Page 53 of Cohesion

“You’re too clever, Seb. And Spence and Ken have big mouths. I’m not going to tell you, because it doesn’t matter.”

“Why doesn’t it matter?” Will asked. “Isn’t your first time something special to hold onto?”

“No. It was just sex, Will. They taught me a few things about myself, and I taught them a few things. We parted ways, friends only.”

“Friends that fuck,” Sebastian said bluntly. He couldn’t think they believed that was the end of it.

“When I’m in the area, or they are, we might have some fun, on occasion,” Jericho said flippantly. “Nothing organised or premeditated.”

“What about now?” Peyton asked. “If you saw them?”

Jericho was silent a moment. He tapped the side of his glass and took a deep breath. “We do work together, sometimes, so Iwillsee them again. You need to know that right now. You’re likely to meet them at some point. However, if you’re asking: would I take them up on an offer if they were to give it right now? The answer is no. Some things are more important than sex. There isn’t an emotional connection the way you’re thinking. Not anything like whatwehave. And besides”—he leaned back, a smile dripping in sin on his handsome face—“there are only four men that I want to get hot and sweaty with, and they’re all sitting right here.”

Will smiled and happily gathered another piece of pizza, devouring it in three bites, along with more Smarties. If he saidthat helikedthat flavour combination, Sebastian was going to have rethink so many choices.

“Peyton was my first,” Will said. “And vice versa. I was twenty-three too.”

That would have made Peyton twenty.

Peyton nodded. He bit down on a Smartie and then washed it down with some of his Scotch. “Yeah. Other than you three, Will and I have never slept with anyone else.”

Were they all sharing, now? Sebastian wasn’t sure he wanted to admit his.

“Mine was a boyfriend in high school,” Quinn offered. “His name was Aaron. We dated eight months, which back then was basically a lifetime. It wasn’t anything memorable. Just one of those things you do because you think you should.”

Sebastian bit back his sneer.AaronStupid name for a guy that got to put his hands on someone that didn’t belong to him. Just because Sebastian hadn’t known Quinn then didn’t make it any less true.

They all turned expectant gazes on Sebastian.

Fuck.

He took another mouthful, emptying his drink and bracing himself. “Quinn.”

“What?” Quinn asked as if Sebastian were asking him a question.

“No, I mean, it was you. You were my first.”

Quinn’s lips parted in surprise. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

Sebastian shrugged. He glanced around, wondering where the Scotch bottle had gone because he needed another drink. Jericho passed it over wordlessly, their fingers brushing. Sebastian gratefully poured a generous helping and then swallowed half of it in one go.

“I didn’t need to.” What would the point have been? Virgin or not, it wouldn’t have taken away how important it had been. How fuckingyoungand stupid he’d been to think that a relationship that had burned so bright wouldn’t burn out so quickly. He’d wanted to believe in love conquering all, and he’d been wrong.

“Seb… I would have done it differently. I would have made it better if I’d known.”

“Better than what? It was perfect.” He’d been so consumed by need and intoxicated by Quinn’s presence, overwhelmed and so ridiculously in love in such a short amount of time, riding a high he never thought he’d come down from, that even if it hadn’t been perfect, it had been.

“Your first time should have been—”

“With someone that I loved? With someone that treated me with respect and loved me? With someone that cherished me and took care of me and made it good?” Sebastian emptied his drink, finally starting to feel the tiniest of buzzes from the alcohol. “It was, all of those things.” He absently picked at a slice of pizza. “If I’d ever thought about what I wanted it to be, then that’s what I would have pictured.” He’d never forget it even if there had been a lot of time over the years where he wished he could, where nothing he had done could erase it from his memories.

This second chance, with the man who had owned his heart from the second they’d met, it was everything to him. Adding three other men to it was icing on the cake. He didn’t deserve any of it, but he wasn’t about to let it slip through his fingers if he could do something about it.

This time he wasn’t going to let go first.

Sebastian cleared his throat. “Another round? Some of us are still wearing clothes.”

Of course, now that he was rattled in a way that wasn’t easy to shake off, Sebastian lost the next round with an abysmal pair of eights. Peyton only scraped through with the win using a pair of nines. Sebastian had considered folding, but something had told him to keep going. Whatever had told him had been wrong. It was Peyton’s pretty face. It was too distracting, even when it was conspicuously blank.

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