chapter song: the only exception by paramore

Rose

A soft nock sounded on the door and my heart kicked into overdrive. I took a deep breath, smoothing down the lines of my dress, and turned away from the stove. I could see Sebastian's silhouette through the door's window and my breath caught.

Tonight was our first date.

"It's open!" I called, turning my attention back to the stove and the steam coming out from the pots. The door creaked, footsteps sounding over the floor, and then I could feel the air shift, adjusting to his presence.

"Smells good," Sebastian said, voice low. I swallowed the nerves rising inside me and turned around, biting my lip when our eyes met. He looked beautiful in a white button up shirt, black hair spilling over the collar. My hand itched to paint this moment, capture it forever.

I returned his warm smile. "Hey you," I said, butterfly wings flapping inside me. Sebastian took a step forward, hands shoved inside the pocket of his pants.

"You look beautiful," he said. I brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear as I felt my cheeks heat up. I had worn the only dress I brought with me, a pale pink, off-the-shoulder flowery one that fell to my mid-thigh, ruffles decorating the bottom hem.

"You look very lumberjack-chic," I teased. Sebastian closed the distance between us, until he was standing in front of me.

"And sexy?" he asked, lips curving up into a smile. His hands rested on my hips and I nodded, leaning up on my tip toes until my face hovered in front of his.

"Very sexy." I pressed my lips to his, he tasted like cinnamon, so warm as his hands cupped my face and held me to him.

"I've been thinking about tonight all day," he whispered, lips trailing down my neck, leaving soft kisses on my skin. I sighed as he kissed behind my ear, before grabbing his face in my hands and forcing his mouth to mine again.

The familiar electricity surged through me, the same one that made me feel on fire every time Sebastian kissed me. If it wasn't for the timer on the stove that went off, making the two of us jump, I didn't think we'd even make it through dinner.

Sebastian groaned as I turned around, shutting off the timer and the stove's burners. "Dinner's ready," I said lamely, turning around to face him.

"I can't remember the last time I ate an actual meal," he mused, grabbing the pots and carrying the food to the table as I trailed behind.

"What the hell do you eat then?" He held out my chair for me and I took a seat. I watched him curiously as he walked around the table and sat in front of me.

"Anything packaged." He filled each of our glasses with wine. "Or frozen. Or packaged and frozen," he said with a wink.

I took a sip, smiling at him from above my glass. "Then you're in for a treat tonight," I said, trailing my tongue across the rim of the glass. Sebastian raised a curious eyebrow and I chuckled, nodding to the food between us. "Let's eat."

We ate in comfortable silence, the hum of the radio filling the room with the distant sound of a piano. Every time I gazed up at Sebastian he was watching me, a smile on his face, and those black eyes of his waiting, always too intense.

His knee would brush against mine under the table. His hand randomly reaching outwards and laying on top of mine. It wasn't about the words we didn't share while we ate. Rather, the feeling of company that had grown so foreign to the both of us. I had forgotten what it felt like to just be without the constant urge to fill every silence with words.

It felt nice, I realized. I can get used to this.

After dinner I stood at the sink, washing the dishes and staring out the window into the night when I felt Sebastian walk up behind me, his hand resting on my back. "Let me do that," he said, grabbing the plate out of my hand.

I kissed his cheek, thanking him before walking to the couch and watched as he cleaned the dishes before drying his hands. I patted the empty spot beside me and he took a seat, hand on my thigh, his thumb rubbing circles onto my leg.

"When was your last date?" His eyebrows raised slightly at my question. I could see him thinking as he pursed his lips.

"It was before Violet got sick," he answered. "We went to some crappy restaurant. I don't even remember the name of it. But she liked it." He smiled, nostalgia and guilt. "Said it had character." He drew out the word, rolling his eyes as he said it.

I rested my head on his shoulder, Sebastian's hand wrapped around my waist and pulled me to him. His breath blew my hair slightly as he breathed. I focused on the sound of his breath, the feel of his chest rising and falling beneath my hand and the soft hammer of his heart.

"Do you think it's possible to love someone the way you loved Violet?" I asked. The words were soft, seeming to be swallowed up by the space around us.

"No," he said instantly. "I know I can love again, Rose, but I think it's different with every person." He lifted his head off of mine to stare at me. "Loving you won't feel like loving Violet, because you're not Violet. It'll be different, but it's still love." He touched his finger to my nose lightly, smiling. "It'll still be amazing."

I nodded, lost in thought as he spoke. I wasn't sure if I could ever love someone the way I loved Caleb, but perhaps Sebastian was right. Love was one word used to describe a feeling that differed depending on the person it was shared with. Loving Caleb had felt like warmth, like sunshine after a rainstorm.

"Rose?" Sebastian said, trailing his finger along my shoulder as I thought about what loving him would feel like. I kissed him softly before nestling into his shoulder again. "When was your last date?"

I felt myself stiffen as I swallowed the lump that appeared in my throat. "My last date never happened," I whispered.

"Why not? Did he not show up?" I could hear the smile in his voice, the lightness of his words. It made my eyes burn.

"No." My hands were trembling. "No, he never showed up." I grabbed Sebastian's hand in mine and squeezed tightly.

"Why not?" he asked. I shut my eyes and wished he would stop asking. But I had asked first. And I thought that maybe part of me asked because I wanted him to turn the question back to me, giving me an easy way to tell him about Caleb, to rip the bandaid off at once.

