Bewitched by Bella's Brother (6 page)

armchair when there was enough furniture in the room to

host a small party, and then he hoisted his little boy in his arms and went upstairs. Sebastian watched him go for a

minute, then broke out his laptop, which Bella had stowed in the downstairs closet, and set it up on the coffee table, just like he’d imagined.

This room, even at night, was just such a lovely space;

there was low-level track lighting in wall sconces at the higher levels of the room and brighter, reading-level lamps down where they were needed. Sebastian set the laptop out on the coffee table, sat on the couch, and pulled out his research. He was well on his way to explaining why textile arts
were
arts and
not
crafts (a stand that hadn’t endeared Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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him with his professors at Davis any more than it had with the rest of the online academic community) when Asa came back downstairs.

Sebastian looked up from his work and said, “Thank

you. Seriously. My car’s the only one with A/C; it would suck if we couldn’t drive it all summer.”

Asa shrugged. “It’s my fault, really. I should have

warned you: the kid’s a real vomit comet if you don’t keep an eye on him.”

Sebastian snickered and grinned, and Asa grinned back.

Sebastian stopped laughing and buried himself in his

computer, thinking it could be gay porn and it still wouldn’t distract him from the power of that wicked expression on his stomach. Asa sighed and stood up and stretched, moving

toward a small wet bar in the corner of the room.

“Can I get you something?” he asked solicitously, and

Sebastian shook his head.

“Mmm, no thank you.”

“Can’t write and drink?”

“No—actually I write
wonderfully
when I’m drunk. I just can’t read it when I’m sober, and that’s a problem.”

Asa chuckled again, and this time Sebastian managed

to join him. It was past nine o’clock now and dark outside, and the darkness added another level of strange intimacy to an oddly begun acquaintance. Asa dropped some ice in a

glass and poured a minimal amount of Scotch in after it.

“I wasn’t a big drinker until we went back east,” Asa

said unexpectedly into the silence. “But everyone back there seems to drink; it got to be a habit to have something right before bed. It’s kind of soothing, but I’m not sure if it’s good for me.”

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Sebastian shrugged. “That depends on how much you

have.” Then, because it just occurred to him, “Where’s

Bella?”

Asa shrugged. “Upstairs, I think, watching television—

what?” Because Sebastian was scowling.

Sebastian shook his head. “Heifer told me she was going

to help me with this paper, dammit. She keeps throwing me at you like a big spit-wad, and I keep telling her you’re not wearing a catcher’s mitt.”

Asa grunted as though he’d been kicked in the solar

plexus and tossed back his Scotch with more speed than

finesse, then wiped off the melted ice on his mouth with the back of his hand.

Sebastian swallowed, swallowed again, and finally gave

it up and groaned, dropping his head in his hands. “Why do I keep on doing that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, I used to carry on perfectly good conversations with straight men and no one ever suspected I was an idiot savant.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“I don’t know why you make me so damned nervous. I

think it’s because I love Bella to distraction and I really want you to like me.”

“Understandable.”

Sebastian took a breath and looked up to meet Asa’s

eyes in an act of naked desperation. “You do like me, don’t you? Even though I’m apparently communicatively

handicapped and socially retarded?”

Asa nodded kindly, for a moment all father. “Yes,

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Sebastian. I do like you. Can we turn on the TV or

something? You throw another one of those out there and

I’m going to start telling you about my bad marriage just to make things less awkward.”

“That would be awesome,” Sebastian said with some

relief.

“The television or the talking about the marriage?”

“Either one,” Sebastian said with what he hoped was a

neutral smile. The truth was, he was
dying
to hear about Asa’s failed marriage. He was really hoping that another man had come between them, and not on her end.

Asa’s low chuckle let him know he was being

transparent, but then the big man sighed as he was flipping through the channels. “It’s tempting,” he admitted. “But Deirdre and I started out friends, and, maybe, when she gets her shit together, we can do that again. I can’t make that better by bitching about her—it just makes my stomach

hurt.”

He rubbed it absently under his shirt for emphasis, and

Sebastian wondered if his laptop insurance would replace an item that he’d banged against his own head to cure the

unrequiteds.

“Well, maybe it’s best for both of us if we go with

television,” he said, figuring he’d save the laptop beating for his second course of action.

The television thing worked, actually. Asa liked the

History Channel, and so did Sebastian, and he spent the

next hour listening absent-mindedly to a piece about the evolution of the bathroom. When he looked up and saw Asa completely entranced, he had to laugh softly. It was good to find someone else who was impressed with the fact that the Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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common washroom had been around for more than seven

thousand years.

“It was a good piece,” Asa said earnestly. “Especially for someone in my line of work.”

Sebastian looked around the beautiful room

appreciatively. “I can see that,” he replied with some

mildness. “By all means, keep watching the History

Channel.”

“It doesn’t interfere with your work?” Asa asked, and

Sebastian shook his head.

“Naw… this is mostly shaping. The real writing is hard. I lock myself in a room and snarl at all intruders like an injured badger for that. This is getting shit lined up so I know which research I’m going to be using for what parts.”

Asa nodded. “Good stuff. What’re you going to do with

it?”

Sebastian flushed. “Well, mostly I’m going to publish it so people can laugh at it.” He watched as Asa’s expressive eyebrows hit his hairline.

“I beg your pardon?”

The shrug he made didn’t feel forced, which was good,

because he was learning to deal with the mockery of the

academic world anyway. “See, my stand is that crafts should be treated like art—at least history-wise. Because the thing is that the artists in each historical period got their materials and their inspirations from the same places. The painting may be ‘pure art’—art for the sake of art—but it was also an object of currency, which, to my mind, put it in the same realm as, say, a priceless vase or a carefully crafted piece of weaving or knitting. I’m saying that we would learn more about the philosophies that inspired the art if we didn’t Bewitched by Bella’s Brother |
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make such a hard and fast division between the two

worlds….” He trailed off, because, once again, he was talking too much. “I’m sorry… I’ve been writing this paper for a year.”

