The Sweet Spot (5 page)

“C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” Bast said softly, slinging an arm around Sawyer’s shoulders and motioning to Ani through the bakery window that he’d be right back.
“Your father made a poor choice back then Soy,” Sebastian said quietly, turning to face Sawyer as they came to a stop in front of the pizza place she lived above. “He chose to wallow in his misery instead of embrace the life he could have had with his two beautiful daughters.”

“Is that what happened with you Bast? You chose to stay inside prison and wallow in your misery rather than embrace the life outside that you knew was waiting for you
with my sister?” Sawyer choked accusingly, blinking back a tear. “Ani waited for you all those years even though you refused to see or talk to her because she was convinced that you would come back to her when you got out on parole. She curled up on her bed alone and went to sleep in your football jacket on the night of her senior prom. She didn’t go on a single date for six years while she waited for you to get out Bast, and when you refused parole I forced her to stop waiting. I couldn’t watch my beautiful sister wither up and waste away at twenty-two. She deserved more than that.”

“It was complicated,” Sebastian whispered, staring back at Sawyer with haunted eyes. “I wasn’t wallowing with a six-pack on a recliner in a dark room like your fat
her Soy. I wanted to be with Ani more than anything, I swear to you.”

“But you made a choice not to be Bast, just like my dad made a choice not to be a father to us
when we needed him most, and Ani found someone else who recognized her worth. She met someone else who loves her and has made her happy for the last ten years, someone she has a daughter with Bast,” Sawyer whispered, staring back into Sebastian’s eyes, which were raw with anguish.

“I know,” Sebastian whispered back hoarsely.

“I love you Bast and I’m so glad you’re finally out,” Sawyer choked. “You were the shining light of my childhood. I always understood why Ani loved you; I hero-worshipped you my whole childhood. You were smart and strong, and kind and beautiful, and I wish that the accident never happened. I wish that you and Ani could have had your baby and lived happily ever after, but life went in a different direction Bast.”

“And you have a new hero now,” Sebastian murmured, staring back at Sawyer thoughtfully.

“It’s not that simple,” Sawyer protested weakly.

“It never is Soy, it never is,” Sebastian replied quietly, leaning forward and kissing Sawyer’s forehead before he turned around and walked back to the bakery.

Chapter Five

Sebastian returned to the bakery after he walked Sawyer home, and he spent the rest of the day there, watching Ani silently while she worked. He leaned against the bakery wall drinking coffee and casting Ani lascivious grins behind her customers’ backs, the suggestion in his eyes turning her face red.

“Knock it off,” Ani laughed when they were alone and Sebastian pulled her behind the curtain and into the kitchen.

“Do you remember our first kiss in your kitchen?” Sebastian asked huskily, pressing Ani against the counter and sliding his hands under her apron.

“It was the reason I started baking again after my mother died,” Ani whispered back, staring into Sebastian’s eyes as he kissed her softly.
“It was the day I made lemon bars again.”

When An
i’s mother died after a short and brutal battle with breast cancer the spring Ani turned twelve, she stopped baking for a year.  Sawyer would lay her mother’s purple ruffled apron out on the counter every day after school and take out butter to soften for scones every weekend morning, but Ani walked by them as if they didn’t exist.

All of
Ani’s memories of her mother were in the kitchen. Growing up, Ani and Sawyer woke in the mornings to the smell of freshly baked bread and they went to sleep at night with cookie crumbs clinging to their lips. Their mother tucked hot cross buns into their hands when they ran out of the house in the mornings and they tried to guess what cake would be waiting for their tea when they got home at the end of the day.

Their mother’
s death was devastating for both sisters, but it hit Ani especially hard because of the baking connection that she had with her mother. By the time she was six, she was inventing recipes alongside her mother in the kitchen, and at ten, she was running a successful lemonade stand with her own creations, including her famous lemon bars and chocolate frosted spice cakes.

“It was such a rough year,”
Sebastian murmured as he and Ani thought back to the day of their first kiss. “You’d been driving me crazy for six months.” Sebastian lifted Ani up and sat her on the counter in front of him. “You were my best friend and had been trailing after me since you were in diapers, but then suddenly something happened to you.” Sebastian’s eyes filled with wonder at the memory. “You suddenly had these huge breasts that spilled out of your tank top and a round ass that filled out your jeans, and the way that you looked at me with those big blue eyes, it was like you were begging me to touch you. All that I could think about was kissing you. All that I could think about was running my fingers through your hair and sliding my hands under your tank top,” Sebastian confessed, trailing his lips down Ani’s neck.

“I was so mad at you that year,” Ani replied softly.
“I had been waiting for you to notice me since I was a baby. I’d been in love with you my whole life, and when you turned fourteen and started to notice girls, I was only twelve and hadn’t gotten my period yet or started to blossom. Then my mother died, and I was so sad all the time.”

