“But you were marrying her, for Christ’s sake. She was going to be yourwife.You… you loved her, right? She lovedyou?”
Drew sounded legitimately angry, and Bas couldn’t say he didn’t deserve every ounce of hisanger.
“Amy and I were maybe the only two people in the world who could date for months without having a single serious conversation.” He had to laugh at himself. “I mean, not that it was hard, given that neither of us liked to talk about deeper issues. But Amy had her friends, and I spent all my time in the lab, as you know. And that was fine for both of us, Iguess.”
“You.Guess.”
Bas blew out a breath. He hated this.Hatedit. “You want the truth, Drew? The truth is, I loved your sister a lot. She was gorgeous, and she was sweet. She got along perfectly with my mom. But…” He ran a hand through his hair. “No. I wasn’tin lovewith her. Not… not how I think of being in love anyway. I didn’t think about her when she wasn’t around. I didn’t call her everyday.”
“God!” One single tortured syllable. “Sebastian…”
Bas wished he could see Drew’s face better in the streetlights. He was also cravenly glad he couldn’t. But there was more he needed tosay.
He took a deep breath. “I’m almost positive it was the same for Amy. She liked the idea of me. Of being a Seaver. I mean, it’s not like she wanted more time or attention and I didn’t give it to her. She was happy enough to see me when I was around, and perfectly fine when I wasn’t, and I felt the same about her. She never felt the urge to hunt me down in the lab and force pad Thai on me, or whatever. She… she wasn’t my bestfriend.”
I didn’t need her the way I need you, he thought but didn’tspeak.
Amy had been everything Drew wasn’t, really. She’d accepted where Drew had questioned, yielded where Drew had pushed, faded into the background where Drew could only ever be the brightest star in Sebastian’ssky.
Which was why Halloween still loomed so large in his mind. Drew was unequivocally the most important person in his life, and heknewhe was the most important person in Drew’s. But that wasfriendship. The attraction he’d felt that night had come out of nowhere, and the words Drew said had rocked Bas to thecore.
The red brake lights ahead of them illuminated Drew’s set face as he steered them off the highway and onto a congested Main Street in Southie. Bas struggled to fill the suddensilence.
“Have you ever just fallen into something? And it took on a life of itsown?”
“God, no more,” Drew said. “I need… I need to process this, okay?” He slid the Acura into a parking space on the side of the road and shut off the engine, grabbed the keys in one large palm and pushed out of thecar.
Bas frowned as he levered himself on the other side, his attention fixed on the keys in Drew’s hand. There was something about them that had caught his attention, but he couldn’t think what. Key fob, a bunch of metal keys that probably went to his house… and Sebastian’s place,too.
Drew slid them into his coat pocket as he walked briskly down the street toward the pub… down the streetaway fromBas.
Sebastian jogged to catchup.
“So, how are we going to handle this?” he asked, grabbing Drew by the elbow as he reached the outside of the low brick building. There were several high windows built into the walls, and the neon glow of beer signs flashed red and blue over Drew’s carefully blankface.
“I’m thinking we handle it like we ask him questions and he answers them,” Drew snappedback.
Bas rolled his eyes. Okay, so maybe the car ride had been the wrong time to force them into a new level of honesty. Still, Bas was glad they were here together; even pissy Drew was better than no Drew atall.
“Cool your jets, counselor. He’s not a hostile witness, he’s a reporter. He’s gonna be curious about why the hell we wanna know this info, and I want us to be on the same page about what to tellhim.”
Drew ran a hand through his perfect hair and sighed, and Bas could practically see the wheels turning in the man’s mind as he tried to compartmentalize his conversation with Bas and get his head in thegame.
Perversely, Bas was pretty sure he no longer wanted Drew to be able to dothat.
Last night in his office, when Drew had leaned over his desk, Bas had wanted… something. Something he’d studiously avoided thinking about ever since Halloween. But now that his brain had caught hold of the idea, it had become a problem, like a coding issue but trickier…and he couldn’t seem to let go of it until he’d found asolution.
“How do you want to play it, then?” Drew asked, calm as a frozenriver.
“Friendly,” Bas said. “I think we need to give a little information to get someinformation.”
“Fine.” Drew nodded. “Friendly it is.” He turned to walk inside and Bas grabbed him by the elbow again, forcing himback.
“Listen, about that, back in the car.” Bas hesitated. “I feel like there are a lot of things we haven’t talked about, and I don’t want that. Not anymore. Things are changing between us, and I won’t claim to understand it, but I also know avoiding it isn’t going to helpanything.”
“You’re wrong.” Drew’s serious brown eyes shone in a stray beam from a nearby street light. “Nothing is changing. We arefriends. But the things you said about Amy?” He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m upset. Just drop it for now so we can talk to this reporter.Okay?”
But Bas was still unsettled. He fucking hated this tension. Hated having Drew be disappointed in him, or whatever. As they stood on the sidewalk, breath clouding in front of their mouths, the door to the pub opened, and two men in jeans and leather jackets spilled out, laughinguproariously.
