Anna_The Ever After Series Book 2

by Stella James

  Chapter 8

  Sebastian

  I’m zoning out on the bowl in front of me when there’s a firm banging on the door. I can’t reach the remote for the stereo, so I shout as loud as I can to come in. When I look up, I see Anna peeking her head through the doorway. She glances around the room before she spots me at my wheel and smiles brightly. She mentioned the other day that she wanted to check out my studio, so I gave her the address and she said she’d stop in one day this week after school. I nod toward the remote on my bench and shout for her to turn it down. Once Metallica becomes background noise, she holds up a small paper bag.

  “I brought you a treat for later,” she says, setting the bag down on the bench. “Wow, these are incredible Sebastian.”

  My chest fills with pride as she scans the wooden shelves of finished projects waiting to be boxed up. She looks at each item as if it’s more impressive than the last.

  “And that smell,” she inhales deeply. “It’s so relaxing, if that makes sense?”

  “I don’t think you’d be saying that if you smelled the recycle bin once it starts to mold,” I laugh.

  “Hmm, yeah maybe I’ll just take your word on that one,” she grins. “So, what are you making now?”

  She sits down on an old barstool, propping her elbows on the tabletop of my workbench and watches me mold the clay beneath my hands. I add more liquid to my hands and continue to support the outside with one hand while my other hand remains inside the bowl, shaping it from either side.

  “Nothing fancy, just a bowl,” I say, grinning as I glance up and see her skin from the neck up tinged pink as she watches my hands. “Anna? You okay?”

  “What? Yes, sorry, a bowl? That’s great,” she smiles. “Pfft, nothing fancy, he says. Don’t be so modest.”

  She rolls her eyes when I look up and give her a wink. I continue to work and she continues to watch. As I’ve found over the course of the last week or so, silence between Anna and I is comfortable. I don’t feel obligated to fill it and apparently neither does she.

  I slowly lift my foot from the pedal, about to ask her if she wants to order some dinner when Mason comes barging through the door.

  “Get your party pants on, I’ve got a set of smoking hot cousins waiting for us down at Cinder’s,” he says proudly. He looks over at Anna as an afterthought and cringes slightly.

  “Shit, sorry, I didn’t realize you had company,” he says.

  “It’s fine, I should probably get going anyways,” Anna says, standing. “It’s nice to see you again Mason.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to leave,” I say.

  “Oh, it’s fine, I should really get home anyways. It’s been a long day. Thanks though, for letting me watch,” she says with a sincere smile.

  “You should come down to Cinder’s with us,” Mason tells her.

  “Nah, I think I’ll leave the set of smoking hot cousins to you two,” she grins, hoisting her bag over her shoulder and heading for the door. “Behave yourselves,” she calls out before the door shuts behind her.

  “No,” Mason says with a pointed look. “I know that look, you are not bailing,” he whines.

  “Man, I’m beat. I’m finishing up here and heading home to crash,” I say.

  “I don’t think you’re appreciating just how hot these cousins are,” he argues.

  “More for you man,” I shrug.

  “Fine, I’ll take one for the team,” he says. “But I am not going to enjoy it. That’s clearly a lie. I’m going to enjoy it very much.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I chuckle.

  Once the door closes behind him, I open the bag Anna left on the bench and devour the Boston cream donut inside. Groaning in appreciation for my new friend and the fact that she feels obligated to feed me.

  *

  “So, what’s up with you and the red head?” Mason asks while he digs through my fridge for a beer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you sleeping together?”

  “No man, it’s not like that,” I say. “We’re just friends. We hang out, she cooks for me sometimes, it’s kind of nice having a woman around who doesn’t want anything from me.”

  “Yeah, until she does,” he points out.

  “She’s not like that. Anna’s too nice, and way too honest to pull that sneaky game playing shit,” I tell him.

  “Hm, okay,” he says. “Does she have any single friends?”

  “Not for your dumb ass,” I say, flicking a bottle cap at him.

