The Sweet Spot (6 page)

“I don’t know what you want me to say Soy,” Ani murmured, turning on the stove to melt
the butter in a large saucepan. “I love Jordan, but I told you the night before our wedding that I shouldn’t marry him.”

“I need a glass of wine,” Sawyer sighed, getting up and walking over to the fridge to take a bottle of white wine out.

“I told you
that night in your dorm room before the wedding that I shouldn’t marry him,” Ani whispered again. “I knew that I’d never be able to love him the way that he deserved to be loved.”

Ani had been
six months pregnant with Raffi when she married Jordan, and she hadn’t wanted to go out for a bachelorette night, so she’d asked for a sister’s night in Sawyer’s dorm room instead. She’d admitted that night that she loved Jordan and wanted to be happy with him, but she also felt that she didn’t deserve the gorgeous brilliant man who at thirty-eight, was already one of the best pediatric neurosurgeons in the country.

They’d
met in the kitchen of Jordan’s brownstone. Ani had been catering Jordan’s sister’s baby shower at his house, and Jordan had just come off a double shift at the hospital. He snuck into the kitchen because he was starving and snatched one of  Ani’s scones off of the counter. Jordan liked to say that it was love at first bite, and in his speech at their engagement dinner, Jordan said that Ani’s scone melted in his mouth and he looked up and was lost in the most beautiful ocean he’d ever seen. Then the beautiful blue-eyed blond standing before him in the caterer’s apron smacked his hand with her wooden spoon and he knew he was in love.

“
You told me that night that you loved Jordan A,” Sawyer interrupted her sister’s memories, passing Ani a glass of wine. “You told me that Jordan made you feel loved and cherished, and that he made love to you so sweetly that your toes curled. You told me that he made you feel alive again, do you remember that A? Because I remember all of it,” Sawyer choked. “I remember what you were like waiting for Bast all those years. I remember the loneliness and the sadness, and I remember the day that Jordan put the light back into your eyes.”

“He made me want to forget about Bast and all the years that I waited for him to come back to me,” Ani admitted. “It broke my heart when Bast chose another nine years in prison over me Soy, it broke my heart like nothing else ever has,” Ani gasped, sinking down onto a kitchen stool.

“I know A, I know,” Sawyer murmured, wrapping her arms around her sister’s shaking shoulders. “That’s why I begged you to let Bast go that night in my dorm room. That’s why I begged you to let yourself love Jordan and your baby and live again.”

“You’re too young to wither away A,” Ani echoed her sister’s words to her that night. “That’s what you said to me
Soy, you’re too young to waste your life waiting for Bast anymore.”

“But you didn’t want to stop waiting did you?” Sawyer asked her
sister sadly. “I’ll never forget what you said back to me that night because even though you married Jordan the next day, your words that night still broke my heart.”

“I told you that I didn’t know how to dance in the rain when Bast couldn’t even feel the wind on his face,” Ani wept against her sister’s shoulder.

“And I said that was Bast’s choice. I reminded you that he chose to stay inside away from the wind when he knew that you were outside waiting in it,” Sawyer choked. “Is this mess my fault, A? Did I push you to marry Jordan when you just wanted to be left alone to wait for Bast?”

“Of course not Soy,
” Ani whispered, lifting her tear-streaked face up to her sister’s. “You’ve been the one constant in my life who has always looked out for me. You are my best friend, my other half, and I thank God that you didn’t let me wither away and waste the last ten years pining away for Bast like a spinster from a Victorian novel. I wouldn’t have Raffi without these last ten years with Jordan Soy, and could you imagine a world without Raffi in it?”

“No,” Sawyer sniffled
. “I just wish there was some way to avoid all the heartbreak that seems to be right around the corner for everyone.”

“Me too,” Ani whispered back,
staring off into space. “Me too.”

Jordan texted Ani a minute later, letting her know that his hospital meeting was running late and he wouldn’t be home for dinner
. Sawyer re-filled her wine glass and poured one for Ani, and the sisters rose up and finished making the lasagna together.

Ani
didn’t see or talk to Sebastian for the rest of the week, and she tiptoed around Jordan at home, purposely falling asleep with Raffi in her bed when she tucked her in at night. When Jordan finally sent her a text from work at the end of the week, asking her if he was ever going to see her again, Ani decided that she couldn’t avoid her husband forever, and she finally slipped back into bed with him that night.

"Hi,
” Jordan whispered, rolling over to face Ani when she slipped into bed beside him.

“Hi,” Ani murmured back, staring into his eyes intently.

“You look very serious,” Jordan observed, brushing his lips against Ani’s softly.

