Page 43 of The One Decent Thing

“Sorry to wake you.” He stroked my scruffy chin and smiled. “Not sorry you’re awake, though.” I dipped down for a kiss, but he dodged me, my lips catching his cheek instead. “I need to brush my teeth, like, so, so badly.”

Fuck that. I put my hand on his face and turned him back. “Don’t care.” He didn’t dodge that time, and I lost myself in the sweetness of him. Whatever, I had morning breath too, and he always tasted good.

After we’d had our fill — for the moment, anyway, since my cock was still poking him in the thigh and his was pressed against my abdomen — he leaned his head back again, studying my face. His was pinker on one side from where it’d been resting against my shoulder, and there were little bits of crud in the corners of his eyes. I probably didn’t look any better. A lot worse, actually, because he had the head start of being a natural nine, while I was kind of a six on a good day.

But the way his gorgeous blue eyes rested on me, sweet and warm and full of affection, made me feel like an underwear model. “So, I need to ask you something.”

I swallowed hard. That was only a small step abovewe need to talk. “Yeah?”

“Last night. Outside the club?” I nodded. “Did you, like…kiss me?”

“You don’t remember?” Stalling was shitty of me, but I wasn’t sure what to say. Reading him wasn’t always simple, because while he usually had his emotions on display, sometimes they weren’t the emotions I expected.

Sebastian gave me a narrow-eyed, pursed-lipped look, and I quailed. That look always meant trouble. “Are you messing with my head?” he asked sharply. “I mean, kissing me in public is a big deal. If you did, and since, you know, sorry, I was having a panic attack, my memory may not be the clearest and if you don’t tell me —”

“Okay, okay, fuck, yes, I kissed you. I wasn’t trying to mess with you,” I protested, stroking his hair out of his eyes and then giving him a squeeze. “I shouldn’t have done that without checking with you first. To make sure we were on the same page, or whatever. I was so worried, and I didn’t think.”

“The same page,” Sebastian repeated slowly, like he was rolling the words around in his mouth to see what they felt like. “What, um. What page is that?”

Well, one of us had to be the first to take a leap. I didn’t want it to have to be me. Sebastian had everything going for him: brains and looks and money and friends, and this nice house, and soon a college degree and grad school and a career doing crazy smart shit with other smart, awesome people. Putting myself out there was just begging to be smacked down.

On the other hand, Sebastian saw a skinny awkward nerd when he looked in the mirror, and it was people like me who’d convinced him early on that being an openly gay, brilliant science geek was a ticket to being mocked. So hey, maybe it was fair that I was the one to stick my neck out.

All or nothing, Aidan. The worst that can happen is he laughs in your face. And then you’ll feel like you want to die, but you’ve already survived four years in prison. How could Sebastian rejecting you be worse?

I wasn’t convinced, but I managed to open my mouth and say, “The page where I’m your boyfriend?”

Sebastian froze. He didn’t blink, he didn’t speak, and every part of him went completely rigid. “Oh,” he choked out at last. “Oh. My God. Really?”

Was that good or bad? “Sebastian? Yes. Really. But you kind of have to agree with me, I can’t be your boyfriend if you don’t want me t—”

Sebastian flung himself onto me, smothering me in messy wavy hair and all his limbs, and his mouth locked onto mine. He pulled back with a smack of his lips, his eyes wild. “Yes, of course yes, don’t change your mind!”

It was so perfectly Sebastian that I started to laugh, rolling us over suddenly so that he flailed down onto his back with me on top. “I’m not going to change my mind, you freak, Jesus.”

His mouth was right there, so I dived back in, rubbing my cock over his and drawing out more and more of those moans of his, the ones that had me aching for something I couldn’t quite figure out.

“Wait,” he gasped. “Just a second.”

“Seriously?”

He shoved my chest. “Yeah, seriously. You were straight, like, five minutes ago. So many guys experiment and then still label themselves as straight men, and I — are you sure you aren’t going to change your mind? If you’re with me, everyone will think you’re gay. I mean, it is kind of gay.”

“To have a boyfriend? Yeah, that’s a little gay.” I started laughing again and bent down to rest my forehead against his shoulder. It wasn’t really funny, but my stomach and my head were both so light, like they had bubbles fizzing inside them, and I couldn’t stop myself.

“Aidan, I mean it,” he said, and his tone got through to me where his words hadn’t. Sebastian was actually worried. Aboutmenot wantinghim.

Hilarious as that was, my laughter died away, even though I could still feel weird shakes of it in my gut. “I’m sorry.” I lifted my head and looked down at him, trying to seem like I took his concerns as seriously as I really, truly did, underneath my crazy burst of relief and happiness and who-knows-what. “Look. Yeah, I’m not gay, but I’m obviously not straight, either. Right?”

“Well, okay, but —”

“But nothing. I want to be with you. I’ve been with girls. Those two things don’t have to contradict each other. There’s plenty of bi dudes in the world, right?”

Actually, I had no idea how many people thought of themselves as bi. But in prison, maybe I’d only gotten ten minutes of actual sexual experience with another man, but I’d seen enough to know a lot of people’s sexuality was situational more than anything. Sure, there were plenty of inmates who never touched another man and never wanted to, and a ton more who’d fuck someone or get their dicks sucked but not the other way around. I’d thought about it while I was in there, since I didn’t have anything else to do, and come to the conclusion that my sexuality was less about women and more about people I liked who had good hygiene, most of whom happened to be women.

Unfortunately, that left out ninety-nine percent of my fellow inmates. But I hadn’t ruled it out completely, and wanting Sebastian as much as I did? Yeah, it was a surprise. But not a shock.

Not that I had any idea how to explain that, any of that, to Sebastian in that moment.

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