Page 93 of The Flirty Forward

I study his face. “You aren’t supposed to go with me today, are you?”

His face clouds over. “It’s fine.”

“Sebastian, I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me. I’ll just go by myself. Please don’t worry about it. I don’t want you to have to pay fines or whatever else they’ll do to you for missing today.”

He’s in front of me a moment later. “I’m coming with you. End of story.”

“But—”

He puts his finger over my lips, effectively quieting me. “You’re the most important thing to me, not a sport. And I want to do this with you. I don’t want you to go by yourself. Please don’t ask me to stay behind.”

I stare up at him. “Are you sure?” He nods. “I just don’t want you to regret this at some point.”

“Stephanie, I will never regret any time I spend with you. You’re my life; you come first. Hockey is just a game. Very soon, you’re going to be my family. The stakes are only going to get higher if we have kids together. If I can’t figure this out now, it will be worse then.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “Let me work through this; I’ll take whatever repercussions come my way. I want to be with you today to talk to your dad.”

“I just don’t want you to regret anything,” I can’t help but repeat.

He shakes his head. “Stephanie, my beautiful Stephanie, how could I regret any time spent with you?” He lowers his lips and touches them to mine. The kiss is gentle and filled with love, so different from our kiss in the kitchen earlier. I sigh against his lips, and he pulls back. “Let’s get on the road.”

It’s not until we’re in his car a few minutes later, that I finally come to my senses. “So, kids, huh?”

He glances over at me and grins. “Lots and lots of kids.”

“Just how many are you thinking?” I ask.

“At least ten or so.”

I turn to him. “It’s a good thing I know you’re joking.”

“Am I?” His eyes twinkle. It’s quiet for a little bit as we drive, and my mind tosses around everything he’s said. “Did I scare you off?” he asks after a little bit. “I’m just messing with you,” he says as he takes my hand in his. “Talk to me.”

I stare out the window before I look over at him. “It’s just everything we talked about before...about me being a mom.”

He stays quiet for a few minutes before squeezing my hand. “Becauseof the way you were raised, I know you’re going to be a good mom. You’re going to work overtime to make sure your kids never feel the way you did growing up, and that’s good because their dad is going to be a professional hockey player. It’s going to take a lot of effort on both our parts to make it work and to make sure our kids always feel like they’re the most important thing, outside of our relationship of course.”

I think through his words. “I wonder if it would work for me to write full time instead of teaching so I could be at home with them.”

“Is that what you would want to do?” he asks, glancing over at me.

“I don’t know. Would you be okay with that?”

“You can do anything you want to do, Love. You can’t make me love you any more or less based on anything you do. If you want to transition to writing full time because youwant to,then go for it. I’ll support you one hundred percent!” He glances over at me. “You don’t like teaching anyway.”

I turn shocked eyes to him.

Chapter 36

Stephanie

“I...I never said...”

He squeezes my hand again. “I know. You've never said it, but I know you don’t enjoy it.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I know more about you than you think I do. I know that you got into teaching because of Brielle, and you’ve stuck with it because of your relationship with her and because even though your parents don’t approve of you teaching, they approve less of you writing. So you stick with it, even though you don’t enjoy it.” I am at a complete loss for words because everything he said is one hundred percent the truth, even if I’ve never admitted it to myself. “You can do whatever you want. If you want to write full time, you should go for it. Finish off the year and don’t return next year,” he says with a shrug. I let myself consider what that would be like to write full time. Then he has to go and make it worse. “We could turn one of the extra rooms into an office for you. Get you a good desk and chair and fill the walls with things that inspire you to write. We could take each of your covers and get them printed on canvas and hang them up.” He glances over at me. “That would be so cool. What else inspires you to write?”

I just stare at him. “I don’t know what to say; everything you’re describing is like a dream. I can’t imagine being able to do all that.”

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