  It’s been two weeks since I found Anna sprawled out on the hallway floor and we basically spent that entire weekend together. We’ve been hanging out as friends on and off ever since. Being around Anna is easy. She’s nice and smart and not quite what I had her pegged as when we first met. I thought she was a drag and one of those uptight prude types at first, but after getting to know her it’s easy to see that Anna is just quiet and observant. She doesn’t make a big fuss about anything, aside from her obsession with Jamie Fraser which I learned the first time we watched Outlander together. I’d left her place after she cooked me supper and came back to an empty apartment with no desire to go out or meet up with the usual crowd down at Cinder’s. I texted her before I even realized what I was doing and ended up back over at her place where we sat on her couch and drank beer and she told me all the reasons why Jamie Fraser was the perfect fictional boyfriend.

  “It’s so fucking hot in here, you need to get the AC fixed,” Mason complains. “I thought spring was supposed to be wet and rainy and shit. It’s like we’re living on the sun right now.”

  “Heat wave is supposed to last until Tuesday,” I shrug. “We could go up to the roof. I’m pretty sure the old dude downstairs doesn’t even know there’s a pool up there and according to Anna the other tenants are in Florida.”

  “Pool party…I like it,” he says. “I’m calling reinforcements. And by reinforcements, I mean women who wear bikinis.”

  I text Anna while Mason rounds up his harem.

  Me: What are you doing?

  Anna: Getting ready for my date.

  Me: Date?

  Anna: I told you, Elle set me up. His name is Steven and we’re going to dinner.

  Steven? Dinner? Why can’t I remember her telling me this shit? This guy better not be a prick. I toss my phone aside and head for the door. I rap my knuckles on Anna’s door and turn the knob, letting myself in. When the door clicks shut she calls out from her bedroom, “Why do you knock if you aren’t going to wait for me to answer?”

  “Because my mom taught me manners,” I shout back. “I’m not a cave man.”

  I head for the kitchen and help myself to the half empty bag of chips that I left in the cupboard the last time I was here. Our apartments are identical in layout, but Anna’s is a lot cozier than mine, and neater. She has vibrantly coloured furniture and trinkets everywhere like some kind of girly museum. And it always smells good in here.

  “There’s soda in the fridge if you want,” she calls out. “AC still busted?”

  “Yeah, the company couldn’t send a guy over until Monday,” I mutter, looking up. Holy shit.

  I’ve seen Anna several different ways since the day I met her. I’ve seen her in her comfortable, worn out pajamas, her thick rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose. I’ve seen her wearing the brightly patterned, mismatched clothes that she’s sewn herself and I’ve seen her in plain, boring old black like the night after her sister’s exhibit. But I’ve never seen Anna look sexy. And that’s exactly how she looks right now. Sexy. As. Fuck.

  Her long auburn hair is tousled, hanging well past her shoulders in a silky curtain. She’s wearing more makeup than I’ve ever seen her wear, her blue eyes popping beneath the charcoal colour surrounding them. Her dress isn’t revealing, because that isn’t her style, but it’s pink and bold and so damn tight that I can see every one of her modest curves beneath it. It’s strapless and even though the freckles on her face are hidden, the ones sprinkling t
he tops of her shoulders and collarbone are exposed. The dress ends just above her knees and her legs are bare. They look soft and inviting and go on longer than they should, ending in a pair of high strappy black heels. What the fuck?

  “What?” she asks. “Does it look bad? I just finished it this morning, but I don’t know, do you think it’s too bright? For a first date?”

  “Uh, what?”

  “The dress, is it too much?” she asks.

  “No. It’s fine,” I say.

  “Okay. What’s with you?” She crosses her arms under her chest and plumps up her small tits, oblivious to the action.

  “Nothing.”

  She steps toward me and pulls a chip from the bag in my hand, popping it in her mouth before she moves to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water.

  “I think the heat is effecting you,” she says.

