Page 40 of The One Decent Thing

“Who was that asshole?” Rick asked me. “He threw that glass the second he saw you, it was your boys he was fucking with, and he knew about your time. So don’t tell me that wasn’t personal.” He folded his arms across his chest and stood there at his ease, clearly settling in to talk as long as we needed to, my impatience or his promise of ‘just a second’ be damned.

I really, really didn’t want to explain. It was Sebastian’s story, not mine, and I still didn’t know the precise details. But Rick was like a dog with a bone, and if I didn’t give him something concrete he’d wonder if I was hiding something that would make me look bad. Or come back on him, given my history.

“I’ve only met him once,” I said. “I think he’s part of Sebastian’s — extended friend group, I guess. He knows the guy Sebastian’s here with tonight, the one he was all up on at the bar.” Rick nodded, and I drew a deep breath. “The asshole — Brody — pulled something shady with Sebastian one time. I wasn’t there, but Sebastian told me it happened. I guess he assaulted him, not like raped him, but close. I don’t know the whole story, but Brody’s bad fucking news.”

Rick nodded again, this time more slowly, his lips pressed together tightly. He looked fucking pissed, and I hoped it had the right target.

“Surprised you didn’t take him apart,” Rick said mildly, belying his tension. “I think I would have.”

“Yeah, well, Jason kept me from jumping him.”

“Jason’s good like that.” Rick sighed. “I’m guessing you don’t want to press charges? No getting up close and personal with the law?”

I shuddered. Even if I’d been eager to jump through the hoops it would take to get Brody arrested for assault, Sebastian was one of the witnesses. He was involved. And making him go through something like that, getting questioned about his history with the defendant? No. Fucking. Way. “Definitely not.”

“Sucks that he gets away with it all,” Rick commented, “but I probably wouldn’t either, in your shoes. He’s not gonna get anything but a few dollars’ fine for throwing shit at the door just now. Okay. Go get your boy, and get out of here for the night. Come in for a few hours on Tuesday to make up for it. We have that birthday party coming in.”

“Thank you,” I breathed. Fuck, thank God. Tuesday was usually one of my days off, but who cared. I wasn’t losing my job, and I could take care of Sebastian. Sending him home with Chris while I tried to get through the night would’ve been pure torture. “Thanks. Seriously. I appreciate —”

“I said get,” Rick said, shaking his head. “Now!”

With a mock-salute, I yanked the door open and double-timed back out there, heart pounding, to find Sebastian. No matter who was watching, I was going to kiss the hell out of him the second he was in reach, and I wasn’t letting him out of my arms again until I had to be back at work.

Chapter Twenty

Sebastian

Seeing Brody was a shock. Watching him latch onto Chris and start shouting at him about how he’d destroyed Brody’s social life, and no one we mutually knew would talk to him, and it was all bullshit, was worse.

I should’ve jumped in to defend Chris. I should’ve done something. But Ifroze, pathetic and useless, with my blood turning cold and thick in my veins and my head pounding, the lights and noise slamming into me and echoing and throbbing, or maybe that was my own heartbeat.

Brody was yelling, and then Aidan was there — shit, no, Aidan, what was going to happen — something flew through the air and hit him, and there was more movement and noise. I stumbled into the bar as someone knocked into me. I couldn’t feel my feet. Someone grabbed my arm; Chris. It was Chris. “You have to — go get Aidan, you have to, you have to — Brody’ll send him back, he’ll call them, he’ll —” I couldn’t get the words out, it wasn’t working, and Chris’s face was right there: worried and confused andnot getting it.

I tried to get Chris out of my way and follow Aidan, but Chris grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me down on a bar stool. “You need to breathe,” he shouted in my ear, and I winced and flinched. “I’ll get you out of here. Just breathe first.”

“Can’t,” I choked, and Chris pulled me up again.

Body parts and snatches of loud laughter flashed by me, all lit with blue and pink and strobed with white. It was like hell, and everything in me screamed to get to Aidan, get to Aidan, but I couldn’t stop Chris from pulling me along, careening us both off of objects and people. My limbs went every which way, getting bruised and battered by the crowd. I couldn’t seem to pull them into order.

A blast of cold air hit my face, and a flood of normal white light. There was an older man there at the door. He instantly abandoned what he was doing and helped Chris get me out of the doorway and leaned up against the wall a few feet down.

The shock of the chill snapped me out of it, enough that the stares and whispers of the guys waiting to get into the club made me want to sink down through the ground and die. I turned my face away from them, my breath hitching in and out of my chest.

“You need to focus on me and breathe, kid,” said a deep voice I didn’t recognize. The door guy. “Deep breath, follow my count.”

It helped, sort of, but Chris wringing his hands and fluttering around made it worse. Cars rushed by, floating huge puffs of exhaust across the sidewalk and making me cough.

My chest was seizing up, and the old guy’s counting wasn’t doing it. Wasn’t enough. Where was Aidan? What if he was getting shoved into the back of a police car right now and —

“Sebastian!” Running footsteps echoed on the sidewalk. “Sebastian.” I looked up, finally able to focus my eyes. Aidan hip-checked Chris out of the way and exchanged a glance and nod with the older guy, who moved back to the door without a word.

Aidan was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, there and safe and tall and with his eyes filled with something I didn’t have the courage to name. His arms went around me, gathering me off the dirty concrete wall, and then he kissed me, right there on the street for everyone to see. My lips were chilled but his were hot and sure. Strong hands cradled my back, and he folded his body around me, sheltering me from the street and the curious eyes and the cold and the noise, as he kept his mouth pressed over mine.

At last he pulled back and peered down into my face. I couldn’t see anything but him. I didn’t need to.

“Let me take you home,” he said. “C’mon. Everything’s fine.”

I buried my face in his shoulder and nodded, relief welling up so strongly it almost hurt.

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