* * *
Back at the hotel, Abby was unsurprised when she heard raised voices from the room beside hers, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing. She was also not entirely unsurprised when she heard a knock at her own door. She wasn’t sure what Sebastian would want from her, but as she crossed the room, she made herself a promise that, whatever transpired, it wouldn’t end up with the two of them in bed.
She gave her ponytail a tweak and opened the door to find Sebastian standing there, still in his clothes from dinner. His formerly glossy and perfectly arranged hair looked like he’d been tugging at it, and his expression was miserable.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
Abby opened her mouth to tell him that they had nothing to say to one another, then remembered that she had an official role to play. She was the ride leader and not just a fellow cyclist-slash-lady with hurt feelings. Maybe Sebastian was here on Breakaway business. Maybe he’d done something to his bike when he’d fallen, or hurt himself. “Sure. What’s going on?”
Sebastian raked his hand through his curls. “I just… the thing on TikTok.” He made an unamused scoffing sound. “Only it’s not just on TikTok anymore. Page Six… TMZ…” He shook his head. “I want to talk to you about it.”
“Like I said, you don’t owe me an explanation.”
He yanked at his hair, then looked at her. “If I’d been able to find you…”
She stared at him, puzzled, disbelieving, feeling her heart beating hard. “So you’ve been, what, exactly? Pining for me for the last two years? Trying to bury your sorrows in…” She paused, realizing, belatedly, that bury was not, perhaps, the best choice of words. It conjured some very specific memories; ones she wished weren’t quite so vivid.
“It wouldn’t have worked,” she said. “We’re in very different places.”
He squinted at her, head cocked. “Are we, though?”
“Well, let’s see. You’re in Brooklyn, I’m in Philadelphia. You have a job, I have a boyfriend.” Abby stopped, realizing that hadn’t come out the way she’d thought it would. It sounded like she was saying that he did journalism for a living, and she did Mark. Which wasn’t what she’d meant. Mark wasn’t her job, and he wasn’t a sugar daddy, either. “You’re clearly interested in playing the field.” And then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “Playing all the fields.”
She saw hurt flash across his face and felt a stab in her own heart.
“That’s not fair,” he said.
She pulled in a breath and nodded, admitting it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. That was unnecessary. I—Look, I think it’s just better for both of us if we…” She flapped her hands in a vague motion, one that she hoped he’d be able to interpret as forget we ever met before the trip started, and speak to each other as little as possible until it’s over.
Sebastian stepped forward until he was standing right in front of her, so close that their noses practically touched. She could see the way his eyelashes curled up at the tip; his faintly stubbled cheeks and full lips. She could hear him breathing, and she could smell him: cinnamon and mint; shampoo and soap, the warm, clean scent she remembered from his sheets and his skin, something a little woodsy and also a little like toast. He put his hand on her upper arm, fingers curling around her biceps. Abby’s inhalation sounded almost like a gasp, and suddenly, in spite of everything she’d read and everything she’d learned, Abby wanted to feel his hands on her again, holding her hips, or brushing her cheek, or cupping the back of her head.
“I asked you to come home with me because I liked you,” he said.
Abby rolled her eyes a little. Sebastian’s gaze didn’t waver. His eyes were still on her face. Her mouth, specifically. Abby decided she needed to make explicit what she’d hoped her arm-waving gesture had implied.
“I had a nice time with you,” she said. Her voice was a little too loud, slightly stiff. “But I have a boyfriend.”
“Was he your boyfriend the night we met?”
Abby felt her face get hot and was glad she was being honest when she shook her head. “He wasn’t my boyfriend yet.”
“If I’d been able to find you… if I’d asked you to have dinner with me… do you think you’d still want to be with him?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Abby asked indignantly. “That’s completely theoretical. And it doesn’t matter. Because that’s not what happened.”