  “Yeah, something like that.” Fuck, what the hell is wrong with me?

  “So, what are you up to tonight?” she asks, before she wraps her full lips around the bottle and takes a long sip. I watch her throat as she swallows and think all kinds of impure thoughts. Goddamn.

  “Pool party,” I mumble, my throat dry as hell. “Mason is next door making it happen. You should ditch your date and come swimming.”

  “Ummm, no,” she says. “But you boys have fun.” She glances at the clock on the wall and rummages through her large canvas bag, pulling out items and shoving them in a smaller purse. “I should get going, I promised the Johnson’s that I’d feed their cat while they’re gone, and I didn’t have time earlier. I don’t want to be late getting to the restaurant.”

  “He’s not even picking you up? What an asshole,” I grumble.

  “It was my idea,” she says with a shrug. “And don’t put that bad juju out there right before I leave.”

  “Like calling him an asshole is going to ruin your date?”

  “Shh you,” she scolds in what I like to call her teacher voice. “Stop calling him an asshole. Why are you being so weird today?”

  “I’m not being weird,” I defend. Very mature Sebastian.

  I need to get the hell out of here. Seeing Anna dressed up to hang out with some dude is messing with my head. It’s obviously been too damn long since the last time I hooked up with my own date.

  “Okay, whatever, we can talk about it later,” she says. “Maybe if it goes well, I’ll bring him back here and we can come up and mingle for a bit. Lock up when you leave,” she calls out as she heads for the door.

  I’m still standing in her small kitchen several minutes after the door clicks shut.

  What the fuck just happened?

  Chapter 9

  Anna

  I’m sitting up at the bar in the restaurant lounge, nervously tapping my foot against the metal leg of the leather stool I’m sitting on. I’m a bit early, as usual, and apparently nervous. I’m praying that tonight won’t end up being a horrid repeat of my last date. I swear, if it does, I’m becoming a nun.

  I’ve gone ahead and ordered a glass of rosé to sip while I wait for Steven. Sebastian pops into my head and I shake it off, wondering what the heck was going on with him today. I never would have thought that we’d become friends, but that’s exactly what’s happened in the last two weeks. It’s been nice to have the company. Dru and Ethan hit a rough patch after her exhibit but have since worked things out and have been in a state of honeymoon phase ever since. I’m happy they worked things out, I’d never seen my sister that tangled up over a relationship before and I like Ethan. They’re good for each other.

  I take another sip of wine and glance at the door. I have no idea what Steven looks like, but I told him I’d be wearing pink and waiting at the bar, so for all I know he’s in here now and avoiding me. I look down at my dress and exhale a nervous breath. It isn’t necessarily revealing, but it is tight, and the sweetheart neckline gives me the illusion of bigger boobs. Which is something I am most definitely not used to. Ugh, I should have worn something else. Again, Sebastian pops into my head. When he looked up at me and stared at me in the kitchen as if I’d grown an extra head, I was sure it was because I looked terrible. But then a flicker of something else passed in his expression and I could have sworn that maybe he liked the way I looked. Not that it matters, because we’re just friends.

  I stare down at my wine glass and my thoughts wander back to last week when I stopped by his studio. Watching him mould that clay and manipulate it into something smooth and useful was almost hypnotizing. The way his hands moved up and down with such ease, the veins in his forearms peeking up under the strain. The flex of his biceps. I’d never really noticed before how large and strong his hands are. I was mortified when he caught me watching and I could feel the heat covering my face like a blanket.

  Even now, the image makes me feel warm…and not necessarily in a strictly friends kind of way. Mason waltzing through the door with the mention of a hot double date for the two of them was the bucket of ice water over my head that I needed. Clearly I was getting a little too caught up in my new friend’s physicality. Which is natural, I suppose. He’s a man and I’m a woman, right? Totally natural. When Steven called a couple days after that, I instantly agreed to a date. I haven’t had the same warm reaction to Sebastian since that day at the studio, thankfully. So, I think it’s safe to chalk it up to hormones and nothing else.

