Chapter 4
You still had a few more weeks in your US trip which you plan to spend with your cousin who lives in Chicago. She was waving frantically at you as soon as she saw you emerge from the arrivals area.
"Oh my god, Y/N!" Hart nearly screamed at you when you came closer. "You're here!"
You could only giggle at her as you both walked out of the airport. You told her all about your weekend in San Diego and she couldn't pick up her jaw fast enough after you told her about your encounter with Sebastian Stan.
"So did you go?" she asks, breathless with anticipation.
You could only shake your head slowly.
"What!?"
You scoff. "Pfft, I didn't have the money to buy a ticket, and besides, he probably just said that because I was wearing a shirt that said something about Bucky Barnes. I'm sure he totally forgot about it after that."
"Well, you have a point, movie stars do have a side of 'em only meant for public consumption," she says thoughtfully and you could.only nod in agreement. The topic was immediately dropped and you spent the rest of the long drive on catching up with each other's lives.
Hart shows you your room and you don’t even bother unpacking, just picking out the first pieces of clothing you deem comfy enough to sleep in and fall asleep within minutes after cleaning up and changing. This was something of a talent you consider lucky as you don’t have to stress about missing precious sleep wherever you go.
It was already dark out when you woke up. You immediately got up to check your phone only to find the battery had already died out. “Shit,” you muttered to yourself, along with a few other choice words to reprimand yourself about forgetting. You remembered your family back home, thinking they must be worried you haven’t checked in with them like you promised to.
Finally getting your phone to charge, you waited for a few minutes for it to have sufficient battery, deciding to pass the time by going downstairs to see if Hart and her kids were still up. To your relief, they were.
“Oh hey, Y/N, d’you sleep good? Kids, say hi to your aunt Y/N, go on,” she motions for the boys to get up and they come up to you to give you hugs.
“Oh my gosh, you both are so big now! God, I feel old!” you say as they take turns hugging you.
“Mom says you met and hugged Bucky Barnes!” Noah, Hart’s eldest child tells you excitedly. Her other son, Adam smiles at you with the same level of enthusiasm. They pull you to the table and you tell them about the encounter.
“You’ll probably see some videos in Youtube,” you tell them as you end your story.
“Well,” Hart exhaled. “You heard her, it’s time to head upstairs and prep for bed. Lights off by 11, you hear?”
Both boys nod at their mom and kiss her good night. They both gave you one last hug too and they were off to their rooms.
“So...you must be starving,” Hart asks you and produces a plate from the fridge. You smile gratefully at her and begin digging in.
“Oh my god, this is soo good,” you muse in between bites. Your cousin chuckles.
“I figured you’d be hungry after that nap so I decided to make something special for dinner, glad you liked it.”
“This is amazing, thank you. If you need to head on to bed, I can clean up here after I finish,” you offer. Hart tells you how to use the dishwasher and leaves you to your own devices. After finishing cleaning up, you take the bottle of wine she left for you and head back to your room to check on your phone.
“Oh god,” you breathe out when you see an awful lot of notifications from your social media accounts. You opened one from Instagram and gasped when you saw the number of videos you got tagged on.
“What the…” you mutter as you saw there were multiple Instagram videos of Sebastian hugging you at his panel on SDCC. You scroll through the tagged videos before clicking on a private message from Geri.
OMG, Y/N, you’ve gone viral girl!
You let her stay seen zoned as you had to message your family back home first. There were your other friends that had messaged you too, but none of them seem to be oblivious to the fact that your 15 minutes of fame had just been thrust upon you so you respond to Geri as soon as your family had been properly updated.
You
OMG what the fuck is going on Geri???
Geri
Where the hell have you been? You're all over socials!
You were about to respond to her again when another notification pops up.
@imsebastianstan liked a video you were tagged in.
Your trembling thumb taps on the notification and true enough, the most recent like was indeed from the man himself. "What the fuck…"
Sebastian leaned back on his seat and smiled sheepishly. While he was disappointed you didn't show up at the meet and greet, he was secretly pleased a lot of people had gone nuts about his gesture to you which meant multiple angles of videos he could watch over and over.
Which meant eventually he had to overthink every detail of the moment. He tried recalling how you smelled, how you felt soft in his arms, how your breaths were coming in short bursts, how you trembled and how you smiled shyly at him when he let you go.
Kayla's voice on his apartment door felt like a bucket of cold water on his face, snapping him immediately out of his trance.
"Hey," she greeted and he pulled her for a hug before stepping aside to let her in. "I'm just dropping off your dry cleaning and then I'm heading out to the office for your schedule for the next 2 weeks." She says as she heads straight to his room to place the hangers on his closet.
Sebastian nods and returns to the couch to play with his phone again. Kayla returns after a few minutes.
"Y'know, she's actually pretty if I'm being honest. Not that you obviously care," she says as she stood behind him on the couch, making him jump and nearly dropping his phone.
"Jesus fucking Christ, K, don't fucking sneak up on me like that!" He puts his phone face down and glares at his assistant but she laughs at him instead.
"The hell are you laughing about?"
Kayla shrugs. "You have a crush and you don't even know it. How old are you again? 37 right?"
"Why are you such a smartass?" Sebastian asks irritably. "Nope, don't answer that, you're supposed to go meet Leslie right? Goodbye Kayla."
Kayla scoffs good naturedly but bids her employer goodbye. Sebastian shakes his head at her with a small but genuine smile. She'd only been with him for a couple of years but she already knows him well enough to understand his quirks, eccentricities and moods.
And he couldn't deny to himself that her observations weren't too far off.