Henodded in agreement. “We were a little shocked ourselves, when he told us hewas selling the house. He’s had that place since … God, since he started makingmoney, I guess. Bought it for a song back then. But he put in an offer on thisold girl months ago.”
“Monthsago?” I cocked an eyebrow and eyed him suspiciously.
“Yeah.I think it was back in August? He hired my sons-in-law to move his stuff overwhen the sale was finalized at the end of September.”
September? OnThanksgiving, Alex had told me the sale would be finalized in a week.
He’dbeen working on this plan for months, since our fight. Since I ended things. “Why?”I asked aloud. “Why would he do this?”
“Uh,well, he said he wanted to be closer to Greyson, and—”
“Dad!What the hell!” Sebastian interrupted, wrapping an arm around his dad’s shoulders.“You’re not supposed to give awayallof the secrets! Jesus Christ …” Heturned to me, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “I swear, I can’t takethis old man anywhere.”
Atthe sight of him, I immediately thought I might cry. My bottom lip began to losecontrol, quivering and quaking despite my resolve to remain calm.
“C-canwe talk?” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
“Oh,yeah, sure,” Sebastian replied casually, as if he hadn’t just knocked me deadwith the most elaborate scheme to win me over. “You gotta come to the kitchen,though. I can’t leave all that shit for too long, unless you wanna eat someburnt-ass ham and over-boiled potatoes.”
Ifollowed him through the swinging kitchen door, only to find his sisterscrowded around the table. They turned to me, then immediately looked to eachother with wide-eyed stares and excited grins. Mel was the first to open hermouth to speak, when Sebastian reached between them to smack his hand on thetable.
“Hey!You three. Get the fuck out of here right now.”
“Oh,that’s really the nicest way you could’ve asked?” Dinah groaned, shooting himwith an angry side-eye.
“Getthe fuck out of here right now,please?” he corrected, narrowing hisglare at his older sisters.
“Ithought you wanted us to help you get dinner ready,” Mel threw in, teasing witha pinch of her lips and a jump of her brows. “Remember? You distinctly said forus to get in here and—”
“Yeah,well, that was before I was about to …” He nudged his head toward me, and Ihuffed a sigh. “You know. So, for fuck’s sake, get out.”
Jenturned to me, with exhaustion hooding her eyelids. “Tabby, please, we’re beggingyou. Take him back. He’s been driving us all insane.”
“Go!”Sebastian growled, nudging them toward the door. They obeyed with begrudgedgrumbles and teasing jabs, and then, we were alone. He turned to me, smilingsweetly. “There. Now, what were you going to say?”
“You,uh … y-you bought Mrs. Worthington’s house,” I stammered, suddenly shy andunable to find the right words to express just how I was feeling.
“Yep.”He nodded astutely, walking with purpose to the stove. Lifting a lid off alarge pot, he took a peek inside and held out his hand. “Hey, you wanna grab methat wooden spoon from the counter over there?”
“Uh,sure.” I immediately found the one he was asking for and passed it into hiswaiting palm.
“Thankyou,” he replied, and stirred. “How do you like your mashed potatoes, by theway? You like them creamy or lumpy?”
“L-lumpy.”
Glancingat me, his lips curled into a small smile. “Me too.”
Istood beside him, picking at my fingernails, while every question I wanted toask jumped up my throat and fizzled out on my tongue. For the first time ever, Iwas rendered speechless and absolutely dumbfounded in his presence. I watchedwith a knotted gut as he stirred the potatoes, then sprinkled a pinch of saltinto the water before closing the pot again. With every wasted, awkward momentthat passed, I imagined the conversation we could’ve been having, mentallykicking myself for being too much of a coward to just askwhy.
Then,when the spoon was placed beside the stove, I found my courage.
“W—”
“Didyou know this house is seriously haunted?” He turned against the counter,leaning against the granite with an amused smirk tugging at his lips. “Like,okay. Last night, I was finally done cleaning and wrapping presents, right? Andwhile I was heading up the stairs to go to bed, I swear on my right hand, Ifelt like I was being watched. I even turned around to make sure someone wasn’tfollowing me. And I was like, whoa, calm the fuck down, because I was the onlyone here, obviously. Anyway, I finally get upstairs, piss, go to bed, and asI’m falling asleep, I swear to you, I felt someone sit at the edge of the bed.”
Achill dodged through me and the hairs on my arms stood on end. “Get the hellout.”
Holdingup his hands, palms out, he said, “Iswear. Weirdest shit that’s everhappened to me. But what was even weirder was that, I wasn’t even freaked out.Like, you hear something like that and you think you’d be scared out of yourfucking mind, right?”
