If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(87)

I smile as I watch Dad join Sebastian in the kitchen, muscling his way in to help, while Viggo packs up the leftover cookies and cakes.

“F?rst?tt,” I tell her.





Sebastian stands outside my apartment building with me, keys swinging on his finger. I need to stop seeing my panties twirling there instead and blushing every time he does it. “Tonight was…really wonderful,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I tell him.

He frowns. “For what?”

“For coming over, spending time with my family. I know they’re a lot.”

“They are,” he agrees. “But the best kind of ‘a lot.’” Slowly, he steps closer, clasping my hand, his thumb brushing my palm. “Thanks for sticking up for me tonight.”

“Sebastian, you don’t have to thank me for that—”

“Yes, I do. It…” He shifts on his feet. “It meant a lot to me.”

I bite my lip, then nod. “Okay.”

His gaze dances over me. “I meant to say you looked very lovely tonight, Ziggy. The emerald coat. The gray off-the-shoulder top. Stylish.”

“Well, I’ve learned from the best.”

“Ah, you figured out what you liked all on your own.” He tips his head and steps back, still holding my hand. His gaze slides down my legs. “Damn, those look good on you.”

He’s talking about my jeans. Tapered leg, mid-rise. Just the right amount of stretchy. Exactly like my old favorites that he cut into shorts, whose tag he read so carefully that first night he came by my place for reasons that were beyond me then. When I came back from my run right before the game tonight, these jeans and two other pairs in dark and black washes were waiting for me in a box propped against my door.

“Oh.” I turn a little, side to side, inspecting them. “These old things? Stop it.”

He laughs. “I don’t think I will.”

I peer up, meeting his eyes. “You sent these, didn’t you?”

“Who, me?” He makes a face. “I would never do something that—”

“Considerate? Thoughtful? Generous?” They aren’t cheap, these jeans. I remember seeing the price tag when Mom bought them for me and nearly choking. I also haven’t been able to find them anywhere.

“Shh.” He sets a finger to his mouth. “Word might get out that I’m capable of such things, then what would I do?”

I smile. “You’d be exposed. Brutally. For the good person that you are.”

“Ah, don’t push it.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t a big favor to ask. That’s one of the brand partnerships that I managed not to fuck up. They were all too happy to bring back that style for me. Just took them a couple weeks to get it together.”

My eyes narrow. That means he’s had this in the works for a while. Since…well, since I really didn’t think he cared about me at all. It makes those butterflies in my stomach flutter dangerously.

“It was really sweet of you, Sebastian. Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” he says.

“Hey.” I tug at his hand. “You just gave me hell for downplaying what I did when you thanked me. Don’t turn around and do the same thing. You thoughtfully, singlehandedly made it possible for me to have these jeans, the only ones I’ve ever found that work for me, and it was sweet and you deserve to be thanked for it.”

“They’re just jeans. You stood up to my awful family.”

“Because you deserve to be stuck up for, to be protected from that, that, that fuckery.”

“Sigrid!” he gasps.

I poke his side. “Be serious.”

He sighs. “Must I?”

Giving him a look, I glide my fingertips along his. “For a moment, yes. Let’s agree we won’t downplay what we are or do for each other anymore, okay? I just want us to be us. I want us to be honest. You saw how busy we’ve been the past few weeks, how much less we’ve seen of each other. I don’t want anything else like half-truths and omissions keeping us even further apart. Okay?”

A smile lifts his mouth. “Yeah, Sigrid. Okay.” Pocketing his keys, Sebastian steps closer and threads his fingers tight through mine. His gaze drifts up to my hair, which he smooths gently away from my face before he meets my eyes. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Miss me?”

“Sigrid.” He lifts his eyebrows. “You just said yourself how busy we’ve been. That’s nothing to what’s coming. Have you looked at our Google calendar for the foreseeable future?”

“Oh.” I clear my throat. “I might have been avoiding it.”

Because I know what’s coming. Angel City’s regular season is winding down, but the National Team has international friendlies lined up throughout the month, and my schedule’s packed with a slew of new and prospective brand sponsorship meetings, interviews, and photo shoots. The irony that these opportunities, in part made possible because I put myself out there in the public eye with Sebastian and got myself noticed, are the very things that are going to keep me away from him.

“Well, when you give up that avoidance tactic, you’ll see what I mean.” He sighs heavily, tugging me toward him. “C’mon. Hug me goodbye.”