“You knew I had issues when you married me,” Ani whispered, her eyes
filling with tears as she stared at her husband lying on his side next to her.

“I did,”
Jordan agreed quietly.

“I’m a
complete mess,” Ani confessed as she choked back a sob.

“I know,” Jordan sighed wearily
. “What I don’t know is why. How are we ever supposed to deal with your demons if you won’t talk to me?” he murmured, gazing at Ani with sorrow filled eyes.

“I don’t know what to say,” Ani admitted.
“Nothing I can say will fix this Jordan.”

“Tell me what’s broken,” Jordan pleaded, trailing his fingers through the tears that slipped down his wife’s face. “Tell me and I’ll fix it,” he promised
, kissing the tears away as they slipped out the corners of Ani’s glittering eyes.

“I don’t want Raffi to get hurt,” Ani choked. “She is everything good that has come from us.”

“She is everything good that has come from us,” Jordan repeated softly, tasting Ani’s words. “I love Raffi more than my life Ani,” Jordan said carefully. “She is my daughter. But she is not everything good that has come from us.” He lifted Ani’s hand to his face and tenderly kissed her fingers. “She is not why I fell in love with you or why I married you,” he said, kissing Ani’s wrist and trailing his lips up the inside of her arm. “Is she the reason that you married me?” Jordan continued to trail his lips up Ani’s arm and across her shoulder.

“No,” Ani admitted, blinking back tears.

“Do you love me?” Jordan asked, rolling Ani onto her back and tracing her collarbone with his lips. 

Ani stared up at her husband
hovering above her and her heart seized at the sudden realization that she did love him. She’d loved him when she married him and she continued to love him every day that she had stopped waiting for Sebastian.

“Oh my
God,” she whispered as Jordan’s lips left her collarbone and continued down her neck and to her breasts. “I stopped waiting. I stopped waiting and I didn’t even know it was time for him to get out.”

“Do you love me?” Jordan asked again, oblivious to the words that his wife had
just whispered. “Do you love me?” he asked as he took her nipple in his mouth and trailed his fingers down her body.

“Yes,” An
i wept, opening up her legs to him.

Chapter Six

Ani awoke to a clap of thunder and lightning streaking across the sky, and she rolled out of her husband’s arms to glance at the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning; she must have forgotten to set her alarm. After four years, Jordan had finally grown used to Ani’s baker’s hours and he sleepily kissed her bare shoulder and rolled away from her as she slipped out of bed.

Ani
tiptoed into the bathroom, closing the door behind her quietly as she slipped into the Italian-marble-tiled shower. She closed her eyes as the hot water poured over her and she knew that she had to talk to Sebastian. She had to have the conversation that she couldn’t have when she ran out of his apartment almost a week ago. The conversation she couldn’t have when she walked away from him in the bakery kitchen.

Ani
sent Sawyer a text asking her if she could handle the bakery on her own for the morning and Sawyer texted back: “Yes, go deal with Sebastian.” Ani didn’t bother to dry her hair when she got out of the shower. She didn’t want to wake Jordan with the noise of the hairdryer and it was pouring outside anyway. She towel-dried it and smoothed lotion over her body, adding a quick swipe of deodorant under her arms and a spray of her everyday perfume. She groped around in the dark bedroom for a pair of underwear and a bra, and grabbed a pair of soft faded jeans and a long-sleeve fitted v-neck t-shirt that clung to the curves of her chest. Ani finished dressing downstairs and grabbed a fisherman sweater and raincoat off of the hook in the mudroom, shoved her feet into her wellies and slipped out the back door. 

Rain pelted down on the car as Ani navigated her way through the dark wet streets of her
neighborhood and over to South Boston to Sebastian’s apartment. The thunderstorm outside was fierce, the rain fell in sheets and the wind whipped it in every direction, soaking Ani to the skin by the time she made it from her car to Sebastian’s door.

“An
i?” Sebastian murmured, blinking his eyes sleepily as he held the door open for her. His apartment was dark and he’d obviously been sleeping. A flash of lightening streaked through the window and illuminated Sebastian’s silhouette in the doorway. His muscled ink-covered chest was bare and a pair of boxers hung low on his narrow hips.

“What does the rose represent?”
Ani breathed, reaching out and trailing a finger across the rose petals that shone against Sebastian’s neck under the flash of lightening.

“Celebrated teenage birthday in prison,”
Sebastian whispered back, holding Ani’s gaze. 

“And my name
tangled in the center of the Claddagh?” Ani choked.

“
You know exactly what it means,” Sebastian replied hoarsely.

