Page 185 of Sebastian's Baby

“Too bad my birthday was last month, Lita,” Hayden says.

“I’ll make you a game if you want.” Lita shrugs as if this is a super casual thing that anyone could do and not something completely cool. “It’s not like I have anything better to do with my time at the moment.”

“Hey, am I not better than coding?” I raise an eyebrow at her and expect her to say something about us not having sex anymore.

She just rolls her eyes at me and says, “Hayden will definitely win every game. In fact, Sebastian will lose to everyone in this game.”

“I would pay many, many dollars to play this game you’re talking about,” Harrison tells Lita as he walks over to join us.

“You don’t even know what game she means,” I point out.

“I don’t need to know. I just heard, ‘Sebastian will lose to everyone,’ and I was hooked.”

“We should put my birthday game on the website; I bet the fans would love it.”

“We already put up a happy birthday message to you, and you didn’t even respond,” Hayden smirks.

I roll my eyes. “I’ve been kind of busy today, but seriously…” I trail off and look at Lita because I don’t want to just do it if she doesn’t want me to. “Would you be okay with me putting the game up for other people to play?”

“Sure,” Lita smiles at me. “I’m kind of embarrassed by the idea of other people playing it, but it is the sort of thing I would havelovedwhen I was a fan.”

“You’re not a fan now?” I tease her. Then I look in her eyes to gauge her reaction when I ask, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to say yes. You get to make the decisions, remember?”

She smiles at me, and I don’t see any hesitation when she says, “No, go ahead and do it. Get it done quickly, so it goes up while it’s still your birthday.”

“I’ll call Andi and see if he can get it done right away. I’ll let you know what he says,” Hayden says, pulling out his phone as he walks away to make the call.

“I’ll go with you,” Blake says, trailing after him, and I’m happy to see him go.

“Oh, I’ve spoken to Andi a few times; he’s awesome,” Lita says with a nod.

“Why am I not surprised that you have, fangirl?” I ask.

Lita shrugs and smiles at me. “A couple of times I’ve sent through feedback on issues I’ve come across.”

Of course she has. It’s exactly the sort of thing she would do, and I love that she cares about our site enough to give feedback on any issues so they can be fixed.

“Best fan ever,” I tell her.

We’re talking with Harrison and Heather, who came over to join us after Ariana beat her in their pool game, when Hayden and Blake come back.

“Andi said to upload the file to the server, and he’ll put it on the site straight away.”

“Okay, we’ll go upload the file, and I’ll text him when it’s done,” I tell him, and I take Lita’s hand to pull her up from the stool as I do.

We make our way back to my office, where I log into my computer and then the file server so Lita can upload the file before I send Andi the text to say that it’s been done.

When she stands up from the chair, I pull her into a hug. “Thank you, princess.”

“For what?” she asks.

“For everything. For making today the best birthday I’ve ever had. For caring about me as much as you do. For having my baby. My life is a million times better now because you’re in it.”

“My life is better because you’re in it too.”

Her words are both sweet and bitter because I know that, like most things, she’ll just be saying it because it’s true. I want her to be saying it because she loves me the way that I love her, and she’s not.

I smile at her because I can’t say any of this, so I just say quietly, “We should go back to the others.”

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