Page 148 of Mr. Aster
“Okay, let’s get this straightened out, shall we,” I said. “I will decide whether I want to be with you—wait, Ididdecide that,and that’s why I was. If—and I mean that if stronger than Titus’s left bicep—you ever feel that you need to protect me from you again, you will run that past me first and allow me to determine whether your fears and insecurities warrant my protection.”
“Titus’s left bicep?” he questioned, and I could only laugh because I honestly had no idea where that dumb analogy came from.
“Stay on point,” I said, snapping my fingers. “I’m serious. Now, I’m not jumping back into a relationship with you. If you and I really want this to work, maybe we can start this on a solid foundation and become friends first. That way, the next time one of us is too afraid to reach out to the other, at least an established friendship will make us both comfortable enough to know that we won’t instantly reject one another over a concern.”
“I agree,” he said with a warm and hopeful look in his eye.
“And no friends with benefits bullshit. The benefits are what started this whole shit show to begin with.”
“I agree with that, too,” he said. “I do have a request, though.”
“Yes, I will take you on your dive excursion. I won’t call Juan,” I said.
“Charlotte is here with me, and I would like her to meet you,” he said, and I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Sebastian, I’ve already met her. Granted, it was very brief because she was hiding behind the nanny, terrified of seeing you, but you managed to get her to say hi to me.”
“She doesn’t remember much of her trip to California. In fact,” he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, “I tried to make her excited about getting to meet my amazing, special friend, but I think I may have overshot the mark.”
He made a cringy face as I pondered what he was saying.
“So, wait. Is Charlotte speaking to you now? In sentences?”
“She’s three now, and her tutor gives her language lessons, among many things. It’s something Melissa put in place beforeshe passed. It’s been working very well. She even speaks French.”
“So, she talks toyou? She was terrified of you last time.”
“I took your advice on how to form a loving bond with her,” he said with a glint of beautiful happiness and excitement in his eyes. “I took her to Disneyland Paris for her birthday, and we even went to the zoo.”
“This is impressive,” I answered. That behavior was a total turnaround from the man I remembered, who pushed back vehemently about doing those things with his daughter before we split. “And how did she like it? How didyoulike it?”
His bashful smile returned, and my heart swelled. I never expected this moment to come, but I welcomed it very much. My pain and the hurt from our silence was being replaced by the understanding that we’d both fucked this up. I was grateful we could both recognize our part in where things went wrong so we wouldn’t make the same idiotic mistakes again.
“I loved watching her smile and hearing her laugh. It was worth the price of admission and souvenirs, which is highway robbery, by the way,” he said, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “How do people afford that?”
“Asks the billionaire?” I laughed.
“I mean, come on. I’m here to see Mickey, not hand over my child’s college tuition, you know what I mean?” His disbelief at the cost of Disneyland was downright adorable, especially because he wasn’t wrong.
“You’re preaching to the choir, pal,” I nodded. “But…itisThe Happiest Place on Earth.”
“The charm is undeniable, I’ll give you that,” he smiled. “I would love to introduce you to Charlotte again. I just desperately hope you will let me prove that I’ll love you for the rest of my life if you allow me the chance.”
“Proposing marriage now, too?” I teased.
“You know what I mean,” he said.
And in one swift move, I was in his strong arms.
The taste of his powerful and desperate kiss was filled with a hunger I’d never experienced from him before, and I instantly knew I’d missed him even more than I realized. His strong arms held me tightly against his chest, sealing up each damaged and wounded part of my heart the longer we absorbed each other.
It was almost too fairytale-like to allow myself to trust, and I wanted to fight it. It felt wise to fight it, but my heart wouldn’t allow me to.
Instead, everything within me urged me to return the love I felt pouring from him into my soul, reuniting our broken hearts after wasting eight precious months hiding from each other. We were hiding from the truth our hearts already knew. An unseen force had brought us together, and that same force had brought us to this harmonic reunion after we’d gone out alone and learned some hard lessons, healing ourselves to make this work out the beautiful way it was intended.
All these thoughts flooded into me like long overdue answers while he kissed me powerfully and passionately, making the whole friends with benefit idea sound extremely enticing right about now. God, I’d missed this man down to my bone marrow, and now that the pain of that awful separation was behind us, I was excited for the future.
I allowed every part of my being to become lost in every part of the man who held me so tightly that I knew he would never let me go again. Who knew a couple could go from hating to loving each other, not just once, but twice? This was us, though; it was our fairytale ending, and I wouldn’t trade for anything.
