If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(18)

“Now,” he says, his voice warm on my neck. “You tell me how you look.”

I bite my lip against a smile, meeting my reflection’s gaze. “I look badass.”

Sebastian’s eyes lock with mine in the mirror as he stands behind me. His expression is blank, but his gaze is sharp, piercing. “Come on, then, badass. Time to eat.”





Sebastian looks comically out of place in Betty’s Diner as we sit in a shiny retro vinyl booth, oldies playing on the jukebox. This six-three, dark-haired Adonis with his tats and silver chains and rings, wearing his expensive-looking clothes and a severe expression, reads the menu surrounded by families with babies banging on tables and senior citizens digging into apple pie.

I nudge his knee under the table. He lowers the menu just enough to reveal those cold quicksilver eyes, one dark arched eyebrow. “What?”

Setting my elbows on the table, I lean in, voice quiet. “We’re supposed to be passing as friends. Not two strangers stuck in a booth at a diner you wish was a club instead.”

He sighs, lowering his menu fully, then mirroring me, resting his elbows on the table, lacing his hands together. The lights wink off his silver rings, drawing my attention to his fingers and the ink woven over them.

“It’s not polite to stare, Ziggy dear.”

“Does it hurt, when you get them?” I point to his hands. I’m too riveted to acknowledge how annoyingly condescending that Ziggy dear is.

“Yes,” he says simply.

I glance up, searching his eyes. He takes a sip of water. “Is it a good hurt?”

Sebastian chokes on his water, then wipes his mouth, frowning at me. “What the hell does someone like you know about a ‘good hurt’?”

“‘Someone like me’ would be a twenty-two-year-old bisexual woman who knows more than you think.” I glare at him. We engage in a little stare down. “I’m not a nun, Sebastian. Stop acting like it.”

“You”—he leans in, voice low—“are my best friend’s baby sister. That’s exactly how I’m going to act. Do you understand?”

I lean even closer, then whisper, “No.”

“What’ll it be?” Our waiter, Stevie, breaks the moment. Pulling apart, we pointedly do not look at each other. When I place my order, Stevie, who knows me from my late-night diner runs with Ren over the years, gives Sebastian a very obviously appreciative glance, then throws me a wink and mouths, Wow.

Once he’s gone, Sebastian says, “This might be a problem.”

“What?”

He slouches in the booth, one hand’s worth of inked fingers drumming across the table. “People will assume we’re fucking.”

My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “You can’t say that word in Betty’s Diner. Also, why?”

He smirks. “Because that’s what I do best, Ziggy dear. Besides hockey. And when I’m seen out with anyone besides people on the team, that’s what the tabloids—reasonably, I might add—assume.”

I decide to study the menu so I won’t have to look at Sebastian while he talks about this. I’m turning bright red. “Well, then…it’ll just be another way that you’re showing you’ve reformed. You made friends with someone who you’re not trying to…”

He leans in, an elbow on the table, his face propped in his hand. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“Sleep with,” I finish timidly.

He tsks. “Honestly, Sigrid. You could say it. Fuck.”

“It’s a family establishment. You can’t keep saying that here.”

Rolling his eyes, he slumps back in the booth again. I glance around, hoping we haven’t been loud enough for people to be offended by Sebastian’s foul mouth.

That’s when I realize while nobody looking at us seems scandalized, there are definitely a lot of patrons looking our way. A couple of them not-so-subtly pick up their phones either to film or take a picture.

There are a lot of eyes on us.

My pulse starts pounding in my ears. My legs start to wiggle under the table. I pick up the menu again despite already having ordered.

Memories from high school, the creep of anxiety as I walked into classrooms, the cafeteria, the locker room, make me shut my eyes and suck in a deep breath.

This is why I’ve done my best to go unnoticed for so long. Because the last time I felt seen, I was an awkward girl with incapacitating anxiety, a total inability to make friends, and a perpetual fear of saying the wrong thing—of saying anything, for that matter.

“Shit,” I whisper, exhaling shakily.

“Sigrid.” Sebastian sounds delighted. “Is that a swearword I finally heard?”

I throw him a glare, or try to, but the world feels a little fuzzy. I’m having a hard time taking a deep breath.

Sebastian’s sly smirk dissolves on his face as he takes me in. “What the hell’s wrong?”

A thick swallow works down my throat as I clutch the menu for dear life. “I think this might have been an epic mistake.”





7





SEBASTIAN





Playlist: “Don’t Let It Get You Down,” Johnnyswim





I should be thrilled that Ziggy’s second-guessing this nonsense. Considering how things went in her apartment, I should jump at the chance to end this ridiculous stunt before it’s even begun.