Page 54 of The Arrangement
I winced and debated whether to ask Wilkins to mimosa up my orange juice. “We might have…jerked…off…together this morning.”
“Oh, good grief,” Byron muttered.
“It’s not my fault. I woke up horny. And he was horny. And we were both hard. It was natural!”
“Your idea of natural frightens me,” Byron murmured.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Sebastian chimed in, but it didn’t feel like he was helping. He tilted his head toward Byron and smirked. “It could have been our first date.”
“Shut up,” Byron grumbled prior to stuffing a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs into his mouth.
I didn’t want to know.
“Anyway…” I drawled, dragging us to the main topic. “When I left, everything seemed okay, but it also felt like thecalm before the storm. Liam is dealing with being raised by an extremely homophobic, overbearing mother who completely stifled his entire life—and I just want to smash her forehead with a hammer—while facing the fact that he might be bisexual or demisexual. Fuck, what if he’s been in denial all this time and he’s really gay? And he went through that marriage to Fiona—the woman, not the hippo. He’s totally the type to overthink things and panic.”
“He’sthe type!” Sebastian exclaimed, jerking my brain from his black vortex of chaos.
“What?”
“I can see why you two were such good friends as kids.You’rein danger of overthinking and panicking right now.”
I opened my mouth to argue with Sebastian, but the words lodged in my throat. He was right. I was hovering right on the cusp of pure panic. After sucking in a couple of slow, calming breaths, I forced myself to focus on the most important thing. “What if he panics and ghosts me? Refuses to talk to me after what happened?”
Sebastian picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Do you have any more dates left in your agreement?”
It took a second to get my scrambled brain to do an organized search of our dates. “One! We still have one left. But he’s got to know that I’m happy to make the donation, regardless of whether we ever go out on that date. I was always planning to make the donation to the museum.”
Byron hummed. “Yes, but it’s still an excuse to talk to you. Even if he wants to run, he has to talk to you at least one more time if he wants to keep his job. It’s kind of horrible to trap him like that, but if you’re trying to help him…”
There. That was what I wanted. Okay, I wanted more than that, but my big concern was making sure Liam was okay. “What can I do for him? How can I help?”
“What you’re doing right now. Give him space to think about things,” Byron murmured. “When he wants to talk or needs more information, be there for him. Be supportive and patient.”
Byron was right. I just wasn’t very good at the patient part. Especially after losing my friend for roughly twenty years. I had him back and didn’t want to let him go. “And if he wants to deny it all and pretend that he’s not attracted to men?”
Sebastian and Byron shared a look, and my heart squeezed. I wanted that. The way they so easily communicated without saying a single word. It didn’t come from dating for the past six months. They’d known each other for three years. Saw each other five days a week. Traveled together. It also didn’t hurt that Byron seemed to understand intuitively what Sebastian was thinking.
“You have to respect his decision. It’s his life, and he has to live it how he sees fit,” Sebastian answered, and I immediately thought it was a bullshit response, even if he was probably right.
“However, I have some pamphlets from work that might be helpful.” Byron was the COO for an LGBT charity organization that Sebastian’s mother had started. Their focus was on children and young adults, but they also assisted parents trying to figure out how to be supportive of their LGBT children.
“Pamphlets?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.
“Stop.” Byron pointed his fork at me, his expression stern. “You have been queer all your life. I bet you barely even remember all the questions in your head from those early days. In comparison, Liam has been queer for five minutes and is an adult. Adults have completely different worries. Not to mention, those pamphlets are grounded heavily in science. Liam is a scientist. He might appreciate the science behind everything rather than coming at it from a cultural or philosophical angle.”
Oh, that sounded good. Really good. Liam loved science and logic.
Leaning toward Sebastian sitting across the table from me, I flashed him a wicked grin. “He’s smart. You should marry him.”
Sebastian looked as if he were going to rip out my throat. The man wanted to marry Byron so badly he was practically choking on it, but he was trying to give Declan his special moment to shine with Parker. And, of course, I enjoyed driving him crazy.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Byron chided. He put his fork aside and wiped his mouth with his linen napkin. “It is frightening to think Liam might decide to deny that part of himself, but you have to remain supportive of him. It might take him a long time to come around to embracing all of himself. However…” Byron’s voice drifted off, and a lead weight settled in the pit of my stomach. It felt as if he were about to drop some new and horrible information on my head.
“Oh God, what?” I whined.
“Have you considered the other end of things?”
I stabbed a bit of sausage but hesitated to lift it to my mouth. “What do you mean?”