“
I didn’t know what to say to you or what to do, A. You stopped baking and you refused to talk about your mother dying. And whenever I tried to hang out with you, you were mad at me all the time,” Sebastian murmured, brushing his fingers across Ani’s lips. “And then I saw you walking home from school with Sawyer one day and it was like you were a different person. It wasn’t just your breasts and the way your round ass filled out your jeans, it was the way you walked and tossed your hair when you saw me watching you. It was as if you knew that you were different. But you were still only twelve and I was fourteen, so I waited another six months for you to get older, until you turned thirteen and I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore,” Sebastian admitted with a grin.

“And you came to my house with a bag of lemons, butter, and confectionary sugar
,” Ani whispered, her eyes locking with Sebastian’s as they both recalled that day in her kitchen almost twenty years ago.

It was a
Saturday morning in the spring, exactly one year after Ani’s mother had died, and Ani had just turned thirteen. Sawyer had come to Sebastian distraught because Ani still refused to bake, and fifteen-year-old Sebastian had walked into Ani’s kitchen with a bag of lemons, butter, and confectionary sugar, and plopped them down on the kitchen table in front of her. Even at fifteen, Sebastian was beautiful. His thick shaggy dark blond hair fell over his brilliant green eyes teasingly, and his broad chest and long arms were defined with hard-earned muscles from the punishing workouts that high school football demanded.

“Why are you here?” Ani demanded sullenly,
shoving the bag away from the table and ignoring the lemons that rolled out of the bag and across the kitchen floor.

“It’s been a year since your mother died. It’s been a year since you’ve baked. It’s just lemon bars A,” Sebastian coaxed softly, dropping down on his heels beside her. 

“Don’t you have better things to do these days than hang out with a thirteen-year-old?” Ani challenged, her eyes flashing with anger. “Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend or something?”

“I have a girlfriend?” Sebastian grinned back at Ani in amusement,
standing up and leaning against their kitchen table.

“Don’t you?” Ani yelled. “
You’re always hanging out with that dark-haired girl from school, the one whose jeans are so tight I’m amazed she can even sit down!”

“I don’t like dark-haired girls,” Sebastian replied with a grin, “I like blonds.”

“No you don’t,” Ani whispered.

“Well only certain blonds,” Sebastian conceded, reaching out a hand and pulling Ani back into his arms. “Only blonds who make lemon bars,” he whispered, lowering his face and finally kissing Ani softly. 

“I thought you’d never kiss me,” Ani murmured in wonder when they finally pulled apart for air.

“I’m two years older than you A
. I’ve been waiting for you to grow up,” Sebastian replied with a grin.

“And you finally decided today that I’m old enough to kiss?” Ani retorted saucily.

“Not really, I just got sick of waiting, and you looked so cute, all jealous and mad, that I couldn’t resist.” Sebastian admitted, his eyes traveling over Ani’s body appreciatively as his hands rested on her waist.

That night Ani made lemon bars; and the next morning
when Sawyer came into the kitchen to take out butter to soften for scones, Ani was standing at the counter in their mother’s purple apron, already mixing the dough.

“You got me to bake again, you know,” Ani whispered to Sebastian as they stood in the bakery kitchen, their memories of that day fading from their eyes.
“I swore I’d never bake again after my mother died, and then you walked into my kitchen with your bag of lemons and kissed me and suddenly the world seemed like a bright place again.”

“Sawyer
thinks I should stay away from you and let you live the life that you’ve built for yourself,” Sebastian whispered hoarsely, brushing his fingers across Ani’s lips and staring into her eyes intently.

The
bell on the bakery door suddenly tinkled, announcing the arrival of a customer, and Ani slipped off of the counter and out of Sebastian’s arms without a reply. As Ani walked away, Sebastian followed her silent retreat, gazing after her thoughtfully. He was just grabbing his keys and getting ready to head out when Raffi burst through the door of the bakery, skidding to a stop in front of Sebastian.

“
You’re back,” she said quietly, studying Sebastian with an unreadable expression.

“Yes,”
Sebastian agreed, and an uncomfortable silence passed between them before Ani walked over to them and gathered her daughter into her arms for a hug.

“How was school?”
she asked softly, pressing her lips to Raffi’s head.

“Okay,” Raffi replied, still staring at
Sebastian suspiciously. “What’s in the bag?” Raffi asked, eying the white paper bag in Sebastian’s hand.

“One of your mother’s famous lemon bars,” he replied with a small smile.

“My mother doesn’t make
lemon bars,” Raffi countered with a frown. “A customer even asked her to make them once and I heard her tell them that she doesn’t make them.”

