Page 41 of The One Decent Thing

Aidan carefully wrapped an arm around my waist and started leading me away — I wasn’t sure where. But it didn’t matter. With Aidan, I was already home.

Aidan

Not driving to a bar made perfect sense, but it was still a hassle getting Sebastian home. Who knew ride-share drivers could be so suspicious of two guys manhandling a slurring third into the back seat? I mean, people took their drunk friends home all the time, right? To be fair, Sebastian could have passed for a victim of roofies when he was coming off of a panic attack. Thank God Chris was there to disarm the guy with his chatter and totally non-threatening demeanor, because I wasn’t going to win any Mr. Congeniality prizes anytime this lifetime.

Chris helpfully got the door open when we got home so I could maneuver Sebastian inside, and then helpfully grabbed him a glass of water, and then less helpfully followed us into my bedroom, where I guided Sebastian without even thinking about it.

“This isn’t his room,” Chris said — accusingly?

“Nope,” I said, popping the p to be obnoxious. My nerves were shot, and all I wanted was to get Sebastian tucked in and then wrap myself around him so tight I wouldn’t be able to tell whose limbs were whose.

Chris frowned. “You kissed him.” That was definitely an accusation. “Did he want you to kiss him?”

“Of course I did,” Sebastian mumbled as I settled him on the bed. “Always want Aidan to kiss me.”

Right then I wanted to strangle Chris, possibly before and possibly after throwing him out the nearest window. If he hadn’t been there I could’ve given Sebastian any one of the million responses I had to that, with kissing him again right at the top of the list. Instead I flipped on the bedside lamp and started untying Sebastian’s shoes, gritting my teeth all the while.

“I can’t believe you were holding out on me, you bitch,” Chris complained. “Oh my God. Are you two, like, together together? Or is this some, like, weird roommate with bene—”

“Chris, dude, I know you’re Sebastian’s best friend, and I’m the new kid on the block in this scenario, but he needs quiet and you need to head home, right now.” Chris squawked in outrage, but Sebastian’s little smile was enough to let me know I was right. I tacked on a grudging, “Please. He’ll call you first thing tomorrow, okay?”

I’d gotten Sebastian’s shoes and socks off, but I couldn’t start stripping the rest until Chris got out of my hair. My fingers were practically itching with the need to warm his skin, trace the lines of his ribs, feel the beat of his heart and make sure it was steady and strong.

Getting Sebastian out of his jacket and settling him with his head on a pillow worked for now. He closed his eyes, sighed, and curled up without a word. I gazed down at him for a second, understanding what I was seeing but hardly able to believe it anyway. Sebastian trusted me. Enough to skip the Xanax, enough to lie there with his eyes closed and let me take care of everything. Enough to let me kiss him, tuck him into my bed instead of his, and watch over him. It was a gift, and I couldn’t fathom the magnitude of it. This sweet, gorgeous, smart guy, with his pizza obsession and his bright blue shoes and his fucking gay quarks, wanted me to kiss him. Healwayswanted me to kiss him. My heart swelled until my chest felt like it might burst.

When I managed to tear myself away, Chris was still fuming, thankfully silently. At least he didn’t put up a fight as I took his elbow and steered him back to the front door. “That’s your car in the driveway, yeah?”

“Yes,” Chris grumbled, “but Sebastian should be the one to tell me to go home. If he actually wants me to.”

Which was more or less what I’d just acknowledged, trying to make Chris feel less like he was being replaced, but him bitching about it too and implying I wasn’t letting Sebastian make his own choices stripped the last of my patience.

“Chris. I live here now. I can tell anyone I want to leave, anytime. That’s just how it is. Would you feel like you could tell one of Lucas’s friends to go under the same kind of circumstances?”

Chris’s jaw set into a stubborn line, and he folded his arms and glared at me. His crossed arms were totally different from Sebastian’s: aggressive rather than defensive. The memory of how he’d stood in front of Sebastian, shielding him from Brody at the bar even though Brody was at least half a foot taller than him and shouting and throwing shit around, flashed through my head. Yeah, all right. I was being the dick here. I just wanted to get back to Sebastianso badly.

I tried again. “We are together, okay? I hope. That’s up to him.” Chris’s glare faded a bit, and he looked more thoughtful. So far so good. “And I really, really want to get in bed and hold him until he’s settled down, and I can’t do that with you standing there yelling at him for not telling you about his love life, right? If you really want to spend the night on the couch, I won’t stop you. But I’ll take care of him. I promise.”

Eyes narrowed, Chris examined me for a long, long minute. “If I go in there alone, and he asks me to stick around, will you still try to throw me out?”

It took everything I had to draw a deep breath, remember that Sebastian didn’t belong to me, and wave my hand toward the hallway. “Go ahead.”

Chris vanished into my room, and I heard a few murmurs. He came back less than a minute later, looking somehow both pleased and disgruntled. “He told me to go home and let you come to bed.”

I opened the front door and gestured at it, imitating the flourish of a butler I’d seen on some crappy British TV series an ex-girlfriend of mine always wanted to watch when she was baked. Chris snorted a laugh, started to walk through, and then stopped suddenly, his eyes wide.

“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “With all the excitement I totally forgot.”

Fuck. “What?”

“Brody,” he said grimly. “He said something about Sebastian’s parents and how they needed to — you know he found out about your, um, your —”

“Prison sentence, yes, I know,” I snapped. “What about it?” The mention of Sebastian’s parents was enough to shoot a year’s worth of adrenaline into my bloodstream all at once. I felt like I was about to vibrate myself off the ground and through the ceiling if he didn’t get to the point.

“I think he said he was going to call them.”

“You fuckingthink?” I gritted out. “You think, or that’s actually what he fucking said?”

Chris flinched, his cheeks gone bright red. “I’m sorry, okay? There was a lot of distraction. I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.”

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