Bewitched by Bella's Brother (15 page)

“No shower,” Asa mumbled. “Don’t mind sweat.”

“You sure?”

“Do you want one?”

“No, but most guys want showers immediately. I mean, I

like one in the morning, and I’m pretty sure morning sex is out, but considering what my first urge to do in the morning is anyway, I don’t think we want to go there. But I was just making sure, you know, because, I didn’t want my stench to offend….”

Asa kissed his sweaty forehead. “No stench. No talking.

Just breathe.”

Sebastian did. He fell asleep almost immediately and

dreamed of Asa’s touch on his skin. And cookies.

He woke up with two hard-ons, one his own and aching,

and the other Asa’s and prodding him in the hip. Their

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the skylight, and in spite of the sweat, Sebastian didn’t want to stop touching Asa in the least.

Asa apparently felt the same. Disregarding morning

breath, his mouth claimed Sebastian’s before Sebastian

could even focus his eyes, and Sebastian returned the kiss ardently. Their bodies moved, but not beyond the clench

stage, and as Sebastian’s arousal escalated, he ground up against Asa’s lower stomach, and Asa returned the favor

against Sebastian’s hip. They both groaned inside each

other’s mouths at the same time, and their movements

became hurried, more frenzied, more desperate.

Asa was the one who pulled his hips away and shoved a

hand between them to capture Sebastian’s cock, and he

pulled—firmly but not too roughly, in spite of his own

urgency, and the awkward position. Sebastian tilted his head back, and Asa plundered his mouth some more, and kept

stroking him off as he did it.

Oh God… I can’t believe I called him a man-virgin.

This man had a better head on his shoulders for sex

than Sebastian had ever possessed. As Sebastian thrust

inside that hard grip, he had to admit that Asa knew how to please a body—any body—and that he did it because he put that body’s needs first.

But his own needs weren’t too far behind. As Sebastian

shuddered in a lazy morning orgasm, Asa continued frotting against his hip. The slick come that had spattered against Sebastian’s stomach dripped down, and Asa’s cock grew

slippery and his movements faster. Sebastian clung to him as Asa buried his face in Sebastian’s neck and groaned and spurted, adding to the general coating of spend on their skin.

They lay panting in the warm summer morning, and

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while Sebastian tried to put together what had just

happened, Asa spoke, his voice muffled against Sebastian’s neck.

“Sebastian?”

“Mm?”

“
Now
we can shower.”

SHOWER they did, and then they dressed in sleep shorts and nothing else. Asa made them a mushroom and Swiss cheese

omelet that should have gone in some sort of breakfast hall of fame. Sebastian toasted bread and managed not to carve big holes in the middle this time when he put on the butter.

This could be because Asa had started buying the

spreadable kind, but Sebastian wasn’t going to bring it up and tempt fate.

Sebastian loved to watch Asa cook. His face lapsed into

calm, serene lines, his lean lips quirked up a little, and he moved like a dancer from counter to stove to drawer to

cupboard. It was like watching poetry, and Sebastian had learned a certain degree of stillness just by not wanting to interrupt him while he worked.

Finally, the omelet was plated (with an orange slice and parsley) and they sat next to each other at the little dining room table and ate quietly—and slowly. Sebastian closed his eyes to savor every bite.

“So much better than Top Ramen on a hot plate,” he

said with enthusiasm. “What made you learn to cook? I

mean, your mom’s a good cook, she really is, but you’re like, I don’t know, gourmet level. It doesn’t seem to run in the Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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family—Bella’s competent but it’s not a passion or

anything—but you—you’re like
Top Chef, the Supermodel
version, or
American Idol
in food….” He trailed off, aware that Asa was simply looking at him, that faint, grave smile on his face, while Sebastian rambled on.

“You do that a lot,” Asa said quietly.

“I know,” Sebastian blushed. He did. He rambled, he

prattled; he and Bella always seemed to complement each

other because they bantered together instead of Sebastian being a one-man banter-spew, but when he was by himself…

well….

“I like it,” Asa said quietly, taking a bite of omelet.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah—now that everything you say isn’t a come on….”

“Because, like, we already came!”

“Exactly.” Asa smiled sweetly at him, and Sebastian

blushed. It had been an honest compliment, and now he

found he had nothing to say.

They ate in quiet for a minute, and then pushed away

their plates. Asa hunkered over his coffee (he was a diehard hot coffee drinker, even in the summer) and looked at

Sebastian thoughtfully.

“So,” he said, taking a sip. “When are you going to tell me about it?”

Sebastian looked at him blankly over his glass of milk.

(He only did coffee at Starbucks, when it was frozen with lots of sugar and cream, preferably blended.) “About what?”

“About the man who broke your heart and made you

absolutely sure that any man who had been married is going to do the same?”

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Sebastian shrugged… and tried to keep his heart from

doing a stiletto tap dance in his ribs. “I told you about him; he was a married college professor, and I was a grad student.

I thought it was forever, and he thought I was a quickie in the office. Old story. It was old before it started.”

Asa’s hands were so big, Sebastian marveled. He might

have had a degree in engineering and architecture (according to his sister) but his hands were the hands of a construction worker: wide-palmed, rough, and strong. When one of them covered Sebastian’s hand as they sat at the table, Sebastian had to fight against feeling fragile.

“It wasn’t old to you,” Asa said gently. “My story was old too—bored housewife, substance abuse—it’s the same shit

that daytime TV has been doing for years. But to me it felt like someone ripped my skin off with a salt-crusted belt-sander.”

Sebastian shrugged again and kept his eyes on his milk.

“See,” he said at last, “the really embarrassing thing was that I bought the fantasy. I was
sure
this guy was going to get a divorce and come out of the closet, and we were going to be the poster-children for straight-man-goes-gay, you know? I…

I just
knew.
”

Asa’s thumb stroked over Sebastian’s wrist. “What

changed your mind?”

