Bewitched by Bella's Brother (17 page)

She sighed. “People lose contact all the time. We’ve

already seen it. I mean, it’s been weeks since either of us Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

138

talked to Sammy, and I get that. He’s got a life, we’ve got a life. I just don’t want that to happen to us, that’s all.”

He kissed her hair thoughtfully. She was right. She was

the closest thing he had to family, really. For five years, she had been the one person on the planet he could count on to give a shit if he ever dropped off the face of the world.

Until now. Now he had Asa and Jordan, and even

though he and Asa hadn’t been lovers long, he was pretty damned sure the two of them would miss him if he was gone.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

139

THE thought haunted him throughout the next few months.

Every day made Jordan more a part of his heart. Every day twined Asa so closely to his soul he forgot where the thin spots of selfishness and fear had been and found only a

seamless patchwork of Asa’s love.

Sebastian and Bella made an effort to get Jordan from

Asa’s worksite or from summer school itself every day. They started to figure out that when he made bold statements and asked them to repeat it, it was a leftover from standard grade school teaching technique, and they started to use it to give each other shit.

“Bella, when’s Asa getting home again?”

“Seven tonight. Say it!”

“Seven tonight, heifer.”

“That wasn’t part of it. Say it right.”

And so on.

Sebastian started to look forward to Asa’s tread in the

house with a sort of fanaticism. It didn’t matter if he was swimming or watching television with Jordan or working on his paper: the keys in the door, the sound of the SUV pulling up the drive, all of it made his chest sore with the pounding of his heart.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

140

He actually wanted to run up and hug the guy. He’d

never been particularly handsy or demonstrative, although he’d never minded necking in public. But now….

Now he started to help in the kitchen so they could

bump hips and exchange looks. He would wait until Jordan was absorbed in television and offer Asa back rubs, and

when Asa would reach up and touch his hand as he was

working on those big construction-man muscles, his breath would quicken. It was all he could do not to wrap his arms around the man’s shoulders and start kissing his ear, or his neck, or his jaw.

He started finding reasons to get Bella out of the house around lunch, so Asa could come home for a quickie.

It didn’t take him long to realize that the Bryne family was in on it. Jordan must have had a sleepover a week that summer, and Bella would stay at her parents’ house those nights. One morning, she came home after dropping Jordan off at summer school and cried all over Sebastian.

Her secret behind “Bella’s day off” had finally come out, and her mother, being the awesome person Sebastian knew

and loved, had hugged her daughter and said she was sorry Bella had gone through that alone.

Bella had said, “I wasn’t alone, Mom. You know Asa;

he’s the best.”

Of course he was. He was the absolute best man

Sebastian had ever known.

Sebastian loved him with all his heart.

They’d never actually said the words, though. There

were… walls. It was like they could hear the other person’s love over the wall, but neither one of them wanted to scale the wall to see the effects of the knowing.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

141

Sebastian knew how he felt, and Asa had made no

bones about the fact that he wanted Sebastian to stay, but the words hadn’t been spoken. Probably, Sebastian reflected glumly, because it would hurt worse when he and Bella left if the words were there. They’d be tangible proof that Sebastian had severed something wonderful for reasons he’d mostly

forgotten.

A thing that was driven home to him one day as he was

placing the book order at work.

“Damn,” Julie said, sauntering up to him with a frozen

latte, just the way he liked them. He looked up and she gave him the latte, and he closed his eyes with the wonder of it.

“Damn what?” he asked, and she shrugged.

“Damn, you two only have a couple more weeks here.

I’m totally going to miss you!”

“You’ll still bring the kids by to visit Jordan, right?”

Sebastian asked anxiously, and Julie rolled her eyes.

“Like my kids would let me forget to; you know they love that boy.”

Sebastian sucked more latte through the straw and

relaxed a little more. “Well, good,” he said softly. “I hate to think of leaving him. Hell… that kid alone is a reason to stay.” Jordan, with his dark hair and hazel eyes—and a face that would be a carbon copy of Asa’s narrow, grave profile when he grew. Hell—he could see how Asa pulled his shit

together in a matter of months and relocated across the

country after the destruction of his marriage. That kid alone was a reason to
live.

“That kid’s not the only reason you want to stay, is he?”

Julie asked kindly, and Sebastian flushed.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

142

“Why—what’s Bella been saying?” He didn’t think Bella

would gossip, but she and Julie had become tight this

summer too. It was almost like… Sebastian didn’t think

about what it was almost like, even though every time they went to dinner at the Bryne’s, Bella looked happier and

happier to be home with her family. It was like those years at college, where she had bemoaned the terrible burden of

domesticity, that had been her rebellion phase. That was over. She’d mothered Sebastian through some lonely years, and now she’d found her calling. And he was part if it—and he loved that—but she had more calling to her now.

He was happy for her. Really.

“Nothing,” Julie said, bringing him back. “But… he’s

come by when we’ve been there, Sebastian. You never

touch—not in front of Jordan—but… honey, I know how

people look at each other when they’re in love. My husband looks at me like that every day—big fat body, wrinkles, gray hair, and all. That’s how you two look at each other. Like in twenty years, when you’re both not quite as cute, you’ll still see young hotness… like it’s forever.”

Sebastian took a really big pull on his straw and

swallowed hard. “I’m supposed to leave,” he said weakly. “I…

it’s an opportunity I’ve worked toward for years.”

Julie nodded. “Right,” she murmured, her full

disapproval in the crinkles at her eyes. “And love—real love—

that just opens its doors for you every day.”

