Filed to story: Once Upon a One Night Mistake Book PDF Free by Simone Shirazi
So Taliana watched him walk out the door, away from her and the things he had said, too stunned to move.
What the hell?
No, really. What the? hell? Did he really think he could just drop that massive bomb on her and then leave? What kind of person did that? He couldn’t have even stayed to hear her side of things? And what kind of weak excuse was “I need some air”? A cop-out, that was what.
Stupid bastard. Did he really think he was going to get away with that?
God, she just wanted to-
Taliana was out of the living room before she could even finish the thought.
Sebastian had just reached the front walkway when she threw open the front door, letting it crash against the wall as she stomped down the stairs.
“You asshole,” she hissed, causing him to turn around in surprise.
And then she threw herself at him.
Taliana wasn’t sure how she’d made it from the porch to the sidewalk to standing right in front of him, but suddenly her arms were around him, and they were both tumbling to the ground, his body breaking her fall. She hadn’t meant to come at him so hard, but now there they were on the concrete.
“What the hell was that for?”?he exclaimed with a slight wheeze.
“You can’t just tell me all of that and then leave!” Taliana screeched, tossing her hands up wildly for emphasis as she rolled to her side. “What were you thinking?”
“I’m the asshole?” he questioned incredulously as he sat up, one hand gesturing to himself, then to her. “You’re the one who just tackled me!”
“It was supposed to be a hug!”
There was a long pause as they looked at each other. And then Taliana threw her arms around him again.
“What are you doing?” he asked warily, and she couldn’t blame him. “Is this some sort of attack?”
“I love you, too,” she answered, breathing in the scent of him. She hadn’t realized until that exact moment how much she’d missed him. “I love you so damn much, you idiot.”
Sebastian relaxed a fraction but was still tense beneath her cheek. “You certainly have an odd way of showing it.”
“I never said I was normal,” Taliana laughed, knowing just how screwed up this situation was.
Then again, “screwed up” was the description of their entire history in a nutshell. And honestly? She didn’t care.
“I’ve known that from the beginning,” he sighed. “If only I’d run when I saw you pick up that baseball bat.”
Taliana grinned against his chest. “If you had, I doubt we’d be standing here today. Well, lying on the ground here.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t smart enough to run away.”
Sebastian finally draped an arm around her shoulders and exhaled against her hair. It was a loose embrace, but they were back in each other’s arms.
That was all that mattered.
47
The Graduates
Caps and gowns always looked so regal in graduation photos. In Taliana’s parents’ photos, both Andrea and Charles looked like they could’ve been on the front of a brochure for prospective students. Taliana, however, had just discovered that those damn gowns were an absolute horror show in real life.
“Christ, what is this thing, a men’s three XL? I’m drowning here.”
Sebastian gave her a onceover, clearly amused by the sight. “It might have something to do with the fact that you wrote your height down as six-foot-two on your order form. They probably assumed you were a guy.”
Taliana frowned. “Well, sorry they asked women to factor in how tall they were in heels. Not my fault that makes me six-foot-two!”
“The woes of being a model,” he laughed, reaching out to grab at the extra foot of fabric around her waist. “At least this way we’re almost the same height. Makes kissing easier.”
“Don’t even try it.” Taliana scowled, pulling out of his grasp, but her cheeks warmed anyway.
A little less than a month had passed since they’d reunited at Jude’s house, but things hadn’t exactly gone back to normal after that. How could they? Taliana and Sebastian had been forced to start over, and this time she was determined to take it slow. This was their one and only chance to rewrite their story, one that would hopefully contain a hell of a lot more trust and understanding than it had last time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as if that was going to appear overnight, so she’d made the decision not to get back together-yet.
It had been a hard choice to make, but Sebastian had respected it, knowing it was Taliana’s turn to call the shots. Still, he made it clear every so often what he wanted to happen between them, and it didn’t include remaining just friends for too long.
In the time since then, Taliana had slowly begun to realize how much more she liked her life with him in it.
She loved him. That much was obvious and undeniable, and she would’ve been kidding herself if she said she didn’t want to try working things out. The only thing stopping her from jumping back in feet first was the fact that she loved herself more, and she would be damned if she rushed into something that wasn’t the best for her.
But right then, all of that was the last thing she wanted to think about. Because in T-minus twenty minutes, they would say goodbye to Georgetown Trinity Day School for good.
Currently, the entire gang was standing outside in Trinity’s parking lot, the makeshift staging ground for the graduates as they waited to walk through the school’s auditorium. Michael was fussing over his own gown, which looked like it would have fit Taliana better than him; Marcus, their valedictorian, was rehearsing parts of his speech, looking a little green in the gills; and Jacob and Jude seemed to be having a heated debate over which one of their universities was better, getting the Harvard vs. Yale debate started early. Watching them all made Taliana smile, but there was a twinge of sadness in her chest.
This part of her life was finally coming to a close, and while she was glad to be moving on to bigger and better things, she couldn’t help but want to hold on to these amazing people for as long as she possibly could.
“Do we really have to do this?” Michael groaned, finally having given up on trying to fix his gown, on which the zipper refused to budge once it hit his abs. “It’s just high school, this diploma doesn’t mean shit anymore.”
Taliana was right there with him on that. The last thing she wanted to do was march across a stage to get a piece of paper, all while praying she didn’t trip in front of the hundreds of parents in the audience.
“What if we just skipped it?” she suggested, the idea having floated through her head days ago. “I mean, like you said, it’s not that big of a deal.”
Jude, who had finally decided to take a break from his debate with Jacob, looked vaguely horrified. “We can’t do that! Our families are here, they’d be so disappointed if they didn’t see us.”