“I
want to see you,” Ani demanded, pushing Sebastian over toward the window and into the light that streamed in from the street.

“You’re soaking wet,”
Sebastian murmured, as Ani ran her fingers across his shoulders and down his back.

“What
does the church mean?” Ani pressed, ignoring Sebastian’s comment about her soaked state as she trailed her fingers over the fifteen spires on Sebastian’s back and paused at the intricate Celtic cross that topped the center spire, rising above the others.

“Y
ou’re shivering,” Sebastian observed softly in concern, ignoring the question.

“What do the spires mean?
Why the cross?” Ani demanded, lowering her lips to Sebastian’s back and trailing kisses over each spire.

“The spires represent the years
spent in prison,” Sebastian replied, sucking in his breath as Ani’s lips touched his skin.

“And the cross?”
Ani persisted, resting her lips against it.

“Sentence served,”
Sebastian choked out, pressing his head against the window as Ani continued to trail her lips across his back.

“The bells on your shoulders?” she whispered, running her tongue across his shoulder and the back of his neck from bell to bell.

“Served full sentence, bell call to bell call, no parole,” Sebastian answered hoarsely.

“The setting sun and birds flying above the church?”
Ani asked as another streak of lightning flashed across Sebastian’s back.

“Freedom,”
Sebastian replied, finally turning around to face Ani who stood shivering and dripping wet in front of him. “You’re going to get sick if you don’t take off your wet clothes.”

“I slept with Jordan last night,” Ani replied, looking sick.

“He is your husband,” Sebastian replied mildly.

“You still want me?” Ani choked out as
Sebastian began to peel her dripping layers off of her shaking body.

“I will always want you
A,” Sebastian replied hoarsely, throwing Ani’s wet clothes on the floor and scooping her up.

“I came here to talk to you, to try and make sense of everything,” Ani whispered as
Sebastian laid her down on his bed and lifted her hands above her head, pinning them down with his arm.

“No more talki
ng,” Sebastian murmured, trailing kisses down Ani’s face and neck. “Now it’s my turn to look and touch. So soft, so sweet,” Sebastian moaned as his lips nibbled their way down Ani’s body. “So beautiful,” he whispered, spreading Ani’s legs and pausing before he slid inside her. “Are you on the pill?” he asked hoarsely, suddenly realizing that he didn’t have a condom.

“With
my fertility rate?” Ani choked. “Yes, I get birth control shots.” She pulled Sebastian back against her.

“
Well we don’t have a good track record with birth control,” Sebastian whispered as he finally pushed inside Ani with a moan.

“Oh my
God, Bast,” Ani wept as he filled her, joining their bodies together after fifteen years apart.

“I love you Ani,”
Sebastian whispered, thrusting into her fiercely. “I love you,” he whispered again as he buried his face in her breasts and poured himself into her with a deep, soul-wrenching moan.

“I love you too,”
Ani admitted with a sob, feeling Sebastian’s tears trickle down her breasts as she realized that she’d just said the identical words to her husband only hours earlier when he’d claimed her body in the exact same way.

Ani and
Sebastian fell asleep in each other’s arms as the dawn light broke through the sky and filtered into the apartment, bathing them in muted shades of orange and yellow.

When Ani opened her eyes sleepily
a few hours later, she met Sebastian’s deep green eyes. He was lying on his side, trailing his fingers across her naked shoulders as he stared down at her with a thoughtful expression.

“What are you thinking about?” Ani asked softly.

“You,” Sebastian replied, leaning down and catching Ani’s bottom lip between his teeth.

“What d
o the teardrops represent?” Ani asked quietly, reaching up and trailing her fingers under Sebastian’s eye.

“Prison teardrop tattoos can mean a lot of different things to different people,”
Sebastian replied evasively. “Some people get them to represent lives that they’ve taken. Others get them for lives that they mourn, lives that they’ve lost.” His voice was thick with sorrow.

“What do these mean to you?” Ani asked, refusing to be deterred.

“Everything,” Sebastian replied softly.

“Which lives?” Ani persisted, wrapping her legs around
Sebastian and pulling him down on top of her.

“All of them
,” he murmured sadly.

Ani raised her eyebrow quizzically as she continued to trace the two teardrops with her fingers.

“W
hen I first did them, I just did the outline of the tear drops for Raffi and Eva,” Sebastian admitted.

“You did them yourself?” Ani asked in disbelief.
Sebastian nodded in reply, covering Ani’s fingers with his own as he traced the teardrops on his face in memory.

“Then I filled them in for the lives
that I took,” Sebastian explained, pressing Ani’s hand to his face.

