He shoved a hand through his hair. "And…?"
"And I hated that cycle. But more than that, I didn't think we'd ever get out of it. I couldn't come back here and slip back into that cycle with you. I had to let the cycle burn itself out. I needed this time. I needed us to finish that last session without any shadow of a chance of us ending up in bed together after. I needed us to leave that entirely behind us. All of it. I wanted to talk to you afterward, but I knew it would feel like the same old Thursday thing and I need you to know that I have a bad history with unhealthy cycles. They're my most harmful coping mechanism. I can work a compulsion so hard, I don't even feel the pain I'm inflicting upon myself. Okay? They scare the shit out of me because I never realize I'm in them until it's too late. I needed to break this cycle, even if I had to hurt you for a few days."
"You could've told me that."
"I could have," I conceded. "But it took me some time to figure out what I needed. To be really terrifyingly honest with you, I didn't believe that you could actually want me if you didn't have all that anger toward me to burn off. I needed to prove that we weren't going to come back here and slip into the old patterns again, that the thing we had was real and not a product of the cycle. When Thursday came around, I thought that we'd carry that little debate about the junk I keep in my pockets with us and we'd have some angry, pocket-junk-fueled sex, and I'd never believe that what we have is different from that. That we're not addicted to the drama. Also, I knew you'd tell me not to worry about it."
He scratched the back of his neck. "You didn't need to worry about it."
"Maybe not, but I had to see that for myself."
Sebastian settled onto the landing across from me, his back against the wall. "And now that you've seen it? What have you decided?"
"I've realized that even though we are chaos, ours might be the right kind of chaos. It doesn't hurt me the way I thought it did. It doesn't hurt me at all."
He nodded to himself for a moment. "Why did you come here the other night?"
"Because O'Rourke told me he sent you home sick and I didn't want you to be alone."
"What about proving your points?"
I shrugged. "You've never let me be alone and I've never forgotten it. I came here, you know, that night. After everything at Acevedo's. I knew I'd done something wrong and I wanted to fix it. You didn't answer the door."
"I was very busy being mad at you that night."
"Are you busy being mad at me tonight?"
He shook his head. "No. I'm not mad. I'm relieved. This is my resting relieved face."
"I made Nick, Alex, and O'Rourke lie about the pizza party being canceled. It's not. Hartshorn's kid is fine. I had to get you alone and I had to do it away from work. And everyone else."
"You—hold up. You talked to people? Three people? By choice?"
I handed him my phone. "See for yourself."
He let out a massive sigh, one that shifted into an impatient growl, as he read the messages. "You sweet little liar. I need to get a vasectomy."
"What? How did we go from pizza to vasectomies?"
"Well, I mean, you don't want kids and I'm fucking old, so why not?" He banded one arm over his chest, gestured to me with the other. "I know I said I don't want to get married, but you do and that's enough reason for me to change my mind. I'm good with it."
"Did—did you just propose? To me? Right now?"
"No, I'm just telling you how it's going to be, Sara. And you have to know that if you want to leave Boston, I will find a way to part with the turkeys and the roads and the coffee cult and"—the jazz hands reemerged—"the leaves to go with you. You're going to have to deal with that."
"Okay." I was smiling in a way that I couldn't stop. It wasn't a choice. "You should know I special-order most of my groceries so that they arrive without nutrition labels because those things trigger disordered eating for me. That's why I can't have a smartwatch. Why I can't know how many steps I've walked or activity rings I've closed. It's already in my head, all of it, but I can't make it real unless I also want to make myself sick again, and I'll do anything in the world to avoid that. These things—these issues—they're not going to go away."
"Do you think you're scaring me? Come on, Shap. If you are, you need to try harder."
I really didn't want to laugh at that taunt, but I did. "I was serious when I said I wanted to move out of this building. It's very pretty and very convenient, but I am not a voyeur. I can't listen anymore and I can't deal with the idea of them listening to us."
"I'm going with you when you move," he said. "Plan accordingly."
I smiled down at my hands. "So then, you'll want a room for watching competitive cheerleading."
"Only if you're in there with me. I want the insider's take on things." Sebastian beckoned me. "Come here."
I closed the narrow distance between us with some graceless knee shuffling. When I settled on his lap, his arms loose around my waist, I continued, "I've never let anyone know me. Not all the way."
He gave a shake of his head. "Neither have I."
"It scares me to open up."
"It scares me to feel things. This week has been…not great."
I dropped my head to his shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"You got what you needed," he said, his hand skating up and down my back. "I can take a few days of misery if it means I get to wake up with you tomorrow morning."
"You get to do that." I pulled in a breath. "If you wanted," I started slowly, "we could head over to Hartshorn's. I'm told you have strongly positive feelings about college football."
"You don't want to go to that party," he said with a laugh.
"Actually, I do—sort of—want to stop by. For a bit." When Sebastian pressed his hand to my forehead and looked me over like I'd lost my senses, I added, "I can't do it all the time and food is always going to be rocky for me, but I kind of like these people. I don't hate it when I'm around them."
"You know I love you, right?"
"I do know that," I said. "I saw it today. I've seen it before, but I didn't recognize it until today. I had to belly-flop into it."
"Of course you did, you wicked little otter," he said.
"I love you too," I whispered against his neck.
"I know," he said. "I saw it the other night. And before that too. You've never hid it well."
"Shut up. I hide many things very well."
"Then you didn't want to hide it," he said, his hands slipping under my shirt. "As much as I enjoy arguing with you in stairwells, do you think we could move this to a bedroom? Perhaps a couch?"
"I have to text Acevedo. Should I tell him we're coming to this pizza party?"
"I can't even think about that until after I hug you for a whole fucking hour."