Page 28 of The One Decent Thing

I worked hard enough not to have to think about that, either.

On Sunday, I bit the bullet and searched the public records databases for the conviction record Rick had asked me to send him. Looking at it made me sick, and I was practically covering my face with my hand and peeking through my fingers as I scrolled and skimmed and got what I needed.

I got an email back later that night, confirming a time for me and Sebastian to meet up with him at the bar the following afternoon.

Which meant talking to Sebastian.

Not that I didn’t want to — except that I also really, really didn’t want to. When I’d come home the other night and ended up crowding him against the counter, and he’d put his hand on my chest…fuck that felt good. Sebastian’s touch was so gentle and sweet. It was a lot like the way girlfriends of mine had touched me, way back when, long before I knew enough about how much human contact could hurt to really appreciate the nice kind. Not that Sebastian’s hand felt like a woman’s. It was more the intent behind the way his fingers moved, caressing and coaxing.

Then Sebastian licked his pretty lips, and for a second they were just — pretty lips. Not a guy’s lips. Not my roommate’s lips. Soft, pink, lightly moistened lips that looked like they’d fit perfectly underneath mine. My cock went from minding its own business to trying to shove its way out of my jeans in two seconds. And then, I’d flashed back to that one blow job two years before, how Joe’s mouth had felt at least as good as any woman’s ever had, how Sebastian’s would feel even better.

And then to how fucking shitty I’d felt right after, when I’d seen the guy across the way palming his cock through his pants and grinning. It hit me that I wasn’t attracted at all to the guy on his knees in front of me, but I helped him up and thanked him anyway. That was the first and last time I’d gotten any in prison.

I was man enough to admit I’d flipped the fuck out when it all came crashing back, and I’d nearly taken half the kitchen furniture with me.

Thank fuck Sebastian was drunk enough that he hadn’t noticed how much his little, innocent gestures sent me barreling down a really bad road and...not going there.

While I was getting him to bed, he’d slurred something at me, something that sounded a lot likeget in bed with me. I had to have heard that wrong, but it stuck in my head. When I jerked off that night, my brain kept replaying it while I tried to think about the perfect breasts on that girl I’d seen when I walked into the club, and all the ways she could use them to drive me crazy.

I was going crazy, all right, but it didn’t have anything to do with her.

Fuck this. I put the laptop down and hopped off the couch in search of Sebastian, who’d come home a little while before, said hi, and gone straight into his room. I had no idea where he’d been all day.

It was late afternoon, and since the house faced east the light had faded completely out of the living room. A few blinks later, to clear the glare of the laptop screen from my eyes, I headed down the hall.

“Sebastian?” I tapped lightly on the door. If he was sleeping, no worries, I’d come back later. Really, really no worries. I felt for my lighter. A cigarette first would be great, and maybe a few more hours, too.

I was about to tiptoe away when he called back, “Yeah? Come in.”

Damn it. I opened the door a foot and peeked in. Sebastian was lying on his bed, arms and legs spread out, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t look quite normal, and it took me a second to realize why: he had on a button-down shirt underneath a nice blue sweater, rather than some goofy t-shirt with a science joke no one was ever going to understand. Still jeans, like he always wore, but skinny black ones that were more like expensive pants if you didn’t look too closely. I wasnotgoing to look too closely, even if his legs were just as slim and long as that girl’s outside the club the other night.

“What are you all dressed up for, dude?” On a Sunday, too. Sebastian wasn’t a church-goer, I was sure of that. He didn’t have anything against religion that I knew of, but a church would’ve had to have a particle accelerator in place of a pulpit to keep his attention.

Sebastian frowned, still gazing straight up. His room was at the back of the house, with two big windows overlooking the yard, and the setting sun filtering in through the thin white curtains made him look hazy, kind of unreal, like a painting. One ray had sneaked through the gap between the curtain and the window frame and lay across his throat, glinting golden on a bit of his hair that had fallen onto the pillow.

He hadn’t gotten a haircut in a while, and it was almost to his shoulders. It looked good on him.

Fuck, everything looked good on him, especially those jeans.

He blew out a long sigh. “I had a date.”

I straightened up like someone had yanked on my spine. My first thought was that fucking asshole Brody — but no, Sebastian wouldn’t go out with him, not a chance. But the way he’d said it, dispirited and sad, like he was giving me bad news — or having to give his bad news to someone else — put me on fucking red alert.

Easy. I had to go easy, and not freak him out by interrogating him and demanding to know whose nose I should break. I’d save that until he admitted someone deserved it. “You’re home kind of early for a date. He have something come up?”

Sebastian let out a weird little snort of laughter that had me biting my lip. If I laughed too, he’d think it was at him, and not because it was so fucking silly and cute and, well, soSebastian.

“If he’d had something come up, maybe I wouldn’t be home so early.”

Then I did laugh, shaking my head at him. “Dude. What’s your encore gonna be? Your mom jokes?”

That wiped the smile right off his face. “My mom’s not all that funny.”

Shit. “Yeah. Neither is mine.”

I stood there, shifting from foot to foot, as the awkward silence stretched.

“Sorry,” Sebastian said, and finally turned his head on the pillow and looked at me. His eyes were half-lidded and looked a little puffy. Had he been crying? I knew that look — he’d had it when I came home Thursday night, too. I’d let it go, figuring he was drunk and sometimes you just needed to let that shit out without someone fucking bothering you about it. “You came in here for a reason, right? You don’t want to hear about my crappy date. What’s up?”

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