Page 209 of Sebastian's Baby

I can barely breathe. This is worse than just no more sex. This is no contact at all.

Our medical appointments flash into my mind and the way that Lita has clung to me for dear life during every one of them. The way I’ve held her tightly, both giving and receiving comfort.

There is no fucking way that she came to this conclusion on her own. No way that she thinks she’s been ‘sending me mixed signals’ or ‘acting like we’re a couple.’ I know who the fuck put these thoughts in her head, and I’m furious at her.

I reach across to the screen in the middle of the dashboard and press Heather’s name in my list of favorite contacts.

Lita gasps and asks, “What are you doing?”

I don’t have time to answer her before Heather answers in a cheerful voice, “Hey, darling. What’s up?”

“Can you keep your fucking nose out of my business, please?” I growl at her.

“What is this about?” Heather sounds surprised, considering I’ve never yelled at her.

“I’ve told you this before, but apparently, you haven’t understood. I don’t fucking want you to involve yourself in my relationship with Lita. What we’re doing has nothing to do with you, do you get that?”

Heather blows out a long breath of air before she says, “Okay, so thanks for dumping me in it, Lita.”

“Don’t have a fucking go at her for whatyoudid, Heather,” I snap.

“Right. Well, all I said was that she shouldn’t lead you on after she told me that you’d slept together a few days ago. I said it to her because she’s my friend, and it’s the same thing that I would say to any of my friends if I was watching them do this shit.”

Frankly, I don’t give a damn how she wants to justify this to herself. She stuck her nose into my relationship with Lita when I repeatedly asked her not to, and now she’s fucked everything up.

“Also, you can’t dictate to me who I can and can’t be friends with, Sebastian Fox. If Lita doesn’t want my advice, I won’t give it to her, but that’s her call to make. Just because you don’t want to discuss shit with me, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t.”

She didn’t get the fucking hint that if I didn’t want to talk to her about this, there was a goddamn reason for that. I’m going to make her understandexactlyhow badly she has fucked this up, and I hope she feels terrible for what she’s done.

“Lita is telling me that I basically can’t touch her anymore. The times that we’ve had sex, I’ve been the one who initiated it, not her. It’s not even the sex that I care about, though. Do you know when I’ve been touching her the most? When we’re at doctor’s appointments. On the way to them, or during them, or after them, when she’s crying and terrified for our child.”

Heather gasps quietly when I say it. I know that I’m being brutally honest right now, giving her an insight into something she can’t possibly truly understand because she hasn’t been through it.

“What’sunfairis not Lita having sex with me, but the fact that we’re going through this shit at all. I don’t expect you to understand what we’re going through—nobody does unless they’ve been through it—but you need to step back, Heather. Our shit is complicated enough as it is without you making it worse.”

If that doesn’t make my position perfectly fucking clear, then I don’t think anything else will.

Even Heather can understand when she should back the fuck off, though, because she sighs and says, “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

“No, clearly, you didn’t. You’re so busy worrying about Lita apparently ‘leading me on’ that you didn’t even consider that I'm a 'grown-ass adult,' as you put it, and I know what I'm doing. So, let me reiterate: my relationship with Lita is between nobody but us.”

What little relationship there is now. We’re both suffering, and what Heather’s done today has made thisso muchworse.

“You’re right that I can’t stop you from being friends with her. I like that you’re friends with Lita; both of you mean the world to me, so it’s great that you get along. I just need you to stop getting involved because you’re not helping anyone right now.”

I’m not yelling anymore, and I practically beg her to butt out, because I don’t know what to do if she keeps getting involved. Everything is so completely fucked up, and I can’t cope as it is. If Lita sticks to this new rule of me not touching her at all, I don’t know how I can possibly watch her suffer without being able to help.

“Noted. I’m sorry, guys. I’ll stay out of it in the future.”

“Thank you. That’s all I’m asking.”

I hang up the call, and there’s silence in the wake of my conversation with Heather. Neither of us speaks as we drive for a few minutes. When we stop at another set of lights, I look over at Lita.

“So, the new ground rules. I need to know when they do and don’t apply. I know you said that they’re firm, but what about our appointments with Eric?”

Lita thinks about it and then says, “I don’t know.”

“Well, when you figure it out, let me know, princess.”

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