“Why did you do two filled
-in teardrops instead of four outlines?” Ani asked, pulling Sebastian’s hand away from the tattoos and replacing his fingers with her lips.

“Because the lives that I took and the lives that
I lost are all intertwined,” Sebastian answered, his eyes locking with Ani’s.

“They are,” Ani breathed in agreement, pressing her forehead against
Sebastian’s and closing her eyes. “Everything about us is intertwined,” she whispered hopelessly. “And I don’t know how to separate any of it Bast. I don’t know how to separate any of it.”

Ani and
Sebastian spent the rest of the day wrapped around each other in bed, relearning each other’s bodies, discovering the changes and the things that were the same. They got up to go to the bathroom twice and Sebastian brought them cold bacon sandwiches and strawberries in bed, which they fed each other in-between caresses and whispered words of love. Ani’s phone dinged across the room from the pocket of her wet jeans several times, announcing a series of texts throughout the day and she steadfastly ignored it until it began to ring at four o’clock.

“A?” Sawyer’s voice filled Ani’s ear when she finally crawled out of bed and retrieved her phone.

“Hey,” Ani replied warily.

“You okay?” Sawyer asked softly.

“Uh huh,” Ani replied.

“So
, I just thought I should let you know that I locked the bakery up at closing and took Raffi home with me when she arrived after school,” Sawyer said pointedly.

“Thanks,” Ani replied weakly.

“Are you planning on coming back any time soon?” Sawyer asked in exasperation.

“Is Raffi okay?” Ani asked, avoiding the question.

“She’s fine,” Sawyer sighed. “We just finished homework and are going downstairs to Mama’s for pizza in a little while.”

“That’s good,” Ani whispered, leaning back into
Sebastian’s arms as he came up behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist.

“What am I supposed to tell Jordan when I bring her home A?” Sawyer asked
, her voice filled with frustration.

“I’ll pick her up at your apartment in an hour,” Ani replied, hanging up the phone before Sawyer could ask her any more questions.

“Are you leaving now?” Sebastian lowered his face down to kiss Ani’s neck.

“Yes,” Ani replied softly, shutting her phone off at the sight of the unread texts from Jordan.
“Were you supposed to go out on the boat with your dad today?” She turned around in Sebastian’s arms.

“Not in this storm,”
Sebastian replied, sliding his hands over Ani’s bare ass and pressing her against him.

“I have to get dressed,” Ani laughed, untangling
herself from Sebastian’s arms as he tried to kiss her.

“Come out with me tomorrow
,” Sebastian coaxed, pulling Ani back into his arms. “Come lobstering with me.”

“I have to bake,” Ani protested, slipping out of
Sebastian’s arms again, and pulling on her wet jeans.

“You can’t put that wet stuff back on,”
Sebastian protested, grabbing the wet clothes away from Ani. “You can wear mine.” He tossed a t-shirt and pair of jeans over to Ani. She slid Sebastian’s soft t-shirt over her head and inhaled deeply, meeting his eyes as she pulled her hair free from the neck of the shirt.

“
I can’t believe your jeans fit me,” she exclaimed, zipping up Sebastian’s faded blue jeans and rolling the bottoms up. “How are you in even better shape at thirty-three than you were at seventeen, playing high school football?”

“Pri
son has its benefits,” Sebastian replied with a grin, slipping Ani’s arms into a dark blue hoodie and zipping it up. “You look sixteen again.” He stared at Ani standing before him in his jeans and hooded sweatshirt. “You were always stealing my clothes in high school.” Sebastian pulled Ani against him.

“I wanted to be surrounded by your smell,” Ani whispered back, burying her face against
Sebastian’s neck. “Tell me why you refused parole,” she demanded, sliding her hands over the bells on his back. “Tell me why you insisted on serving your full sentence, bell call to bell call.”

“I wanted to be free,”
Sebastian choked, moving Ani’s hands down from the bells to the cross on the church spire. “Sentence served.” He moved Ani’s hands up to the sunset and birds. “Free.”

“But you would have been out of prison,” Ani cried, trying to understand.

“Out on parole, not free,” Sebastian whispered back. “I was so young Ani. You have no idea what it was like to turn eighteen behind those bars, to grow up in prison. By the time I came up for parole, I was twenty-four, I had come of age inside, and I knew that if I got out and tasted freedom again, I’d never survive if I got sent back inside. You have no idea how many people I saw get out on parole only to be tossed back inside for a parole violation. I just couldn’t do it. I was so scared. I couldn’t face coming home to you and losing you again. I just wanted to be free, I just wanted to serve my sentence and be free again,” Sebastian choked, staring at Ani with wet eyes.