It’s just … Brenda is … was … I guess I knew she might be there yesterday. Her dad’s a buddy of Mitch. I should have said something … I get that now … but I didn’t know what to say … I mean, I broke up with her months ago before I even met you again so I didn’t think it would matter if she did … but I didn’t know she was going to… I’m not interested in her, so it didn’t ... how can you…”

He took a deep breath.

“Caro, I’ve said to you over and over again that I love you. You never say … why don’t you believe me? Why don’t you trust me? I’d never,
never
do anything to hurt you. I love you.”

“You did hurt me, Sebastian,” I said, gravely. “You hurt me a lot. You say you’d never do anything to hurt me but then you go ahead and do something like this.”

I thought he was going to reach out for me, but then he closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly.

“God, Caro, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just … I didn’t know what Brenda was going to say and I didn’t want you to have to sit there and listen to it. I thought … I thought I was doing the right thing—getting her out of the way. And … she was upset and I guess … I felt like I owed her or something. She’s been having a really tough time since…”

He stopped. It was probably the look on my face. I
so
didn’t want to hear him telling me how he owed his slutty ex-girlfriend and that he still cared enough about her not to want to upset her. But it was okay to upset me.

I sighed. I knew that wasn’t what he’d intended. He’d obviously thought that getting her out of my way was the best solution if she was going to start babbling about wanting him back. Sometimes he was just too damn nice for his own good.

“Caro, I’m sorry. Please, please don’t be mad at me. I love you.”

His voice trembled and his eyes begged me to believe him. And I did. I just wasn’t sure I believed in us.

I reached over and took his hands in mine, my resolve a little shaken by his renewed declaration.

But it was a mistake: the warmth of his skin, the touch of flesh on flesh—my whole body flushed with desire. The prepared speech died on my lips.

“You looked so good together.” I choked out the admission.

He shook his head slowly, his scared eyes fixed on mine.

“And then … the others were saying how nice she was—and pretty—and that you’d made a great couple and … I couldn’t help agreeing with them. And I
saw
the way she was with you. She made it pretty damn obvious she wants to get back with you. I guess I couldn’t blame her. Or you. And … you don’t need all … all my emotional baggage. You
should
be with Brenda—or someone like her … someone your own age. And … I
saw
you! I
saw
you with her—how you were with her—holding her like that.”

He pulled my hands to his face and kissed the palms gently.

Then slowly and deliberately he sucked the tip of each finger. He could see on my face what that did to me.

“I want to make love to you,” he whispered.

I tried to snatch my hands back but he held onto them.

“Don’t give up on us, Caro. Because I haven’t.”

I tugged my hands free and this time he let them go.

“Sebastian, I’ll be honest with you—I don’t know what to do for the best so I’m kind of making this up as I go along. But … all this … this craziness—we’re getting swept away by it. Making love with you is extraordinary: I’ve never,
never
felt anything like this my whole life. But it was wrong of me to … to start this relationship with you—and I don’t mean because of what the law says, although that’s certainly an issue … but because it’s not fair to you.”

He tried to interrupt me but I was determined to finish.

“Please, I need to say this. I’ve had a lot of years of feeling inadequate, of not being good enough—I don’t need to paint a picture, I’m sure you can guess why. And every time,
every time
I see you with a younger woman, whatever the circumstances, it’s going to rip me up. I don’t want to see the best thing I’ve ever known soured by my insecurities—I couldn’t bear that. You’ve brought me to life—and you’ll never know how much I owe you because of that. But you’re only just starting out in your life. It’s not fair to burden you with me. You deserve better than that. I
have
to let you go.”

He stared at me in silence for some seconds as if to make sure I really had finished. He took a deep breath—and I held mine.

“You want honesty? Well, answer this: if I was 25 and you were 38, would we still be having this conversation?”

I shrugged helplessly.

“About you going off with your ex-girlfriend? Yes. Definitely.”

