“Stay here a sec. I’m going to grab something.” Abby got to her feet, pulled up her hood, and ran to where she’d leaned her bike against a neighboring tree. From her handlebar bag, she removed her microfiber towel and the single long-sleeved shirt she’d packed, thinking she’d need them at some point if the rain kept up. She shoved them into her pockets and ran back to Sebastian.
“Here. Dry off a little.” It was still pouring, but at least the tree was giving them some shelter. Sebastian took the towel, gave his face a perfunctory swipe.
“You’re shivering,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry, Abby.” He was very close to her, his thigh pressed against the side of her thigh, with his arm against her arm. “This was dangerous and dumb, and I shouldn’t have made you do it.”
“It’s okay. Really. It’s fine.” She swallowed hard, steeling herself. “And I shouldn’t have ghosted you. You’re right. It wasn’t very mature.” She hesitated, then made herself say it. “Like I told you, I’d never done anything like that before…”
He opened his eyes again, just a slit. “Never? I think you said ‘hardly ever.’?”
“Never,” Abby repeated. “It’s—I guess it’s just not who I am.” Also, it wasn’t as if she’d had endless opportunities to go home with handsome strangers. But never mind that.
“Hold still.” Sebastian reached over—not very far, she realized, they were so close together that there wasn’t much distance to cover—unclipped her helmet’s chin strap and pulled it off.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a little faintly.
“Come here,” he said, beckoning her closer. Abby felt like she’d been hypnotized as she leaned toward him. She wondered if he was going to try to kiss her… but what he did was tilt her head forward and gently towel off her hair. He did it just right, his hands firm but not too rough, gently squeezing the strands and rubbing at her scalp. When he stopped, their faces were very close. She could see the blue-gray of his eyes, and the drops of water clinging to his lashes, and she could hear her pulse beating in her ears. For what felt like an endless span of time, they just looked at each other. Then, slowly, Sebastian reached out and put his fingers on Abby’s cheek.
She thought, I have a boyfriend.
She thought, He just wants to be my friend. And this is not friendly behavior.
She thought, He is going to kiss me. I should stop him. She pictured her arm, lifting, her hand, pressing on his shoulder, pushing him away. But, even though she could imagine every step, her body did not seem interested in stopping Sebastian’s mouth’s inexorable progress toward her own.
Abby let her eyes slide shut, and her lips part as Sebastian got closer, and she could feel his breath on her skin.
That was when Abby’s phone rang.
“Hey there!” Jasper said, sounding cheerful and chipper. “Just dropped off the first crew, and I’m on my way back to you. Google says thirty-seven minutes. And I’m bringing hot coffee.”
“You’re an angel from heaven,” Abby said.
“Sit tight. Stay safe. I’ll see you soon.”
Abby ended the call. Sebastian was still very close to her, still looking at her with something close to wonder on his face. She took the towel out of his hands and handed him her shirt. “Put this on.”
He looked down at it. “It’s yours. You take it.”
“You’re wet.”
“We’re both wet.”
“Yeah, but you fell off your bike and hit your head. And you’re hurt. And your jacket got ripped.”
He looked down, noticing the damage to the garment for the first time.
“And I’m still worried that you’ve got a concussion. I think you might be in shock.” She more or less shoved the shirt into his hands.
Sebastian took it. Then he looked at Abby, smiling slightly. “Are you trying to get me to take my clothes off?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to get you to put clothes on. I’m trying to make sure you don’t die of hypothermia.”
He considered the shirt, then looked at her again. “If I put it on, will you have dinner with me tomorrow?”
Speaking slowly, increasingly convinced he’d suffered a brain injury, Abby said, “I have dinner with you every night.”
“Yeah, but we’re going to a nice place tomorrow night.”
She stared at him. It was true that the group had a reservation at Sackett’s Table, which Food & Wine had named one of the best restaurants in upstate New York. Abby was surprised that Sebastian was paying enough attention to the itinerary to know about it.
“So will you sit with me at dinner?”
“Why?”
He looked a little indignant. “I like you,” he said. “I would like to be your friend.”
“Friend,” Abby repeated. Sebastian just looked at her. Then, very slowly and deliberately, he brushed his fingertips against her cheek. Abby’s sharp inhalation was audible, even over the rain.
Get a hold of yourself, she thought, and shook her wet hair back over her shoulders. “Look. You just had a near-death experience…”
Sebastian snorted. “I fell off my bike. I didn’t survive a ten-car pileup. There was no white light that I felt like I needed to go toward.”
“You had a traumatic experience,” Abby amended. “And you might have hit your head. And it’s cold. And—again—I have a boyfriend. I can’t go on a date with you!”
“Who said date?” Sebastian asked reasonably. “It’s just dinner. We can go as friends.”
Abby tried not to think about how badly she wanted to just give in, say yes, throw her arms around him, and kiss him until neither one of them noticed the rain or the cold. “You don’t know anything about me,” she said.
Sebastian, smiling a little, shook his head and reached for her hand again. “I know you pack scented candles when you go on bike trips.”
Abby stared at him. She’d mentioned her candle during a lunchtime conversation that she’d had with the Spoke’n Four, about useless luxury items that people brought with them, and the ridiculous things other riders did to cut weight, like snapping their toothbrushes in half or shaving bars of soap down to tiny slivers, but she didn’t remember Sebastian listening, or even being at the table when they talked.
“I know you ride thirty miles by yourself every Sunday morning. I know your best friend is Lizzie, and you met her when you were eight and she was forty-two, and she’s the one who got you into leading bike rides. I know you used to think your bike was a magic carpet, and it could take you away when your parents were fighting.”
Abby continued to stare at him. She was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open, too.
“I know you know how to change a flat tire.”
“Yeah,” Abby muttered. “When we’ve got some free time, I’ll teach you.” Sebastian reached for her hand.
“I know you,” he said.
Above their heads, the rain seemed to be slowing from a biblical torrent to a more standard downpour, and Sebastian’s words were echoing. I know you.
Abby’s throat felt tight, and her heart was knocking strangely in her chest. “I should go take a look at your bike.”
She tried to stand. Sebastian moved his grip from her hand to her forearm, keeping her in place, keeping his eyes on her face. His wet hair curled around his cheeks and forehead, and the pallor of his skin only served to emphasis the slate-gray of his eyes, the elegant curves of his mouth.
“Have dinner with me,” he said again.
Abby gave up. “Okay. How about this. If you put my shirt on, and if you don’t give me a hard time about going to the hospital and getting checked out—”
“I’m fine—”
“And,” Abby continued, talking over him, “if you promise to stop being a jerk and wear your pinny without complaining every single day instead of just sticking it in your pocket—”
Sebastian muttered something about how everything always came back to the pinny.