“Oh,”
Sebastian replied, at an obvious loss for words.

“So how can she be famous for something that she doesn’t make?” Raffi persisted, snatching the bag out of
Sebastian’s hand and opening it up.

“Raffi!”
Ani scolded, appalled at her daughter’s rude behavior. “Give Sebastian back his bag this minute.”

“It’s okay,”
Sebastian said mildly, “you can’t blame her for wanting one of your lemon bars.”

“Stop calling them her lemon bars!” Raffi shouted, ripping open the bag and pullin
g the offending lemon bar out. “My mother doesn’t make lemon bars,” she whispered, staring down at the yellow powder-sugar-covered square in her hand. “She doesn’t make anything with lemon. Not even cake, not even for birthdays.”

“Oh
God, Raffi,” Ani cried, pulling her daughter into her arms as the memory of Raffi’s last birthday overwhelmed her. Raffi had asked her to make her a lemon cake and she’d refused, coaxing her into accepting an orange-frosted pound cake instead.

Sebastian
sank down on his heels until he was level with Raffi, and he brushed her hair gently away from her wet eyes.

“
Your mother used to make lemon bars for me a long time ago,” he told her in a quiet voice. “And I think she stopped making them because they made her sad.” Raffi stared into Sebastian’s green eyes unblinking, and Sebastian stared back into her deep blue eyes that were a carbon copy of her mother’s. “If she didn’t make you lemon cake, it was probably because she wanted to make you a cake that made her happy, because you make her happy,” Sebastian said gently, straightening up and avoiding Ani’s eyes as he turned to go.

“Wait,”
Raffi whispered, and Sebastian heard the rustle of the paper bag as Raffi slid the sticky lemon bar back into the bag and handed it to him. “I’m sorry I took your lemon bar,” she murmured, staring down at the ground.

“It’s okay. T
hanks for returning it,” Sebastian replied, lifting Raffi’s chin gently and smiling down at her. “You know I had a brother named Raphael,” Sebastian called over his shoulder as he walked out of the bakery. “You were named after a very special person,” he said softly, pausing at the door and looking back at Ani.

“
Sebastian, don’t,” Ani warned, her voice thick with emotion.

“She should know who she was named after, don’t you think?”
Sebastian challenged. “You should at least tell her that,” he murmured before walking away.

Sawyer stopped back in the bakery as Ani was locking up.

“My three-thirty canceled,” she told her sister, ruffling Raffi’s hair.

“Want to come over
for dinner? I’m making your favorite chicken artichoke lasagna….” Ani offered enticingly.

“I can’t say no to your chicken artichoke lasagna,” Sawyer agreed
, slipping an arm around Raffi as she followed her sister to her car. “You’re awfully quiet sweetpea,” she murmured to her niece, raising her eyebrow at her.

Raffi made a face
at her aunt in reply and didn’t respond, and Ani shook her head at her sister gently. When they arrived at the brownstone, Raffi disappeared upstairs into her room, and Sawyer and Ani went into the kitchen so Ani could start dinner.

“What’s up wi
th Raffi? Did something happen at the bakery?” Sawyer asked, grabbing a can of lemon seltzer out of the fridge and making herself comfortable on a stool at the kitchen island.

“Sebastian told her she’s named after his brother,” Ani sighed,
taking the ingredients out for the lasagna and spreading them across the counter.

“Well it was bound to come out one day,” Sawyer replied wryly, grabbing a cutting board
to help her sister chop the celery and onion for the lasagna.

“I guess,” Ani replied, looking unconvinced.

“Do you know what Jordan once told me his greatest wish is?” Sawyer asked her sister softly as she peeled an onion.

“What?” Ani raised her eyebrow at Sawyer as she started to chop the celery.

“He said his greatest wish is to know the meaning of the unspoken words that pass between us,” Sawyer whispered. “He said he wants to know the lyrics to our silent exchanges.”

Ani stared back at her sister at a loss for words.

“Aren’t you tired of all the unspoken words A?” Sawyer asked softly. “Don’t you want to be able to tell your daughter that she was named after someone who was very special to all of us?”

“I don’t know,” Ani admitted. “I’ve gotten so used to keeping it all inside
me, I don’t even know how to tell Raffi anything about it all.”

“How about Jordan?
” Sawyer murmured, adding her chopped onion to Ani’s pile of celery. “Don’t you think he deserves to finally know why his wife sobbed her heart out when she filled out their daughter’s name on the birth certificate in the hospital? Do you remember when he begged me that night that Raffi was born to tell him what haunts you, and I lied and said it was just hormones? I don’t know about you A, but I’m tired of the all the unspoken words,” Sawyer whispered, putting her knife down and sinking back onto a stool.