Page 24 of Playing For Keeps

“A bathroom? No way. How is any of this a bathroom? This looks like a ladder!” Sebastian pointed toward one of the aspects of the drawing.

“It’s supposed to be tile,” Chris said, acting offended, and the group dissolved into eye rolls and giggles.

Things wound down pretty soon after. Corinne and Luis had to get home to relieve the babysitter. Farren tried not to smile too big when Braxton and Chris left together. Soon, it was just her packing up her bag of games and Sebastian waiting patiently. The cafe emptied out quite a bit, with staff members cleaning up around them.

Some of her breathless feeling returned, the prospect of more time with him thrilling and terrifying at the same time. “Live a little” echoed in her mind, courtesy of Corinne, and Farren had the question out before she could overthink it too much.

“Would you like to come over to my place and hang out?” It wasn’t too bad, not too clumsy or frantic. Despite how she felt inside, the words came out reasonably casually.

“I’d love that.” The smile was back in his voice, and he seemed so much more relaxed this evening compared to when they’d first met.

Their fingers intertwined as they walked back to her apartment; even in heels, she had a harder time keeping up with his long-legged gait. Autumn freshness sent goosebumps skittering over her skin, and Sebastian pulled her tight against his side, an arm around her shoulder. Her arm was around his waist, and they did the slightly awkward shuffle of trying to walk in tandem with another person.

When his embrace changed to a reassuring hand on her lower back as they ambled their way up her staircase, Farren knew she was in for a world of potential mistakes. She was granting him access into her world and mind, truly, by letting him see her safe space. She could excuse it as a regular effect of being physically attracted to someone—inviting them in for an escape in each other’s bodies—but there was no guarantee of that even happening tonight. This was an invitation of a different sort, one she very rarely issued, and she only hoped she didn’t end up disappointed. Again.

Her body was warm under his hand, superheated as if to remind him that he trod on dangerous territory and she’d consume him like a flame if he got too close. Farren walked in front of him along the narrow staircase. Her heels clicked against the stairs on the way up to her apartment. Sebastian watched her hips sway and wondered if her face was ruddy with emotion like his. She made him feel like a teenager, giddy and inexperienced, the whole world seemingly balanced on this precarious moment and what it precluded.

The lock clicked, knob turned, and wood rushed against wood as the door swung open. Her shoes clunked against the floor as she stepped out of them, and he followed suit. None of the overhead lights were on, but she’d left a strand of string lights on, framing the bay window overlooking the street. Little potted plants littered the wide sills, covered by diaphanous curtains which were mostly sheer, barely enough to provide privacy from those peering in.

A deep sectional was tucked into the wall, a television facing it, and books strewn all over the room. Some were on a shelf, some lived in little groupings on the coffee table or on the console housing the television. Her kitchen was a nook, a little window open to the living area, the light over the stove on and casting a warm glow.

Farren flicked on the overhead light for the living room and Sebastian was able to make out so much more. The old wooden floors of the entryway had deep grooves and scratches from years of use by probably dozens of past inhabitants. The walls were a modest beige, but she’d covered one up with a tapestry, a bold abstract landscape offering pops of blue and green. A plush rug covered the floor in the living space. Shoes were stacked, piled up near the door, as if Farren didn’t bother putting any of them away, just rotating them to her pleasure, ready as she rushed out of the door.

It was clean, if cluttered, and so much homier than the space he inhabited. He could see her here, the aspects of her he’d noticed and held onto. They helped when his own anxiety and stress threatened him with sleepless nights, and a dark gnawing in his stomach. She fit here. It was a little loud, colors used in a way he never would have imagined could work, but did. Farren’s space was comforting, and when he sunk down onto her couch at her urging, he couldn’t hold back the pleased little groan that escaped him. The fabric swallowed him, and the tension he’d been holding in his back.

“Comfy, right?” she said.

He knew it was rhetorical. There was no need for confirmation when Sebastian was ready to pass out right there.

“Oh yeah. Where did you find this?” He patted the arm of the sectional he leaned against.

So fucking smooth.

Ugh.

“It was Corinne's; they only had it for a few months. Then, after Alison was born and they moved into a bigger house, they decided they wanted an upgrade to accommodate more people. So, it became mine.” Farren shrugged. Sebastian wondered if she was the type of person who liked to collect things, and if he was one of them. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It was conflicting, wanting to belong to someone like her and wanting to protect them both at the same time.

He tried to keep his distance when she sat down beside him, inspecting the contents of her coffee table and being puzzled by what he found there. Scraps of paper were folded into cards, a square of cardboard with black marker outlined what looked like a board.

“What’s this?” he asked, lifting one of the little cards to read the content. “Romantic Comedy, +2 if you attach this to a romance query, +5 if it matches an agent’s MSWL,” Sebastian read aloud, shocked when Farren climbed over him and tried to pull it from his grasp.

“It’s nothing,” she muttered, grabbing at the hand he held above his head and away from her reaching fingers.

“Doesn’t seem like nothing to me.” It was meant to be teasing, would probably have been if she hadn’t poked him in the ribs right then. He huffed a surprised breath and jerked from being tickled.

Farren’s fingers yanked the piece of paper from his hand, gathering up the rest on the table and folding them within the cardboard like a taco. She rushed to her bedroom, placing it somewhere inside, emerging a moment later as she fixed her unruly hair.

She joined him on the couch as if nothing happened, but Sebastian wasn’t ready to let it go.

“Farren?” It was tentative. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her, but his curiosity won out over everything else.

“Sebastian, please.” She shook her head, cuddling up against him and flicked the television on, obviously trying to divert so he would drop it.

He peeled the plastic remote from her loose grip, placed it on the coffee table, and turned to face her.

“You can tell me.” His hand cupped her cheek, thumb stroking the edge of her mouth where it was downturned.

“It’s really nothing. Just an idea I’ve been kicking around forever that’s never been completed. I tried tinkering with it again this week. It happens every couple of months, and it always ends the same way: with me disappointed and unable to see the way forward.”

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