  “Excuse me, Anna?”

  I look to my left and am met with a pair of deep brown eyes and a very handsome face. “Steven?”

  “Nice to meet you,” he says, sliding onto the stool beside me and clasping my hand in his.

  He’s wearing a navy-blue suit that fits him well and no tie, the top two buttons of his starch white shirt are open, exposing a patch of tanned skin. The line of his clean shaven jaw is sharp and defined and his neatly trimmed hair matches his dark chocolate coloured eyes. I shove Sebastian from my mind and admire Steven’s slightly crooked, although pleasantly endearing smile.

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” I reply, before taking a small sip of my wine. “Can I be honest right off the bat and just say that I’m a tiny bit nervous?”

  “You’re not the only one,” he chuckles. “My dating record this year hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing.”

  “Ugh, mine neither,” I laugh. “There’s got to be something in the water.”

  “On that, we can agree,” he grins. “Why don’t we take this conversation to our table and we can exchange horror stories.”

  “I’d like that,” I say.

  Almost two hours later, after an appetizer, a main course and a shared dessert, Steven and I are still coming up with new things to talk about.

  “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but is corporate law as dry as it sounds?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s worse.”

  “Oh no,” I laugh. “You’re joking, right?”

  “It can be a bit dull, but I do like my job,” he says. “I like the business aspect, and we deal with enough different companies that it keeps it interesting enough.”

  “That’s good,” I reply. “I think it’s important to enjoy what you do, and not just do it for the paycheck.”

  “What about teaching, is it a paycheck or a passion?”

  “Definitely not just a paycheck,” I say. “I love it, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

  “Well I certainly don’t remember any of my teachers being as pretty as you,” he says. “I’ve had a great time with you tonight Anna.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Would it make me presumptuous to say that I’m hoping the night isn’t quite over?”

  “Not at all. My neighbour is having a get together, we could stop by and have a night cap?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  I direct Steven through the bustling city traffic back to my place, which he navigates well in his black Porsche. I smile when I think about Sebastian and I arguing the other day when I referred to his truck as grey. It’s not grey Anna, it�
��s stealth blue.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I say. “Just lost in thought I guess. You can park around back, there should be an empty spot.”

  “No underground lot?”

  “Afraid not,” I say. “But I park back here all the time and I’ve never had a break in, if that makes you feel any better?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  I lead the way up to the roof and when I open the door my gaze instantly lands on Sebastian. He’s sitting in the hot tub, a beer dangling from his fingers and a gorgeous blonde nestled into his side. Seems about right. Not that I care, because we’re just friends.

  I glance around the rooftop and notice Mason standing beside a small set of speakers. He’s tapping on an iPod and suddenly Fleetwood Mac starts playing and everyone groans, chucking their empty cups in his direction.

  “Stevie Nicks is a national treasure,” he shouts above the music. “Don’t blame me for your shitty taste in music.”

  There aren’t a lot of people here, less than twenty. Some are in the pool, some lounging on lawn chairs and a couple in the hot tub, including Sebastian and his new friend.

  “Neighbour lady! Did you bake anything?” Mason shouts. I smile as we walk through the door and I swear I can feel Sebastian’s eyes on me.

  “Sadly, I did not,” I call back.

  “Beers in the cooler,” he points at two large plastic bins sitting near the speakers.

  We make our way over and I bend down, grabbing two cold bottles. When I stand, a dripping wet Sebastian is standing in front of Steven and I. Alone.

  “You came, freckles,” he says.

  My eyes linger a tad too long on his sculpted chest and muscular arms before I swallow hard and remember that we are just friends and I am here with a date.

  “Sebastian, this is Steven. Steven, this is my neighbour slash friend, Sebastian.”

  “Good to meet you Sebastian,” Steven says, extending his hand.

  “You too Steve.”

  “Sebastian what are you doing, I’m lonely over here,” the blonde in the hot tub calls out.