Stealing Home: A Reverse Grumpy-Sunshine College Sports Romance: Chapter 12

I WAKE up the next morning with a mouth full of cat fur.

Tangerine, snoring contentedly on my face, doesn’t protest when I move her. If she wasn’t so cute, I’d suspect she had been attempting murder by suffocation. I pull a piece of orange hair away from my tongue. I need water. Coffee. One of those memory-wiping devices from .

Why the hell did I agree to spend the night at Sebastian’s?

Desperation. Right.

It hurts, being here. There are reminders of the past in every inch of Izzy’s room. I got ready for Cooper’s birthday party in that bathroom—helped Izzy do Penny’s hair—and the way Sebastian looked at me when we met in the kitchen… well, it nearly made me drop the tray of cupcakes I was holding.

It also led to all that dancing with Julio, because I was terrified that people would see us and put two and two together. No one did, and I ended up letting him into my room after the party anyway. My body ached the next morning in the most satisfying way; he fucked me against the door and then again in bed, holding me so close, I felt contained by his strength. Safe. I bit his shoulder, and he just laughed and told me to do it again, harder.

I scrub both hands over my face, willing my mind to erase the memory.

I need to stay in the moment.

Water. Coffee.

First, I should pee and wrangle my hair into shape.

By the time I emerge from the bathroom, which is still filled with Izzy’s many beauty products—I guess when you’re Izzy Callahan, you can just get new bottles of your expensive skincare products for your summer in Manhattan, no problem—and get dressed, I’m feeling better. Regardless of how it happened, I needed an actual night of sleep, and I managed that, for the most part. Once I have caffeine in hand, I can poke at the code Alice sent me. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and the housing department will call me early.

I put my hair into a bun, tuck my laptop underneath my arm, and scoop up Tangy before sneaking into the hallway.

Clear.

I take a deep breath. He’s probably eating breakfast.

When I walk downstairs, though, it’s obvious that I’m alone. The house is quiet, filled with morning light, and neat as a pin. He even folded the blanket over the back of the couch with precision. I peer through the front curtains, and sure enough, his car is missing from the driveway. He wasn’t kidding about having an early start.

In the kitchen, I set Tangerine down. She goes straight to her food bowl and gulps down the breakfast left there.

It’s for the best that I’m alone. Maybe I’ll be able to move my stuff to a new room before I even need to see him. And then I can work on my secondary summer project: Getting Over Sebastian Miller-Callahan. GOSMC. NASA loves their acronyms. I thought of it last night while I was falling asleep, trying my best to forget he was right next door.

As of now, Project GOSMC is officially underway.

Except… there’s a note on the kitchen counter.

Of course he left a note. I can’t stop the tiny smile that crosses my face at the sight of that messy handwriting, but by the end of it, I’m scowling again.

I fold the note into a tiny square and set it down carefully. This is good for Project GOSMC. Nothing makes me retreat faster than being told what to do. Outside the bedroom, at least. He might call us friends, but I know better. I could never just be his friend, and he deserves better than me. It’s as simple as a math equation or a line of code. With any luck, we’ll orbit each other for years to come without ever crossing, for the sake of Penny and Cooper, and one day I’ll see him with another girl, and she’ll be perfect for him, and I will and say they make a lovely couple. She’ll become Penny’s best friend instead, and when I see pictures of them on whatever the next iteration of Facebook is, I will .

I really need that cup of coffee.

While the machine warms up, I use the microwave to heat the oatmeal, adding cinnamon on top, and open my laptop.

I need to be working, not thinking. Not… stewing, or whatever my mind wants to do.

Yet after scanning the code for a mindless five seconds, I can’t help but take out my phone.

I wince when I see the abandoned text thread I shared with Sebastian. He hasn’t texted me recently, but there’s a whole string that I left unanswered. I couldn’t bring myself to type out a response, not when it meant having to confront how shitty I was to him.

I swallow, feeling the blush from my cheeks all the way down my neck. It hurt, watching him text me, ignoring each one. But I hadn’t wanted to give him an opening. It was for his own benefit, anyway. The sooner he hated me and let me go, the sooner he could work on falling for a girl who actually deserved him.

Except now this… this kindness. He let me into his house, for free—well, minus what I promised I’d tell him, if I ever work up the courage—and made me breakfast. He has every right to hate me, but he called us friends. I scroll to the bottom, past his last text, and reply before I can think better of it.

