“I’m sure.”
“Then let me give you the tour.” He waves the hand not holding mine with a cheeky smile. “This is the kitchen, through here is the dining room. I don’t use it much unless I have the guys and their wives over.” He leads me into a large formal dining room with a long table in the center. The walls are a slate blue, and a modern brushed-black light fixture hangs over the table, while small black sconces add ambient lighting along one wall.
I soak it all in as he leads me through to a cozy-looking living room. The same slate blue continues here, but the walls are covered in black and white framed photographs of Sebastian and his teammates. Some are action shots on the ice, others are intimate candids. A life lived well. A life I could have been a part of, but wasn’t.
The thought sends a pang through my chest, but I do my best to push it away.
Thinking about that won’t change anything.
“This is the living room.” Bash watches me take it all in. The large, overstuffed white sectionals, the distressed woodchest that functions as a coffee table, the fireplace and built-in bookshelves beside it that are filled with books, knickknacks, and framed photos. But no TV. No gaming systems.
“There’s a bathroom through there.” He points to a short hallway with two doors that leads to a dark room. “That’s a closet, and if you keep going, you’ll end up in the mudroom. There’s a door to the backyard and the deck through there.”
“It’s really pretty,” I say dumbly.
“Thanks, Rosebud.” He grins at me. “I’m glad you like it.”
I really do. It’s cozy. Everything here is thoughtfully arranged, the colors are beautiful, and personal touches fill every room. It’s the kind of house you’d be excited to come home to, and I can’t help imagining what it would be like to share a space like this with him.
“Come on, I’ll show you the upstairs.”
Stomach flipping, I hold on to Bash’s hand as he leads me up a set of gleaming wood stairs to the second floor. The walls up here are a light sage with a darker green wainscoting that spans the entire length of the hallway.
“This is my office.” Bash nudges the first door on the right open and turns on the light. It’s a smaller room with a desk and bookshelves covering three of the four walls. These are filled with books and photos, too, but there are also models and painted miniature figurines on them. I want to go in and snoop, but he turns the light off and tugs me down the hall. “This one is a guest room. The bathroom is there. Another guest room. And this one is mine.”
He pushes open a door at the end of the hall, and the house holds its breath with me as we step over the threshold. When he turns on the light, I’m met with a large, open space. A jute rug covers the gleaming hardwood floors in the center of the room. Three walls are a neutral cream, but the far one is a deep navy that contrasts the blonde wood of the massive bed’s headboardperfectly. The king-sized bed is covered in a soft-looking down comforter that matches the cream of the walls with coordinating pillows lining a bench at the foot of it.
“Wow,” I whisper, dropping Sebastian’s hand so I can walk the perimeter of the room. A closed door that must lead to a closet is on the wall to the right when you walk in, while another door is open and leads to a large attached bathroom. There’s a dresser on the wall facing the bed with a circular mirror over it.
Photos of Sebastian’s family create a collage in one corner of the room with an overstuffed gray armchair. I grin as I study each image. His brothers are so big now. Though I suppose that makes sense. Ten years have passed, after all. His parents look older but the same. There’s a group photo with all of Sebastian’s extended family too. Everyone is smiling brightly, arms around each other in an easy affection that makes my heart pang. And on a little circular side table next to the armchair is a framed photo. I pick it up, expecting it to be a candid of Bash and his teammates.
But that’s not what I find at all.
“Oh,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears as I stare at the photo, but I don’t let them fall. Not even when Bash’s chest presses against my back and his arms wrap around my middle. Not even when his chin comes to rest on my shoulder and he says something that both breaks me and fills me with hope.
“I’ve always kept you with me. Even when I couldn’t find you.”
My fingers trace the teenagers in the photo slowly. Reverently. We must have been sixteen? I had braces and blonde hair that hung down to the middle of my back. It was frizzy from a day spent at the beach we were standing on, windblown and sun-bleached. Sebastian’s dark eyes sparkle, his black hair ruffled and messy, his skin that deep golden color that came from days spent outside together. I look positively ghostly besidehim. But I always burn to a lobster-red before it fades and I’m right back to the same shade I was before.
His arm is around my shoulder in the photo. Our heads tilt toward each other, and my arm is wrapped around his waist. We’re both laughing, and neither of us is looking at the camera. Because we’re looking at each other.
I don’t remember that specific moment, but I remember the summer. We had so much fun. Every day was a new adventure, and I was so in love with him. It was an immature teenage love, but it was love.
“I can’t believe you still have this,” I choke out.
“Really? I can’t believe you’re surprised. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to find you, Indie.” His arms tighten around me and he presses a kiss to my neck. “And then you show up out of nowhere at my game. I couldn’t believe it.”
My throat tightens. I set the photo back on the little circular table and lean back, allowing myself to bask in the warmth and strength of the boy I loved and the man he’s become. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never should have run.”
I don’t resist when Bash turns me in his arms. I don’t resist when he nudges my chin with his knuckles, silently asking me to look up at him. For ten years, I’ve resisted him, and all it did was bring us both pain.
I’m done resisting.
“We can’t change the past, Rosebud. But for what it’s worth, I forgive you. I’m just glad you’re here now.” His calloused fingers send a pleasant shiver down my spine when he drags them across my cheek. Those fathomless dark eyes track my throat when I swallow thickly, his fingers tracing the movement before they skim along my collarbone. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
“Bash…” His name almost sticks in my throat. I’m not even sure what I’m asking. What I need.
But he seems to know.