Page 33 of Treasure and Tarot

Colton stilled, then forced himself to take a deep breath. “Honey, I’m not the person to ask. I’ve wanted you the whole time. I didn’t know about any of this. So. If you’re not ready to kiss me, don’t. I can understand that. You’ve been really angry for really good reason for four years. It’s gonna take more than four days to fix that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it probably will, but—” Sebastian shrugged, rocking side to side like he was dancing. “I still want to kiss you a little bit.”

Sebastian held his eyes for a long minute, then he just smiled, leaned down, and brushed their lips together.

It was as electric this time as it was the first time. Like lightning hitting him right in the base of the skull and sliding down his spine.

It wasn’t a deep kiss. It wasn’t even an intense kiss. It was just…gentle. But he was going to take it. He was going to take it, and he was going to let it give him hope. Sebastian’s kisses made him feel like that mattered.

Especially when Sebastian leaned back and grinned at him like a cat who’d gotten the cream.

“Yeah, that was pretty good.” His heart was beating a million miles a minute.

“Pretty good. Well, I mean, I’ve had better.” Sebastian chuckled at himself and shook his head. “I’m really not good at this flirting thing. I’m not even sure I’m supposed to be flirting. I mean, you’re, you’re kind of my ex.”

“No, no.” He shook his head, rejecting that notion with everything he had. “No, we never broke up. I can’t be an ex if we didn’t break up.”

Sebastian blinked at him. “So what are you, a former?”

“I don’t like that either. I could be a lost lover?”

“An interrupted lover?” Now Sebastian was poking the bear.

“That sounds sort of like the rhythm method. No, I think I want to be your long-lost love. I was lost. It was love. I’m pretty long…”

“So.” Sebastian’s eyes went wide. “You’re not any better at this flirting thing than I am.”

“No, I totally am not, but I still like having fun with you.” He held Sebastian’s gaze. “That was one of the things I missed most about you. How much fun we had.”

Bastian nodded, making this soft little sound that almost broke his heart. “I missed that too. I kept thinking, even when I thought I hated you, that I wish Colton was here with us. That you would have loved this birthday or that trip to the park.”

“When’s her birthday?” Colton didn’t know when his own daughter’s birthday was.

“Halloween. She was born in the middle of the day on October thirty-first. Earlier than, I guess about—eleven in the morning, enough to where she could wear her little costume before Halloween was over. It was a tiny little itty wee frog costume. So cute.”

“Do you have pictures?” Dammit, he should have been there. He was meant to have been there. His parents had robbed that from him.

“Are you kidding?” Sebastian chuckled. “I’m a dad. I have pictures of everything. And if and when I don’t have pictures? Xavi and Xander do. Because they are the godfathers.”

“So she hasn’t gone trick-or-treating.”

Sebastian shook his head. “No, she’s been too little, and it’s her birthday, right? So…years two and three, by the time trick-or-treating was even a thought in Secret Springs, she was exhausted and grumpy and just wanted her bottle and a nap, you know? I mean, birthdays were pretty exciting at two and three years old.”

“But did she dress up?” he asked.

“She dressed up for both. Her first birthday, she was Minnie Mouse. Her second birthday, she was a pumpkin. And her third birthday, she picked out her own costume. She was a chicken.”

“A chicken? Uh. Like with feathers and everything? That’s great.” It was weird.

“She was a great big feathery chicken.”

“I never knew anybody who was a chicken for Halloween.”

Sebastian’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you don’t understand. She was a chicken for herbirthday. Everybody came to her birthday in farm animal costumes. You know, the cow goes moo, the chicken goes bock bock. The horse goes whinny whinny?”

“No shit? What did you dress as?”

“The farmer. Overalls. Straw hat. No pitchfork, though. With this lot, someone would have stabbed themselves in the face.”

---