“No—don’t be sorry. It’s interesting.”

Sebastian nodded, getting enthusiastic again. “You

would think so—you’re the perfect example! I mean, look at this room! It’s art—the curves, the lines, the placement—you did this to look at, to please the people inside the room, but you were also limited or inspired by your materials at hand.

It’s….” And now Sebastian
really
flushed, and his mouth actually hit an air bubble in the gas line and stalled to a halt. “It’s a really beautiful room,” he ended, hobbling in for that weak finish.

And now Asa flushed. “Thank you,” he muttered,

obviously uncomfortable with the compliment. “Why, uhm,

why would your paper get laughed at?”

Sebastian shrugged again. “Because most of the art

world disagrees,” he said, remembering his professor’s

derisive laughter. Of course, Sebastian had broken up with the fucker two years before Sebastian chose that as his

dissertation, so maybe the guy had a vested interest in

making him feel like a fool, but he still wasn’t the only one to think so.

“Most of the art world disagrees, most of academia

disagrees—and writing a dissertation like this keeps you off the staff of most colleges.” He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed.

“Which is why you work at a bookstore,” Asa concluded,

and Sebastian nodded sheepishly.

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could probably do it for real—I mean, the book ordering, and the promotion and the whole thing, I….” He stumbled to a halt. It was hard to explain why he’d just kept going in academia—even to himself. He looked up and met Asa’s

patient gaze. Apparently the guy was willing to wait while he stitched his half-formed thoughts into a passable blanket of excuses. Well, then….

“My parents have this ‘Idea of adulthood’, I guess—and

managing a bookstore isn’t it. I’m supposed to be

published—and I am—and I’m supposed to do something

important with my education, but….” He felt another shrug coming on and gave in to it. “I love my education… I just don’t want to turn it into a profession.” He looked up then and flashed his best, most gamine grin. “So I never leave it, and I don’t have to make that decision.”

Asa nodded, obviously thinking carefully. “Don’t you get impatient?” he asked with a frown. “Don’t you want your life to start?”

Sebastian felt the creepings of melancholy in his smile.

“Well, sure. I just haven’t liked any of the starting places yet.”

Asa grunted then, appreciatively. “Well, kid—that’s

actually pretty wise. I started my real life in totally the wrong place.” He sighed and looked up the stairs toward where he’d just taken his son. “It’s funny, how sometimes the wrong starting place will get you to the best destinations.”

Sebastian grinned. “That’s a
very
good point.” Of course, now he was
really
burning with curiosity about Asa’s marriage, but seeing as he just got to the point where they could talk without complete mortification, he figured he’d let that slide for a bit.

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Asa smiled quietly back, and Sebastian’s heart did a

little flip-flop in his chest, and then Asa reached for the remote control and baseball scores flashed across the big plasma screen. Sebastian looked up and studied them for a second. “Yay! San Francisco won!”

“You like baseball?”

Sebastian nodded enthusiastically. “Bella and I manage

a game at least once a summer. More than that if you count the River Cats—it’s almost a ritual, you know? She has this day she calls ‘Bella’s day off.’ I don’t know what she does—

I’m not allowed—but every June tenth, she just spends the day alone, and sometime in the week after that, we go to a baseball game. It’s….” He shook his head. They’d been doing this for five years, and he still didn’t know why. “It’s almost more important to her than Christmas.”

Asa’s reaction was not what he expected. The man was

leaning forward, impressive body resting on his elbows,

which were resting on his knees, and his fingers were buried deep in his hair, pulling it haphazardly from the long braid.

“Oh Bella,” Asa whispered. “Dammit… dammit… when

are you going to let that go?”

“What?” Oh, Jesus—was he never going to be able to

have a conversation with this man without stumbling over a landmine? “Asa, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Asa shook his head, clicked off the television, and stood up. “Man, I’ve got to go talk to her.”

“Don’t!” Sebastian was in such a hurry to stand up that

he almost sent his laptop flipping off the coffee table. Asa turned around, surprised, and Sebastian put his workspace back to order with a grimace.

“She won’t thank you for it—give her a little time, okay?

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Just… just trust me. She can be a prickly bitch….”

“It’s an act….”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Of course he knew it.

All her talk about being a steel-plated bitch? It was like she’d said the night before. She just got hurt easy, that was all.

“But… well, she’s been nervous about coming here to live.

Let’s just give her a night or two, okay? It’ll come out—it has to. We’re going to be here for almost three months; you just can’t
live
with that sort of pressure—or at least I can’t, which means Bella can’t because obviously I have no problems

whatsoever opening my mouth and making a bad situation

worse. Whatever you guys need to talk about—it’ll happen.

Just….”

Asa had turned back around and was looking like he

was ready to sit down again, so Sebastian sat down first and said, “Good. Just, you know, wait. Okay?”

Asa nodded, looking at Sebastian with a sort of

appreciation that made Sebastian blush all over again.

“You’re a really good friend,” he said with admiration, and Sebastian buried his face in his hands.

“And you’re an incredibly attractive man. I wish you’d

quit looking at me like that, Asa—I’ve fallen for straight men before. It hurts.”

Asa “hmmmd” in his throat and walked to put the

remote control on the table, putting out his hands when

Sebastian glared at him. “Don’t worry—I’m just going to turn in. I’ll wait to talk to her until later.” Sebastian buried his face back in his hands, and it wasn’t until he felt that big, warm, hand resting in his hair for a moment that he realized that Asa hadn’t turned around and left.