Page 53 of One Love
Devin
The sun begins to streamthrough the bottom of the curtains as sleep still evades me. After Sebastian and I made love, I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep before the demons returned. It wasn’t anything like the nightmare I had. It was more like the fear of the unknown kept me from a restful sleep.
“I can hear you thinking,” Sebastian says in a gravelly voice before rolling me over to face him. “Did you manage to get any sleep?”
“A little bit.”
His lips tip down into a frown. “Oh, princess. I’m so sorry this is happening—"
A shrill sound blares through the quiet of the room, cutting off Sebastian’s words. The intruding sound has me jackknifing up, and I scramble, getting tangled in the sheets. Before I know it, my body smashes onto the cold hardwood floor of Sebastian’s bedroom.
“Shit,” he hisses as he jumps up after me. “Are you okay, Devin?”
My heart pounds in my chest as I crawl into a ball on the floor. It takes a few moments for the sound to register as the phone continues to ring.
Sebastian ignores it, kneeling onto the floor to pick me up. With me in his lap, he sits on the bed and whispers softly, “It’s okay, Devin. It’s only the phone. She can’t get to us in here. I’ve got you.”
My breathing slows and my ability to reason returns. It’s only the phone, which is still ringing. Picking my head up, I look over to the nightstand as if my subconscious needs verification that the phone is actually ringing.
“I’m going to answer it, okay?” He looks down at me before reaching over to grab it, putting it on speaker.
“Mr. Brooks,” a man’s voice comes over the line. “I have a Mr. and Mrs. Miller down here.”
“My parents?” I ask.
Sebastian looks down at me before answering. “Dale and Marilyn?”
“Yes, I’ve verified their identification.”
“Okay, Clyde. You can send them up.”
I spoke with my parents after being released from the hospital and again yesterday, assuring them I was fine and that they didn’t need to come into the city, but obviously they didn’t listen. It’s not like I can blame them, I guess. It’s not every day your son calls them to say your daughter had acid thrown on her.
Sebastian stands and sets me on my feet. He slips a finger under my chin, tipping my head up to look at him. “You okay, princess?”
Am I? Who the hell knows? The sound of the phone had me in the fetal position just a few minutes ago. The fear I was feeling then morphs into anger at the situation and the insane person wreaking havoc on our lives.
I don’t really know how to answer that question, so I simply nod.
He kisses my forehead. “Let’s get something decent on before your parents get up here.”
A few minutes later, my parents knock on the door and my mother barrels inside.
“Oh, honey,” she coos. “Are you okay? Let me look at you.”
She turns my head this way then that, running her hands up and down my arms. “I know you and your brother said it wasn’t anything like I was picturing in my head, but I needed to see you with my own eyes.”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I lie. “I told you, you guys didn’t have to come all the way out here.”
“Nonsense,” my mother shushes me. “My daughter was attacked by some crazy woman. Did you think I wasn’t going to come?”
“We gave you a few days, sweetheart, and your mother has been cooking up a storm,” my dad chimes in with arms loaded with bags filled with plastic containers. “We needed to see you. Plus, I needed to meet the man who is supposedly taking care of my little girl.”
My father looks to Sebastian, who has been standing quietly through this exchange.
“Well, come on in.” I gesture them out of the doorway. “Mom. Dad. Meet Sebastian Brooks.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Sebastian says as he takes the bags from my father. “Let me put these in the kitchen.”