Sebastian managed to smile through the mortification.

“Bella. She staged an intervention. One night I thought we were driving for ice cream, but noooo, we were driving for his daughter’s soccer game. I don’t know how she found out

where it was; I mean, for all I know, Bella told people
she
was the one having the affair. All I know is that I was

wearing my straightest T-shirt and a pair of loose jeans, and Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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suddenly we’re walking hand in hand through a park, and

she nods her head and there they are. Mr. and Mrs. Three-kid-family. He’s got his arm around his teenaged daughter’s shoulders, and his twelve-year-old son is smiling up at him, and his wife has her hand on his arm, and they’re all rooting for the little girl on the field, and it hits me. I’m a home-wrecker. Gay or not, out of the closet or in, I’m the guy that wants to wreck this pretty little picture. I’m the bad guy.”

Asa’s hand squeezed tighter. “He’s the bad guy. He’s the guy who lied to people. He’s the guy who broke faith. What did you do?”

Sebastian couldn’t look at him. Absolution. God—what

he wouldn’t have given for absolution back then. “I didn’t have to do anything. He saw me, there on the field, and Bella grabbed my hand, and we walked by pretending to be

girlfriend and boyfriend—not that we had to. He looked so panicked, but I smiled and waved and said, “Hi, Professor Martin!” and we just walked on by.” He let out a little laugh.

“And then I cried all the way home like the big emotional fag I am….”

“Stop that!”

Sebastian sniffled. “No, it’s true; I sobbed in the car, and Bella got out and bought, like, two gallons of cookie dough ice cream and a copy of
Twister
, which is, like, my guilty pleasure movie of all time, and we went back home and had a little pity party. Monday at school, he asked to see me in his office—per usual—and I told him I had another

commitment, and that’s all she wrote.” It sounded very

noble, but Sebastian just had to add the kicker here,

because Asa deserved to hear it. “Until he blackballed my second dissertation, of course, forcing me to look at other Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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colleges if I wanted to write the damned thing.”

Asa grimaced. “Fucker.”

Sebastian turned a shining face to him, even through

the blurring of tears of pain past. “You
do
understand,” he said smiling, and Asa leaned over and kissed him.

“I really do.”

IT WAS a good day. Asa took the day off, and when they

weren’t making love or swimming or reading, they were

talking. Sebastian wasn’t just magically better, much like he suspected Asa was not just magically over his own damage (how could he be?) but getting it out there, having the words make his fears real? Well, it made it easier to remind himself that they might be real, but they didn’t seem to be justified here. At least not now.

Of course, Jordan was coming home, and Sebastian

knew it was all going to change.

“I get it,” he said logically, after Bella called and said they were on their way. “I know you can’t PDA—not with

your son here. I mean, you know, it’s bad enough that his mother just did what she did”—and all the adults had been walking on eggshells since—“but to have Dad come out of

the closet? No—I mean, you know, too traumatic. No worries.

No clingy boyfriend. I’m a grownup, he’s a kid. I adore him; you know, he comes first, and I won’t….”

Asa kissed him, and as Sebastian’s brain shorted out, it occurred to him that Asa did that a lot when he babbled.

How very convenient… mmmmm….

They pulled back, panting, and Asa rested his head

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against Sebastian’s and reminded him that they had both

just put on clothes again. “Besides,” Asa said softly, as though the kiss had been part of the conversation, “if I knew you weren’t just taking off at the end of the summer, I’d deal with it. I’d tell him. He’s a smart kid, and he loves you already. But you’ll be gone, and
that’s
what he can’t deal with.”

Sebastian gaped, and Asa pulled away completely. “I’m

going to go start dinner.”

He walked away, and Sebastian was left staring after his wide shoulders as he rounded the corner into the kitchen.

He couldn’t shake the idea that this time
he
was the bad guy again.

Oh Bella—how is it that I’m the one who’s going to break
his heart? I thought that was your job.

But he was afraid to even talk to her about it; he was

pretty sure he knew what she’d say.

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THE baseball game was one of the best days of Sebastian’s life.

Of course, nearly every day that summer was one of the

best days of Sebastian’s life, but the baseball game stood out in a spectacular fashion.

They left early that day and spent the morning at the

wharf being tourists. Bella and Sebastian took advantage of Asa’s generous nature and bought Jordan everything he

looked at. They spent a particular amount of time at a

puppet store, and in addition to the fantastic dragon puppet in their bag, the three “children,” as Asa called them dryly, walked around with other puppets on their hands having

imaginary conversations for at least an hour.

When that had palled (although it never really did; they brought the puppets with them to the stadium and pulled

them out of their pockets on occasion to comment on the

game), they took a ferry around the bay, from bridge to

bridge with Alcatraz in the middle.

The day was clear, and the water was a stunning shade

of blue and the sky was a different stunning shade of blue.

Sebastian and Bella spent ten minutes on the prow of the little ferry coming up with as many synonyms for “blue” as they could think of: azure, cobalt, indigo, turquoise

(“Although that’s not a true blue,” Bella nitpicked, and Sebastian stuck out his tongue), navy, Persian, Prussian, Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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Duke, and federal, trying to put a name to the shades of gorgeous that sat at their outstretched fingertips.

Bella looked over her shoulder where Asa was

hunkering in the cabin with Jordan; it got cold in the wind, and Jordan had wanted some hot chocolate and a place to

draw.

“Have you two decided yet?” she asked quietly.

Sebastian followed her gaze. Asa looked up at him with

his quiet, grave smile, and waved. Sebastian waved back.

“Decided what?”

“Decided what you’re doing yet?”

Bella knew what they were doing. How could she not?