"He got into a car accident." I hated that word. Accident. An accident meant it could have been avoided. Meant he could still be alive. "He died," I said.

Sebastian sat forward quickly, eyes opened wide as he watched me with a look of pity on his face that I knew all too well. His mouth hung open into a perfect O and I waited for him to speak. He had just found out my secret and I could see that behind the darkness of his eyes, he was witnessing the broken pieces of myself laid before him, as he tried to fit them all back together again.

"His name was Caleb," I began, my voice taking on that familiar, monotone sound as it always did when I told this story, our story. "I loved him, more than anything. And on my nineteenth birthday, he was hit by a car while driving to my house to pick me up for our date."

I peeked up at Sebastian, the colour had drained from his face. "Rose..." His voice trailed off. He ran a hand through his hair, the other gripping mine.

"I know," I said, managing a small smile. "We have a lot in common. Huh?" I bit my lip as it began to quiver, wanting to hold all the pain inside. It was easier that way. But Sebastian understood, he was probably the one person who actually understood what this felt like and I leaned into him, wrapping my arms around his waist as a tear slid down my cheek.

"The way you talked about grief, I knew you had lost someone. But I never—" Sebastian sighed, kissing the top of my head. "I'm sorry."

"I'm okay." My words were muffled, face pressed tightly into his chest. I tilted my chin up to stare at him. "Coming here helped, actually. The same way it helped you."

"You helped me, Rose. Far more than this inn ever could," Sebastian said.

I felt my chest loosen as I sighed, a long breath that I had been holding in for too long, finally gone. "There's one more thing I need to tell you," I said.

"Another secret?" He smirked. "What is it?"

I sat back and folded my legs beneath me, placing my hand on Sebastian's thigh. "I see Caleb's ghost. He's actually sitting right—" I shrieked as Sebastian threw himself onto me, laughing as his body pressed mine back onto the couch until he was laying on top of me. "Too soon?" I teased.

Sebastian's eyes narrowed slightly. I could feel his hand running up my thigh, then my hip, before resting on my waist. "Can we please stop spending our date talking about the people we once loved?" he said.

I nodded, smiling weakly as his kissed my collarbone. "Then how would you like to spend it?"

"Like this," Sebastian murmured, his warm mouth traveling up my neck until his lips met mine. He kissed me slowly, my fingers running through his hair as I pulled him closer.

"How else?" I asked, my voice breathless. Sebastian's mouth moved up my jawline before he kissed my ear. My eyes widened as he whispered a slur of dirty words into my ear, derailing exactly how he'd like to spend tonight with me. I swallowed, my thighs pressing together as I desperately pulled his mouth back to mine.

My hands trembled as I removed his shirt, button by button before his russet skin was beneath my hands. He was so warm, burning under my fingertips as I trailed my hands down the muscles of his chest and the smooth lines of his back. Sebastian murmured my name over and over as I wiggled out of my dress before impatiently crushing my mouth to his. 

It'll be different, he had said. It'll still be amazing. As Sebastian sat up on the couch and pulled me onto his lap, straddling his waist as his mouth trailed down my bare chest, I knew that he was right. Every part of myself felt alive under his hands, under his mouth, and I found myself wanting him in a way I had forgotten.

I gasped as his fingers unexpectedly touched me there, slowly. Teasing. I arched my back, his mouth licking and biting on my neck. "Bedroom," I managed to say between gasps.

Sebastian peeked up at me from behind his lashes, his lips curving upwards into a smug smile. "No," he said, leaning forward until his lips hovered in front of mine. "I want you right here."

My god. I felt like I was going to explode just from seeing the lust that replaced the usual, endless darkness of his eyes. Impatiently, I reached down and undid his belt, then the zipper to his jeans before laying back on the couch and pulling him on top of me.

"Rose," he began, moaning my name as I wrapped my legs around his waist. I held a finger up to his lips and silenced him, my other hand gripping his chin and holding it above my face.

His long hair fell around us, blocking out everything but his dark eyes that burned brightly. My body was beating everywhere, waiting for his, and I trailed my thumb against his lip before I couldn't resist anymore — I jerked his face to mine and kissed him until we were all skin, pressing against each other until the late hours of the night.

Eventually we made it back to my bedroom, drowning out the night until Sebastian fell asleep beside me. It was then that I grabbed a canvas and painted him in the glow of the moonlight that seeped in through the bedroom window, casting shards of slanted light across the planes of his soft skin.

Then, I watched him sleep. I studied the hard lines of his muscles and the curves of his face before I wrapped a blanket around the both of us and pressed myself into his arms. Sebastian stirred, his eyes opening slowly and instantly finding mine before trailing to the painting resting on the dresser. He smiled.

"Do you like it?" I whispered, nestling myself into the crook of his shoulder as he shifted to lay on his back. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, trailing gently through my hair.

"Love," was all he said. When I turned my head to stare at him, to ask what he meant, his eyes weren't on the painting. They were on me. Sebastian's lips pressed into my forehead before his eyes closed once more.

My head latched onto this moment briefly before I felt my eyes flutter close, too. The sound of both our hearts beating broke through the warm silence as the night drifted away.

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i swear, writing love scene drains me of all my energy for a few months before i have the urge to write one again. thoughts???? hope you liked this chapter! love u!

also, in case u forgot #AlexDoesntWriteSmut (;