Page 132 of Flipping the Script

He nodded. “He’s the only one who ever blurred that line and developed feelings for me. I was already planning on quitting when I realized what was going on, but that jumpstarted things.”

I didn’t ask if he’d also quit because he was in a different place now and didn’t need that outlet.

He’d already shared more with me in the last few hours than he had in seventeen years of knowing each other. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth and push things. That was the best way to make him shut down, and I liked how things were between us now.

20

SEBASTIAN

“You really don’t careabout any of this?” he asked.

“No. I’m not going to lie and say I’m not surprised, but at the same time, I’m really not.” I shrugged. “I don’t really know how to explain it, but it makes sense. And you weren’t hurting anyone. In fact, it sounds like you helped them.”

This time he shrugged. “Maybe. But I didn’t go into it to be magnanimous.” He shot me a little grin.

I smiled back, remembering the last time we’d talked about him being magnanimous and benevolent.

“Maybe not, but that still doesn’t change anything.”

He settled back on the couch, looking way more relaxed than he had since the afterglow had faded after that mind-melting sex.

Silence descended on us, but it wasn’t strained or uncomfortable.

And didn’t escape me that this was the longest conversation we’d ever had without it devolving into an argument.

It also didn’t escape me that Jesse said only family knew about his dad. Yet he’d told me.

What did that mean? Did he consider me family like Jonah said? Or had he told me because he figured I’d eventually find out because of Hannah?

There was also the possibility that his confession had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him needing to talk to someone about it.

Four years was a long-ass time to keep something like that to yourself. Jesse wasn’t a talker, but that didn’t mean he was immune to needing support or even just someone to listen to him.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

The flames were burning low in the fireplace, shrouding the room in a blanket of shadows that was slowly lulling me closer to sleep.

“Yeah.” He grabbed his phone off the coffee table and hit one of the buttons to flash up the screen.

“What time is it?” I sat up and stretched my arms over my head. My shoulders and back were tight after all those hours of being cold and panicked.

“Almost midnight.” He flipped the phone around in his hands a few times. “I guess we’re sleeping here tonight.”

“Looks like.” With another exaggerated stretch, I stood, then dropped my arms. “Can you get the flashlight while I put the fire out?”

“Sure.”

I snuffed out the flames, making sure to get the embers. When it was out, we kind of stood in the dark room, surrounded by inky blackness and the single beam of light from the flashlight.

“So, this is kinda awkward,” I started. “But there’s only one bed.”

He didn’t say anything for a full ten seconds. It was too dark to see his features, so I had no idea what he was thinking.

“This is a three-bedroom cabin, and there’s only one bed?” he asked slowly.

“Funny thing about bedrooms is that they can be multi-purpose.” I waved for him to follow me up the stairs. “There are technically three bedrooms up here, but only one is currently being used as one.”

“How does your family use a cabin with only one working bedroom? There are four of you.”

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