Page 75 of Sterling Heat

Sebastian pushes off the stroller to stand straighter and crosses his arms. “She’s also fucking smart, like you.”

With my head still bowed forward, I press my fingernail into the soft cover of the stroller handle. I can feel Sebastian focused on me, but I refuse to look up at him. I’m botching up whatever this is between us by overthinking everything.

He bends his knees and dips his head. “Enya, you’re my number one.”

My head snaps upward. “Why?” I blink, glance left, then look back at him, searching his face for answers. “Why are we friends?” The question echoes, drawing attention from people on the opposite side of the street. Lowering my voice, I add, “You can stop feeling sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you.” Sebastian drops his arms, stretching out his fingers near his thighs. “What did I say last night?”

He said a lot of things, calling sacred body parts pretty and me baby.

“I told you I’m interested.”

“Interested in what, Sebastian? Hanging out with the single mom who doesn’t have any friends? Playing dad when you don’t want to be a father?” I sound pathetic. I am pathetic. I’ve made so many mistakes. Put my faith in so many misguided directions. Then I glance down at Adara and remind myself I’ve done one thing right. Her. The two of us.

Sterling Falls is the promise of a new chapter where I write the storyline, and falling for a man who doesn’t want commitment is not part of my plot again.

“Never mind,” I murmur, angling the stroller to walk around him. “I’m taking myself to dinner.”

“Yes,” he blurts.

I stumble to a stop, causing him to stand beside the stroller. He sets his hand on the side bar, holding the stroller in place, but he’s gripping it like it might be holding him up.

“Yes. I want to hang out with the single mom. Not because she has no friends, but because she’s my friend. And hopefully, more.” His voice drops rougher, raspy. “I don’t have many friends. And she’s . . . you’re . . . one of the best people I know. One of the best I’ve ever known.”

“Sebastian,” I whisper.

“You’re always thanking me, but I should be thanking you. For whatever reason, you fell in front of my bakery.”

An embarrassed chuckle bursts from me.

“Fate. God. A UFO. I don’t care how you got there.” He nods behind me at the spot feet away from where we stand, where I stumbled on my heels and fell on my backside that rainy fall day. “I’m just thankful you’re here.”

He exhales heavily. “And yes, that means I also want to share in Adara’s life.”

He licks his lips, closes his eyes a second and turns his head side to side, cracking his neck. “I don’t know what that looks like. How to label it.” He swallows hard, like he can’t find an alternative word for father or dad. “But I want to be here for her. For both of you, in any way you’ll have me.”

My shoulders relax while my grip on the stroller tightens. I don’t want to focus on what he’s not saying, but what he is. “So what does this mean? For all of us?” Because Adara and I are a package deal.

“I’d like to try.” He pauses again. “I want to try us. Together.” He gives a quick glance toward Adara before looking up at me. A thousand words flicker through his blue eyes, filled with desire for me to understand their meaning when I can’t read as fast as the emotions shift through his gaze.

I want to be here for him, too. We can take it one emotion at a time.

“Okay,” I whisper, still uncertain what this means for my heart or my future. Or for Adara. Trying isn’t rejection, though. And Sebastian and I both have felt stepped out on enough to know trying means so much more than walking away.

“Okay,” Sebastian sighs. Relief is the final emotion filling his face. He steps closer to me, brushing at a loose hair and running the back of his knuckles along the column of my throat. “Permission to kiss you in public?”

I chuckle at the reminder of me asking him if I could enter his private domain behind the customer counter.

“Permission granted.” My throat fills with giddy anticipation but I’m still unprepared for the intensity of his kiss. His hand cups the side of my neck as his mouth meets my lips. Then his other hand slips into the hair at my nape. While his mouth moves over mine, he holds me like I’m fragile, precious, important to him.

I’m his number one.

He’s tied with Adara for first place with me.

The kiss is tender but demanding, imparting on me the effort he’s willing to put into us.

When he finally draws back, my eyes remain closed a second and he runs his nose along the side of mine. “Now, you mentioned dinner.” He slips his hand around the back of my neck and squeezes. “Where are we going?”