SNEAK PEEK: Sebastian’s Break

(This is the first chapter of a work in progress.)

Chapter One

“Douche Canoe”

The night before the championship match, Rod and Sebastian were bellied up to the bar at a seafood joint in the bowels of Seattle’s Pike Place Market. With its sweeping view of the water and the market’s historic vibe, it was a hot spot for tourists and locals alike, and tonight was no exception. Cover tunes thumped through the joint as some shitty live band did their best to pretend they’d achieved fame, women in itty-bitty dresses danced and laughed and tossed their hair, and the raw oysters were eating a hole in Seb’s wallet.

Sebastian had an audience, as usual. A pair of scantily clad women clung to him like barnacles. Their laughter fought for his attention above the band's clamor. But his mind was elsewhere, engaged in a text war with Linette, a woman he’d left behind in L.A.

He typed: Don’t know what you thought was going on.

I thought I’d see you again before you left.

Why?

Because we fucked.

Sebastian snorted. LOL! Did you think there was more?

Obviously not. Lose my number, douche canoe.

The last message stung, but he shrugged it off, his smirk unscathed. Sebastian “Dink” Mazur knew the game, and he was a pro.

Turning to the blonde flanking him, he gave her his most charming grin. “If I didn’t have a match tomorrow, I’d bang you like a screen door.” He winked at her curvy friend and added, “Both of you.”

They laughed and hung on him, cajoled and begged, but he shook his head.

“Sorry, ladies.”

“What kinda match is more important than this one?” the brunette said into his ear, rubbing her ample tits against his bicep.

Sebastian indicated Rod with his beer bottle. “See that fucker over there?”

“Yeah?”

“I promised him that tomorrow I’ll help him become an International Beach Volleyball Association men’s world champion for the second year in a row.”

She peered at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide and a little too vacant. “Volleyball?”

Rod smirked. “Yeah. You’ve been flirting with the best in the world.”

She looked back at Sebastian. “The best what?”

Sebastian shook his head and drained his beer. He wasn’t sure if it was the beer slowing her down or if she was always this dull. No matter. Bedtime came early tonight. “Time for bed.”

She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Sorry, hon, I sleep alone the night before a match.” He dropped four twenties on the table, grabbed his jacket, and followed Rod outa the bar. Sebastian Mazur wasn’t a gentleman, but he did have self-discipline. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be playing on Alki tomorrow.

“They were pretty,” Rod remarked as they headed out to the sidewalk. But he had that look on his face, the one that said Sebastian’s volleyball partner was reading him like an open book written for first graders. The smug fucker.

“Yeah, pretty dense.” Seattle’s nighttime chill cut through Sebastian. He wasn’t used to the dampness. Fuck. How does Aithan stand living here? Aithan was his older brother.

“That never used to bother you,” Rod remarked.

Sebastian shrugged. “Guess I’m getting picky in my old age.”

Rod snorted and gave him a shove. “I know why.”

“Fuck you. Don’t start.”

Roc cracked up, his laughter echoing off Downtown Seattle’s tall buildings. “Is it possible our little Sebastian’s becoming an adult?”

Sebastian ran his hand through is thick, dark hair. “Shit, I hope not.”

They both laughed, but ever since Sebastian’s older brother got married, Seb caught himself looking at women differently. He’d always had an easy time finding beautiful women to party with, but when he’d tried to charm Aithan’s wife, she’d kicked him into the gutter and walked all over his ego. It was a curb-stomping he’d needed. One he’d been warned would come eventually. He just hadn’t expected it from Zelda, and he hadn’t expected it to hurt so much and have such a big fucking impact.

Having his older brother’s drop-dead gorgeous, successful, whip-smart wife tell him he was a spoiled brat who’d never measure up to Aithan had felt like she’d kicked him in the balls wearing concrete boots. She’d cut Seb down to size with a precision that would make a surgeon weep with envy.

Ouch. He was still raw from that day.

But Zelda was right. And, holy shit, did he admire her for it.

Admitting that hurt. Shit, did it ever. He was a spoiled man-child, always basking in the limelight, never Aithan’s equal.

Zelda was different, a force of nature. She and Aithan were everything he wasn't, and everything he found himself wanting.

He wanted a woman like her. A woman who saw through his nonsense, who didn't swoon at his fame or his flirtations.

The trouble was, women like Zelda didn’t want him.

That realization hung over him, thick as fog, as he followed Rod back to their hotel. The city was quiet, its streets slick with the memory of rain, neon signs reflecting bright colors off wet asphalt. The salt air filled his lungs, the sound of the waves lapping against the shore a ceaseless rhythm.

They reached the hotel and rode the elevator in silence. Sebastian stopped at the door to his fourth-floor room. Rod headed for his own room, phone already in hand, no doubt texting his girlfriend.

“Night, man.”

“Night, Dink. Gonna kick ass tomorrow.”

“You know it.”

Sebastian couldn't help but feel a pang of envy. Rod had a good thing going with Mira, something stable and real. Meanwhile, he was still playing games, chasing skirts, and wasting time.

In his own room, Sebastian collapsed onto the bed, staring at the bland, white ceiling, Zelda’s brutal takedown echoing in his mind: "That’s my husband you just insulted. A man you can’t compete with, so stop trying."

Christ, it had been almost five years since that day, but he still felt like an ass. Of course, being sucker-punched in the face by Zelda’s other husband, Drew, had definitely cemented the scene in his mind. He’d earned that blow. He’d earned Zel’s scorn and Aithan’s wall of silence.

Aithan. The older brother he’d worshiped, then envied, then resented.

"A man you can’t compete with, so stop trying."

"Like hell I can’t," he muttered, an empty promise to an empty room.

Shit. He was Sebastian Mazur, goddamn beach volleyball demigod. And tomorrow, he was going to prove it to the world and himself. But, deep down, Sebastian knew that wasn’t the challenge he needed to master. Zelda hadn’t cast aspersions on his ability to rule the beach. She’d thrown a bucketful of doubt on his image, on him, on who Sebastian Greven Mazur was as a man off the beach. He knew it because Zelda didn’t give a shit about volleyball and he hadn’t hit on her because she was a sexy woman. Which, yes, she was. He’d hit on her because she was his brother’s wife and he was too big a asshole to control his urge to have whatever Aithan had, be better at whatever Aithan mastered.

But Aithan’s ongoing silence gained weight every damned day.

Sebastian groaned at the blank ceiling. “Fuuuck. I’m such a nutsack.”

All of this, while true, was utterly unhelpful when it came to getting sleep the night before a huge match.

“Dość,” Seb muttered in Polish, his grandmother’s native tongue. He shoved up from the bed and headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth. “Shut the fuck up, brain.”