He shook his head impatiently.

“No, the age thing.”

“Maybe,” I said, cautiously.

“No, I don’t think so and nor do you—not really. That’s what I’m saying, Caro. Nobody would blink twice. It wouldn’t matter. It
doesn’t
matter. Don’t you think that I don’t feel the same, that I’m not good enough for you? Hell, what can I give you? A shitty apartment and working two jobs while you try to put me through school. You think I feel good about that? Because it fucking kills me! I want to take care of you, not … I don’t care about going to college; I don’t care about leaving San Diego. I only care about being with you. And we have this same fucking argument over and over. You’re driving me crazy! I love you! If you left me now…”

But he couldn’t finish the words. He scrubbed away tears from his cheeks and looked down.

“Every time something goes wrong, you give up on us. You’re killing me, Caro.”

I sat with my hand over my mouth, unable to move or speak, appalled at what I’d done to him.

He looked up.

“You want honesty? Well, I don’t know what will happen … but neither do you. Maybe we’ll make it … maybe we won’t. But you’re giving up before we’ve even tried. I don’t understand. Why won’t you take a chance?”

Is that what I was doing? Had I found yet another way to be a coward? I’d thought I was setting him free, but he saw it as my refusal to take a chance … on him, on us, on love—maybe even on myself.

“What do you want to do?” I said, softly.

“Try. Just try.”

Yes. I could do that
.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, I’ll try.”

“You’ve got to mean it, Caro.
Promise
me.”

“I promise I’ll try.”

His shoulders slumped with relief.

“I missed you last night,” he said.

I tried to smile but my face still felt stiff from our most recent fight.

“Shall we go to our favorite coffee shop?” I suggested, thinking neutral ground might be a good idea.

He shook his head.

“I don’t want to share you.”

We stared at each other across the kitchen table.

“Can we go to bed?” he asked. “I … I really need you, Caro. To touch you … to show you how much I love you. Please.”

It was breaking all my carefully constructed rules. What if someone saw my car in the driveway and came around? What if someone had seen Sebastian arrive? What if they saw him leave later? What if? What if? But I was tired of being afraid, and right now, I didn’t care. I needed
him, too.

I stood up and held out my hand. For a second he continued to stare at me, then a huge smile lit his eyes.

We walked up the stairs hand-in-hand, each step measuring the distance from our argument.

He was surprised when I turned left into the guest room. He threw me a questioning look.

“I sleep in here now,” I said simply.

I saw him try to suppress a triumphant smile. He almost managed it.

Slowly we undressed each other, taking our time to reconnect.

He unbuttoned my shirt, pausing to kiss my chest, a little lower each time. He undid the cuffs and kissed my wrists, then let the material slide over my shoulders. I ran my hands down his chest, then tugged lightly on the hem, pulling his t-shirt over his head. I slid my hands over his skin, burying my face in his chest, breathing him in. He smelled of sunshine and the ocean.

He watched me, his eyes dark, filled with desire, as I slowly unzipped his jeans. He pushed them down his legs and stepped out of them, quickly sliding his briefs over his hips, so he stood naked before me, his love exposed.

He sank to his knees, and rested his hands on my waist, his eyes still fixed on mine. Then his eyes closed, and he kissed my stomach, nuzzling me gently.

I rested one hand on his shoulder, and stroked his head with the other.

He smiled up at me then turned his attention to my zipper. Carefully, he helped me step out of my jeans and panties. He kissed my body briefly, then stood up and pulled me into a tender hug.

“Do you know how much you mean to me, how much I love you?” he whispered into my hair. “I hate fighting with you.”

“I hate it, too. Just kiss me.”

His mouth rested gently on mine and I felt the softness of his lips as they moved against me. His fingers drifted over my shoulders and down my spine where both his hands cupped my behind.

My hands trailed up over his ribs until they were twisted behind his neck, pulling his head down to deepen our kiss.