She walked away, leaving Sebastian to call, “Thanks for

the coffee, sweetie!” to her retreating back. She lifted a hand in a “You’re welcome,” but it was clear he’d disappointed her in some way, and he wanted to bang his head against the

counter. A second doctorate—really, you’d think he was

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

143

going off to mine diamonds in the far reaches of the African Congo. When did education lose its respect?

When you’re using it to hide like a ferret in a hole,
Sebastian.

And why did his conscience sound like Bella? Now that

was no goddamned fair at all, was it?

But life wasn’t fair—and to prove it, Asa’s ex-wife

showed up that night right after Jordan went to bed.

She’d apparently called ahead, because Asa

apologetically dislodged Sebastian (who had been laying on him to watch television—his accustomed place after Jordan went to bed) and stood up to answer the door like he knew who it was. He looked around the room with his hand on the doorknob and said, “If I take this into the study, is there any chance you two won’t listen in?”

Sebastian looked at him blankly, and Bella equally so,

and he just sighed and opened the door. Deirdre—a very

different sort of Deirdre—walked in with some determination in her stride

Deirdre was wearing slacks and a shirt—still very

flattering, but with a sort of uniform look to it. In fact, the nametag was still on. Her shoes were practical, her hair had grown a little and was scraped into a ponytail, and she was wearing about five pounds less make-up. She flickered a

glance at Bella and Sebastian, sitting stunned on the couch (Asa couldn’t have
told
them?) and lingered on Sebastian, her lip curling up in something that could have been either acknowledgment or derision.

Asa ushered her into the study, a small room down the

hallway behind the staircase on the ground floor. Bella and Sebastian looked at each other, and then Sebastian rabbited Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

144

to the small library next to the study and Bella ran to the kitchen for glasses. She came back with something even

better: two big hollow tubes from Jordan’s LEGO table, and they did nicely.

“Why are you here again?” Asa was always reasonable,

but coming through the tube and the wall, they could almost detect a little bit of sharpness there. “I mean, Deirdre, I believe in being reasonable, but….”

“I didn’t leave much room for reason when I left last

time, I know.” Her voice was sharp too—but with

defensiveness, not drugs.

“You’re keeping the name?” Asa asked dryly. He must

have been looking at the nametag. “Surprising move,

Deirdre—you always hated that name.”

Deirdre’s voice was low and restrained; it was hard to

hear her through the wall. “I hope you’ll let me, Asa. At least until I get my shit together.”

The silence through the plastic tubes was profound.

“What is it you want, Dee Dee?”

The silence in that room was so thick, it felt like another person. Then, apparently, Deirdre went for broke.

“Asa, I want to see my son again.”

Sebastian and Bella met horrified eyes, and Sebastian

was on his way to barging into the other room and

screaming “Oh
fuck
no!” when Deirdre spoke again.

“I know I don’t deserve it… but I just spent sixty days in rehab, Asa, because I knew the first thirty didn’t take. I did it on my own dime; I sold everything you left me. I just got a job; it’s small. I’m a waitress. But I’ve held it for two weeks, and I have an apartment nearby—not too close, you know,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

145

because I know that could suck, but it’s down in Rocklin, and I can drive. All….” Her voice broke, and Sebastian and Bella shared a whole other expression this time.

“All I want is to come to dinner once a week,” she

finished with, and Sebastian pounded his forehead with his palm. Oh Jesus. This was so unprecedented. This was so…

this was so not what he expected. It had been easy to

dismiss Asa’s ex-wife, write her off as a first-class twunt and cut her out of Jordan’s life, when she’d been a brutal junkie.

This was not that same person who had been begging

for money for a fix. This was not the same woman who ran out on her son. This just wasn’t.

Obviously Asa was just as shaken. “We’re not going to

be a family again,” he said, or at least that’s what they thought he said. He was speaking very softly.

“I know that,” Deirdre replied. “How’s that going, by the way?”

They couldn’t see Asa’s expression, but it must have

been shocked. “How’s what going?” he managed, and Deirdre chuffed in exasperation.

“I’m not going to use it,” Deirdre said, just loud enough for Sebastian to hear. “You were right—my house is… the

most brittle glass right now. No stone throwing for me, okay?

I….”

There was a restless sound then, like she was

wandering, picking things up off of the maple-wood desk and putting them down.

“I honestly wanted to know how you were,” she said

quietly.

There was a digestive silence on the other end. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said, the bewilderment clear.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
Amy Lan
e

146

Sebastian wanted to be in there. He wanted to hold his hand and stand between Asa and the person who had hurt him

most in the world.

Deirdre laughed. It was a low, pleasant sound, and

Sebastian got pissed off just hearing it. It was a really good laugh. “Asa, honey, you’ve never had any way of doing things but honest. He knows that. He must. He let you walk in here with me without a whimper.”

Asa grunted. Sebastian and Bella met eyes and

shrugged. In Asa-speak, this grunt meant, “That doesn’t

mean that he’s not listening to us as we speak, along with my damned sister who has no shame.” But maybe Deirdre

didn’t know his grunts like they did.

“I’m trying very hard not to screw this up,” he said at

last, leaving the statement ambiguous. Into the silence the statement left, the phone rang, and Bella mouthed a

swearword and then turned around and hotfooted it out of the room. When Sebastian got back to the conversation,

Deirdre was speaking, her words just as general as Asa’s.

“You… you weren’t to blame for any of it, Asa, and I

know that—at least I do
now
. Who… whomever you love right now, you loved me once. I killed that—and I get that.

But I just want to know you’re happy.”

Sebastian didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he saw spots in front of his eyes. He sucked in a breath, and another, but Asa started talking, so he took a rain check on the third.

“I’d be happier if he’d stay,” came the quiet answer, and if it hadn’t meant giving away his position, Sebastian would have banged his head against the wall.