Lifeline (Sebastian Vettel)

Chapter 55: Addict

"Tell me about your girlfriend... the one before me." Tully asked after a while, her hand moving further up his chest beneath his clothing.

"Uh, her name was Hayley." he said, swallowing as he felt her hand following the trail of his ribs, "We were together for 7 years."

"And then I came along and ruined it?"

Seb grinned, "Not the word I would choose."

"Keep talking." Tully urged him. She vaguely noted somewhere in her brain that she loved hearing him talk. About anything.

"We were having problems when I met you and she didn't like that I'd hired a female. I guess she felt threatened. Probably it was a bad move on my part but... I guess on some level I knew it wasn't going to work out between us by then and I didn't want to pass up a good trainer. It's so hard to find the right one and we clicked so easily."

"Did I meet her?"

"Briefly, once. I think that was it."

"Then what?"

"You came to live in Switzerland... we started working really well together." he said, smiling sheepishly.

"What? Tell me." she grinned, watching his face carefully. He was still staring at the TV determinedly.

"Just... looking back on it all now. I was in some serious denial." he laughed, "I remember I used to dream about you all the time."

He decided to leave out the part about how she would often end up dead in those dreams.

"I was either with you, or thinking about you, every second of the day."

"What a pervert." Tully murmured.

"You were just so different to what I'd been used to at that point. I got swept up in you so fast, and the idea of this life with you... you were so confident in yourself. You didn't need anything from me, you didn't want anything you didn't already have."

"Except you, evidently. I remember being really fucking sad. I cried over you... somewhere. I think it was in this house."

Seb frowned, thinking furiously about what she could possibly be referring to. Why would she have ever been alone, crying over him? When had she ever been in his house without him?

"Oh." he said suddenly, "Maybe it was the day... well, we were messing around down here one day and there was a... moment. I nearly kissed you. I wanted to, and I was that close, but I stopped. You slept over here anyway, but not with me. It could have been that night."

"It's not a good memory." she replied.

"I had no idea that upset you. You didn't show it." he said, sounding distracted by his own thoughts.

"What was I like around you? Did I encourage you to think of me in that way?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Not really. But you didn't discourage me either. You were always very affectionate... always playful." he replied, tilting his head to rest his chin against her forehead.

"What happened next?"

"Well, a little bit before that night where I almost kissed you, Hayley had cheated on me."

"What?"

"She didn't expect me home so early one day and she had someone else in my bed with her. So that had officially ended."

"Wow."

"For a while after all this happened, you pulled away from me. You wouldn't touch me except strictly for work. But it only really lasted a couple of weeks. I felt like we were magnets." he smiled to himself, "We got closer again soon enough. We started to fall asleep together."