My eyes are burning when I reply. Maybe it’s the fact I’m alone. Or exhausted by this summer already, only three days in. I don’t have work tonight, but I don’t want to see him either, not when my body is begging me to ask for things that I don’t deserve from him now and never did in the first place. I’ll just make a mess of things, again, and hurt him, again.

Let him make oatmeal for someone else. Let him leave tickets at the box-office under cute nicknames for some other girl.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, I’ve migrated to the couch, bundled up in the blanket, Tangy keeping warm next to my laptop. After I gave in to working at Sebastian’s—I considered going out, but the quiet, blessedly cool house was too tempting to resist—I slowly made myself a sort of nest. Laptop charger. Water, heavy on the ice. My blue light-filtering glasses, the legal pad I’ve been using for notes.

plays on the television, muted with subtitles. I asked if anyone needed help with the on-campus planetarium later, so I’m going to run a public show about the solar system. The planetarium is far away from the baseball fields, so there’s not even the slightest chance of running into Sebastian.

Working like this is heaven.

My stomach growls, but I ignore it. I should order delivery, since I don’t want to raid his refrigerator, but that would be way more effort than puzzling over one more bit of code.

My phone, which is resting atop the coffee table, chimes with an incoming call. Izzy. After breakfast, I texted to let her know I spent the night in her room. I grab the phone, holding it between my shoulder and ear as I scribble out a quick thought.

“Hi, Izzy.”

“Mia!” She must be outside; the sounds of cars and a crowd fill my ear. “Are you okay?”

“Um, yeah. I’m fine. I’m sorry I used your room.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. One second.” She breaks off for a moment, continuing to talk, but I can’t catch what she’s saying. “Sorry, I’m grabbing some lunch before I have to be back at the office. Weekends don’t exist in the wedding planning world. Well, not the office, it’s not a corporate thing, but my boss has this nice suite in her apartment that she uses as an office. There’s a separate entrance and everything. These buildings on the Upper East Side are so fancy. Anyway, what are you doing? I haven’t talked to you in ages. I didn’t even get to see you before I left for the summer!”

She finally pauses. I seize the opening, smiling helplessly through it. She’s a whirlwind, but an adorable one. “I just didn’t want to, um…”

“Be around my brother after you ditched him?”

I wince. “Yes.”

“Did you get back together yet?”

“What? No.”

The disappointment in her voice comes through clearly. “So, you spent the night at our house, and you didn’t even hook up with him?”

“I stayed in your room, Iz. Also, we were never—”

“Oh, I don’t care if you fuck in it,” she interjects with a sigh. “It’s not like I get any action there. Cooper and Sebastian make sure of that.”

“That doesn’t seem…”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Oh, no. Boo. I thought I saw Alexander Skarsgård, but it was just another hot blond guy.” She clears her throat. “You know, I think there’s one in Moorbridge, too. He plays baseball.”

I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see me. “Isn’t he your brother?”

“When a man’s attractive, you notice, Mia.”

Fair enough. “He’s just… he’s too much. He’s too fucking .”

She hums. “He tries very hard.”

“To do what?”

“To be nice. To be Sebastian.”

“What do you mean?”

She thanks someone on her end. “Sandwich acquired. Let me sit down first.”

I nearly grind my teeth as I wait on the line for her to find somewhere to sit. I think about asking where she is specifically, but that would derail her, and despite myself, I want to hear what she has to say. Why he tries so hard to be .

“Okay,” she says finally. “This is amazing. Totally worth the wait.”

“Izzy,” I say. “While I appreciate the play-by-play—”

“I know, I know. It’s just, you don’t watch your parents die in front of you and not be a little fucked up, right? I don’t know for certain, because if he’s talking to anyone, it’s Cooper, but I think he has nightmares. He’s a good guy, but that’s because he tries so hard to be positive.”

My stomach twists. He went out last night, I’m certain of it. I heard him in the hallway when I woke up, but I stayed in bed. I nearly texted him, but I thought better of it.

I know the story in broad strokes. His parents died in a car accident when he was eleven. Richard Callahan was his father’s best friend, so he and his wife adopted him in the aftermath. I guess since he’s so entrenched with the Callahans, I never gave much thought to the family he had before. The mother and father he must have loved and hated losing. I can’t imagine losing my own parents, no matter how much we clash.

“That’s awful.”

Her voice is equally soft. “Yeah. If you’re not into him anymore, whatever. But you must have made an impression on him, because he was moping and he never mopes, so just… be his friend, okay? A friend is never a bad thing.”