Page 6 of The Comeback

“What the hell are you doing in my…” I spin around as the deep voice trails off.

My stomach lurches and my heart pounds when my eyes land on the guy standing in the bathroom door. The tall, muscular guy with brown hair darkened to almost black from his shower. The guy standing there in nothing but a white towel with water droplets clinging to his chest. The guy with the oh so familiar hazel eyes that are piercing straight through to my soul.

“Fab?” The sound of my old nickname frays my already worn-down heart. It’s been a long time since anyone called me that. Since he called me that, because he was the only one who ever did.

“I.. I’m sorry. I’ll go. I didn’t mean…” My brain seems to have disconnected from my mouth. It’s been three years and suddenly I’m invading his room. While he’s practically naked, no less.

I rush for the door, but he’s in the way and when I try to pass him, he gently snags my arm. His motion jars the towel, and it slips to his feet in a crumpled heap. My eyes drink in the skin stretched across his incredible abs and drift lower.

“My eyes are up here.” His voice has gone deep and gravelly, scraping along my skin.

All the heat that had flamed up in my core rushes straight to my cheeks, and I pull my gaze away from his endowments. I turn to study the crimson leaves of the maple tree rustling outside his window rather than meeting his gaze. No way I can ever look in his eyes again. As if I wasn’t avoiding him before now. After this, I will never be able to look him in the face again.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m decent now. What are you doing in my room, Fab?”

“I didn’t know it was your room. I’m sorry. I was trying to get away… and then I ended up here.” I need to get out of here, like last year. Why has no one invented time travel yet?

“You were trying to get away? Was someone trying to hurt you? Are you okay?” He sounds upset.

The damp heat of his body hits me before my brain realizes he’s taken a couple of steps closer. I pull back when his powerful hand closes around my upper arm in a gentle squeeze. He seems to realize what he did and drops it like my skin is coated in a layer of acid.

“No. Just my ex, his new girlfriend. It’s nothing. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

A shiver runs through me when his long finger tilts my chin up. “Stop saying you’re sorry. It’s fine. Were you crying?” His eyes are full of sympathy. They look like the eyes of the boy I used to know and love. Before.

My face slackens and I lean in, drawn to what I see in those soul deep eyes. His lips part. His lips are set in a more chiseled jaw than I remember, the lower one fuller than the top. Those lips gave me my first kiss. I close my eyes and remember that day as I press in closer longing for that memory. The taste and comfort and familiarity of those lips. Wanting to erase the memory of Connor’s.

It’s everything I remember. Soft and gentle, but somehow desperate and wild at the same time. His tongue darts in to run along my top lip and I let myself fall for a brief moment before I remember what happened the day after our first kiss. Like I’ve been shocked by a cattle prod I jerk away from him.

“Bast…” I cut myself off before I make a fool of myself again. He’s not Bastian anymore. He’s Sebastian Fleet. Hot shit hockey player and all-around ass. It won’t do me any good to forget that.

I bolt as if there’s a wave of hot lava on a collision course with my heels.

“Abby, wait!” His voice sounds as if he’s at the other end of a tunnel. Faraway and tinny, providing no competition for the thump of my heartbeat in my ears. I tear down the stairs and push through the crowd of people, ignoring the grunts of pain and indignant cries as I shove through toward the door.

I make it out the front door, but the crowd out here is just as bad as it is inside. My legs are burning as I push on until I reach the sidewalk. The biting cold breaks through the adrenaline, and I start shivering. My borrowed dress is as damp as my face, and I don’t have a ride.

“Abby, Abby!” Lia’s voice calls out, but I don’t quite have the energy to respond. She finds me anyway, her shiny dress probably glimmering like a beacon from the light of the streetlight I’m standing under.

I fall into the arms she wraps around me. “What happened?”

“I can’t… Can we just go home?”

“Of course, sweetie. I’ll grab us a ride.”

Chapter 4

Sebastian

Istandtherestunnedfor a minute, not quite believing that just happened. “Shit!”

I fling on whatever clothes my hands touch first and take the stairs two at a time. It’s hard to see anything past the mass of bodies packed into our house. I see no sign of brunette waves or that gold dress clinging to every delicious curve of my former friend.

My roommates are dominating the couch and TV area. Jax has a blond girl perched in his lap, running her fingers through his overgrown flop of hair. Beau and Dev are horsing around. I get in between them before the idiots injure themselves before the season even starts.

“Idiots. Have you seen a girl around here? Short, gold dress, Curly brown hair.”

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