Page 168 of The Sun & Her Burn

SEBASTIAN

Sunrise came too early, spilling pale tangerine light over the shimmering waves and toeing my toes like a warm kiss. It did little to heat the coldness emanating from my heart turning my body to ice where I lay enfolded in the bodies of my lovers. I had the morbid thought I would have liked to be entombed like this, after death, in a tangle of Adam’s and Linnea’s limbs until we all turned to dust.

This morning felt like a death, so I took a moment to lie in my coffin and remember all of the beautiful moments that had led to this. Seeing Linnea for the first time in so long in a yellow sundress in the middle of the interview that threw me back into Adam’s orbit. Realizing that the girl I had considered one of my best friends since she was sixteen was now a woman I could easily fall in love with. Showing up at Adam’s house and pretending that I didn’t ache every time he looked at me or breathed or moved. Concocting the scheme that, in hindsight, had been more than a little selfish, my subconscious last-ditch attempt to bring me closer to Adam, to heal hurts in him and Linnea that weren’t mine to heal.

They would treat each other well, I knew, and their grief over losing me wouldn’t rip them apart the way it had done with Adam and Savannah. Instead, it would knit them closer, Linnea’s clever hands sewing them together in a way I was sure could not be undone.

If I let her, I knew she would do the same with me.

I had to get up before they woke.

But we had turned to each other so much in the night, my body was sore in ways it had never hurt before, and every atom of my being resisted the idea of moving out from under their warm, heavy bodies.

Only the thought of saving Adam and Linnea from Oscar eventually got me moving.

Because if the sex tape released, it wouldn’t just impact Adam, but Linnea, too. The speculation on around her being his beard or her being stupid enough to marry a gay man––because bi-erasure was alive and kicking––would hurt her career and their relationship.

I held my breath as I maneuvered away from them, and then froze when Adam cracked an eye open to regard me with sleepy confusion.

“I have to use the restroom,” I lied, and the words hurt coming up.

He grunted, curling around Linnea. “Hurry back.”

I closed my eyes a second after his closed and fought back the sob that lodged in my throat. Giving in to one last impulse, I leaned forward to kiss Linnea’s forehead and then found Adam watching me from one squinted green eye.

“I love you in any universe,” I told him before kissing him lightly as if I would do as he said and hurry back.

“I love you in this one, my Polaris,” he replied firmly, cupping the back of my head to bring me in for a harder, longer kiss. The nickname scored through me as deeply as the kiss did. “If youaren’t back in ten minutes, I’ll drag you back here. I intend to have you both again when the sun is properly up.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed with a lopsided smile and then waited until his hand dropped and he closed his eyes to get up and collect my clothes.

I dressed beside them but for my shoes and then slowly climbed the wooden staircase built into the cliffside to reach the house. It was empty and dark inside, too early even for Bruce to be in the kitchen or Chaucer to be up for her endless errands. I collected my belongings from Adam’s spacious suite as quickly and quietly as I could.

The streets of Los Angeles were quiet, too as I drove back into town toward the hotel I’d barely used in the last week. Blurry-eyed and hollow-souled, I left my car with the valet and shuffled into the elevator.

I thought about calling Elena and decided I would do that after I booked flights to England and got a few more hours of sleep.

So I wasn’t prepared to open my hotel door and find Savannah Richardson sitting on my bed.

I rubbed my eyes hard to erase the vision, and when that didn’t work, I merely stared at her.

“Hello, Sebastian,” she said softly, hands clasped in her lap, face devoid of its usual makeup.

In fact, her hair was pulled back at the crown in a kind of ponytail, the short ends escaping at the bottom, and her outfit was a subdued cashmere knit set in stone that she normally wouldn’t wear out of the house. She looked…soft. Soft and sad. A half-erased sketch of the person she usually was.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, and my voice sounded strange in my ears, almost combative.

I guessed I was at the end of my very long rope.

Her smile fell flat on her face, and she gestured to the suitcase I just now noticed huddled in the corner of the suite.

“I left him,” she whispered. “I left Tate.”

I blinked, suddenly unsteady on my feet as if I had been hit in the head.

I wondered if perhaps I had.

Because this was too surreal to process.