Page 11 of Stormi & Sebastian (Shorts #1)

Stormi’s POV

I could not believe the addition would be done in a month! Thank goodness, too, because it seemed we would be moving Stevie into her big girl room sooner than anticipated.

I’d been more tired than usual and a little moody, which was more so than usual, so I decided to test two days ago.

All I could hope was that Bastian would take the news well.

We had been…in a weird place.

I wasn’t sure what was going on with him.

He had been working a lot lately, I wasn’t sure if a project had him worried or what, or if he was trying to expand the publishing house.

It had grown quite a bit since my book was published almost four years ago.

He had still been a great father; he had just been distracted when we were together.

He was always on his phone or his laptop.

He was hardly ever home in time for bedtime anymore, let alone during dinner.

In the last three weeks, he had only made it to three bedtimes and one dinner.

One.

Dinner.

I knew I had been busy with Stevie lately, but she was finally starting to walk and be a little more independent. Which was a blessing. I just hoped it was nothing too serious.

Cooking dinner for all of us, even though I knew it was most likely only going to be Stevie and me, Bastian probably wasn’t going to make it again, I knew I was going to tell him tonight.

Stevie had a shirt on that said.

“Big Sis”.

I could not wait to see his face when he got home, whenever that was.

Hopefully, before bedtime.

I hoped he was excited.

I made sure I had everything to make his favorite dinner, wedding soup, spaghetti, and meatballs with homemade garlic bread.

I set the table, dished out food for the two of us, and hoped I wouldn’t be checking the clock too often.

It was late when Sebastian got home.

Incredibly late.

Well past Stevie’s bedtime.

He jumped when I turned the light in the living room on from the chair I was sitting in.

I felt like one of those wives in the movies, where she stays up late to catch her husband, thinking he’s been cheating, but when he gets home, he just gaslights her until it comes out ten minutes further into the movie, her gut feeling was right all along.

“I thought you’d be asleep.”

His words were awkward as he looked away while he spoke to me, meeting my gaze when he was done.

“No. I wanted to wait for my husband, because I never see him anymore, Sebastian,”

I said, my voice strained, ‘What’s been going on?”

He scoffed.

“Nothing. Why would anything be going on?”

“Because you’ve been home for three bedtimes with Stevie and one dinner with us in three weeks. What is going on? Is everything okay at the publishing house? Is it a client? Are you sick?”

I asked, throwing out whatever I could think of, whatever possibility came to mind.

“Is there someone else?”

He glared at me when I said that.

“Never. Why would you even think that?”

I stood, slowly walking towards him, pausing inches from him. I wanted to see when I hit the mark. I wanted him to see how badly I was hurting. If he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see it from across the room, then he was going to see it up close and personal.

“Because you’re never home, Bastian! What’s going on with you?”

I practically begged, my voice choking on the emotion ready to pour from me at any moment.

“Please. Talk to me. I love you,”

I looked in his eyes, reaching out and grabbing onto his shirt, begging him to talk to me.

“I love you more than anything, Sebastian. I need you to know that, and I want to fix this. Whatever it is, whatever is going on.”

I was so close, so close I could smell his cologne. I could see how tired his eyes looked. I saw the pain and guilt flash in his eyes. I was begging for him to break my heart. I knew whatever was coming wasn’t going to be pretty. I knew, but I still begged.

“Please?”

Tears filled my eyes.

I wasn’t above begging my husband to talk to me.

To let me help fix us.

Or to break my heart into a million pieces, I would never recover from.

I was about to become a broken mother of two, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

He looked away, taking a deep breath, letting the silence hang heavy in the air between us.

When he finally looked back at me, he had tears in his eyes, and the pain and guilt were all-consuming him.

This was it.

He was going to shatter me.

“I have cancer.”

What?

“Stage three.”

He whispered into the stillness of our living room. My breath hitched in my throat.

No. What?

“What?!”

I whispered-shouted, confusion on my face, my brain refusing to accept what was happening. My confused question, that sounded more like a demand, was rasped out, dripping with desperation, that I’d heard him wrong.

“I have stage three colon cancer.”

He was talking slowly like he was talking to Stevie, and it was important, and he wanted her to understand. How could he have stage three colon cancer? He looked completely healthy.

“They don’t know if we can operate. I’ve been doing scans and biopsies, and getting second and third, fourth, and fifth opinions these last three weeks since finding out.”

I stared at him, my hands gripping so tightly around his shirt that I couldn’t feel my hands anymore.

“No.”

I felt my knees give out as Sebastian wrapped me in a hug, slowly easing us onto the floor, me sitting on him. “No,”

I said more strongly, like I could tell the cancer to go away and it would listen. Like if I said it enough, it would be true, that I could will the cancer away.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Stormi. I’m sorry I’ve been keeping a distance from you two. I didn’t want to have this talk until I knew more, had more answers, and a plan. I just—”

Something snapped back in place when he said that.

A plan.

“When’s your next appointment? I’m going to be there.”

I needed to talk with his doctor, or doctors, to get a plan together for him so we could get through this. We were going to fight it. All of it. Fighting like never before.

“Tomorrow at nine.”

“Great. My dad was going to watch Stevie anyway while I met with the contractor,”

Already planning to have Mom pop in on camera and talk with the contractor, or have him email me a report so I could email back questions I had. I didn’t care. I had to be at that appointment. He nodded.

“You should know, I made my last will and testament. Just in case.”

I put my hands over his mouth, having to swallow the bile that rose in my throat at the thought of him being gone.

No. He was going to stay here. With me, with Stevie. With our baby.

“Tomorrow. Tell me tomorrow. Tonight, I need your love, and to tell you something. And we hold each other. I need you,”

I looked him right in the eyes, tears falling down both our cheeks, “Please.”

“Anything,”

he kissed me deeply.

Not in a rushed, I need you now, kind of way.

More in a, I want to savor everything in this moment kind of way.

From the way he tasted and the way he felt.

To the way his mouth felt on mine and the way he made my body shiver, pulling moans from me that made him get even more excited.

Those were the moments I was lost in for the next hour while we kissed, and touched, and memorized each other, feeling every deep emotion, every single good memory came flooding back to me, everything that turned me on about him, everything I knew I’d never forget.

Every inch of skin on each other was worshipped.

We would worry about everything else tomorrow.

After the doctor’s appointment.

“I love you, Stormi. You are my life. You and Stevie,”

he whispered into my hair as he fell asleep.

“And our newest member,”

I whispered to him, pressing his hand on my flat stomach.

I watched as realization suck in.

He pulled me snuggly next to him as I laid my head on his chest, listening to the thump of his heart.

Wishing there was a way to record the sound so I could play it at night when he would most likely have to be stuck in the hospital.

God.

It was going to be hard as hell to be away from him. We would need to come up with a good plan, a good support system, good team of doctors who believed in us. With a yawn, one final thought crossed my mind.

Let’s do this.