“Do you know what I’m going to do now?” he asked.
Emily couldn’t remember any words. She used to know words, didn’t she? She even won a spelling bee in fifth grade. You had to know words to do that.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Seb said and closed the last inches between them. Emily’s lips moved on their own, like they’ve been doing this for years.
She had no control over the rest of her body either because it was not her conscious decision to move her hand through Seb’s hair, the other on his bicep. He clearly still worked out. It was not her decision to open her mouth when Sebastian’s tongue licked her lips, this time asking for permission.
She didn’t know how long they were tangled on the couch, their tongues fighting the fight their words couldn’t. When Emily finally realized what all her body parts were doing, she quickly backed off, pushing Seb away while still keeping the laptop on her lap. She was competent like that.
“What are you doing? Oh my god, we’re in the office, Seb!” she said, genuinely scandalized.
Seb smiled. “It’s okay, you can keep the extra hours for consultation. It’s an estimate anyway, it wouldn’t matter.”
Emily’s mouth hung open. Was he serious?
“Oh, look, the food is here,” he said, taking off before Emily could give him a piece of her mind.
Chapter 4
8 years ago
“Hey, remember Jack?” Emily contemplated out loud, looking up from her assignment.
Seb chucked, a little startled. “You mean the guy you claimed you loved deeply and promptly forgot as soon as you broke up with him randomly one day? The guy you haven’t even mentioned in three years?” He turned his chair away from his desk to give Emily the full effect of his one eyebrow up, judgmental face. “Yes, I remember. What about him?” He folded his, frankly unnecessarily huge, arms over his chest.
Emily rolled her eyes from the bed where she had to sit this time because, in Seb’s words, “You always sit on the desk, Emily. I can’t be the first ever football player with a hunchback. Let’s at least alternate!” But it wasn’t Emily’s fault that Seb never wanted to work on assignments in the library like normal people. Too many interruptions, he said, whatever that meant.
“Well, I definitely didn’t love him,” Emily relented and went back to her assignment, avoiding the judgment coming from the other side of the room.
“Good, because his wife and newborn kid might have something to say about it,” Seb said, turning back to his work.
But Emily wasn’t thinking about work anymore. “What?” She jumped from the bed and grabbed Seb’s phone. “Where did he post all of that?” She unlocked the phone and opened Facebook.
Seb snatched his phone back and found the pictures for her. “Blocking your ex, so cliché, Em!” he teased.
Emily slouched down to look at the picture over Seb’s shoulder. Her ex looked at the baby with so much love, and his wife, on the hospital bed, had a matching expression. She tried to analyze how she was feeling about this development, which was fairly old news, looking at the date of the post.
“I’d say you dodged a bullet,” Seb suggested quietly and carefully, as if he was waiting for her to blow up.
Emily thought so too. She nodded, agreeing that while she was shocked seeing someone she genuinely thought she’d spend her entire life with having a family, she didn’t regret any of it. “Getting pregnant right after high school? Yeah, that would have been a huge one-eighty from the plan,” she nodded again.
“You wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. You’re smarter than that,” Seb declared.
“I’m sure accidents happen to smart people too,” Emily said, and wrapped her hand around Seb’s neck just for a second. She looked at the picture again before going back to her makeshift desk of the mattress and pillows.
“Okay, yeah, that’s true. So, do we need tissues?” Seb asked, looking around his room for the tissue box.
“Yeah, no, I’m not going anywhere near your tissue box. You’re in a long-distance relationship,” Emily scrunched her nose.
“You know you’re sitting on my bed, right?” Seb turned to look back at her and winked.
“Ew, Seb!” Emily said, folding in on herself a little.
“Yup, that would save you from all the cooties.” Seb laughed. “You’re okay, though?” he asked after a few seconds.
Emily didn’t need another analysis of her emotions. “I’m okay,” she said, and smiled at Seb to reassure him. They went back to their assignments after that and back to never mentioning Jack again.
The first year of college had been brutal. Emily hadn’t anticipated just how busy things would get between classes, assignments, and mandatory activities. She barely had any time to hang out with Seb, but she still felt like they talked more than they ever did back in high school.
