Chapter 26—Sebastian

“God, I can’t remember the last time that I was this happy,” I said as I grabbed my sister. Mom was having a barbecue to celebrate her being cancer free. I offered to do it at my house, but she wanted to do it at home, Wwith the family. I could tell that Emma and Mason being invited made them both feel part of the family.

Then again, Mason comes to every damn family event.

People used to laugh and ask if he was my girlfriend; he was the only person that would come with me to an event that I would show up with more than once. Every girl I did bring, and there were very few, only came once or twice and then no one saw them again.

No one bothered asking if they were coming back. I had a reputation and not a very good one. But, I had a feeling that they knew Emma was different. Besides, handing in her notice hadn’t gone down very well.

I felt like a shit, making her do it. I wanted to go with her, but she said that it wasn’t a good idea, that it would mean that she could probably never work as a sports doctor again. I thought she was exaggerating, but then again in the sports industry everything’s like that. Politics are kind of through the roof.

I wanted her to be with me when I went to games, practice, and everything, like a trophy wife. I didn’t really want her to get a job. But I couldn’t tell her that. I was kind of feeling a bit obsessive. I noticed it the other day when Sophia invited her out with a few girlfriends. But eventually I realized that her going out was a good thing and that maybe getting a job was an even better thing.

When the season started we would have to be apart. We were kind of living in each other’s pockets, but I knew that it would have to come to an end. I just didn’t want it to.

“Surprised you let Emma go and get a burger by herself!” Sophia laughed as she stuffed a fry into my mouth.

“Mason has such a big mouth. He told you about last weekend?”

“Ah-ha!”

I started to panic. “Did you tell Emma?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t want her freaking out over my baby brother. I know you’re not used to this. It’ll come in time.”

She took my hand and I knew exactly where she was leading me. Onto the patch of grass where everyone was dancing. I was standing in a corner spying on my girlfriend. How bad was that? She’d said that she was going to her dad’s to get another burger. Seriously, how many burgers can one person eat in a day?

The weird thing was that she wasn’t even eating the burgers. It was all about the meat. Which was weird, considering she never used to eat red meat before?

It got me thinking. I wondered if she was pregnant. We’ve been staying at each other’s houses. I had asked her to get out of that pokey apartment and come live with me but, she said that we had just started dating so she wanted her independence. Whatever that meant.

So it got me thinking: maybe she’s eating for two. It was just for the last week that she’d been like this. I asked Sophia about it. She said that when they went out Emma refused to drink. Now, I may not have been a hot-shot doctor like her, but I know when a woman’s acting differently.

I had lived with my mom and sister and when it was their time of the month, hey. Even Dad and I knew when to stay out of their way.

So how comes she’d never refused sex or bled in the time we’d been together? That was kind of weird.

I was going to ask her about it, but I always got distracted. I kind of asked my sis about it and she gave me that look that said “Talk to your girl.”

Which was what I was planning to do, but it had slipped my mind. That was until now.

“Hey, I’m not in a dancing mood!”

I sighed as they put on another Elvis song. Sure, the guy was good, back then. But couldn’t they mix it up or something?

“Hey Mom, remember Sebastian’s impression of Elvis when he was younger?”

She laughed. “Yep, he loved singing to the ‘Hound Dog.’ All day and night. He thought he was Elvis. We even thought he was going to be a singer. How times change.”

That was when Emma had grabbed me from behind. “Really? I never knew. Come show us your moves, Elvis!”

I was so damn embarrassed, because Mom used to play Elvis all the damn time when I was a kid. I am sure that she probably played it when I was a baby. The damn song was stuck in my head. I think my first word was hound dog, according to Dad. Sure I had wanted to be like him. I had been brainwashed from an early age.

I smiled at Emma, saying, “Only if you say pretty please darling?” in my very bad Elvis accent. She squealed, “You even sound like him!” It was a polite thing to say. I was sure that I didn’t sound like him, but the idea that she thought I did brought a smile to my face.

“Elvis will you sing your song for me, pretty please?” She batted her eyelashes. The DJ— a.k.a. my Uncle Wayne—put on the song and I embarrassed myself with the performance that I used to do all the time as a four-year-old. I still knew all the words and it convinced me even more that Mom had brainwashed me from an early age. In the back of my mind I vaguely recalled that there was something that I wanted to talk to Emma about, but as the crowd roared for me to do it again, I forgot what I wanted to say.