Chapter Thirteen
Drew woke up,disoriented. The house was dark around him and he was so, so warm under the blankets. A heavy arm fell over his waist and he startled before the night before came crashing back tohim.
Oh, shit. He was naked under the covers. And the arm belonged toSebastian.Sebastian, who he’d given ablowjob.
“I can practically hear you thinking,” Bas mumbled, voice thick and rough. “Go back tosleep.”
“But we needto…”
“Drew? It’s like four o’clock in the morning, and everything is fine for right now.” Bas’s arm tightened, pulling him closer until his back was flush against Bas’s chest. “Just fine. I promiseyou.”
“Weshould…”
“Hush, baby. There’ll be time enough for everything. Go back to sleep,” he instructed, and Drew obediently closed his eyes and fell back into a world where Bas would call him baby all thetime.
When Drew woke up again,light was streaming in Sebastian’s bedroom window, and despite the indentation Bas’s head had left on his pillow, the bed beside him was cold. Dread pooled in hisstomach.
You fucked it all up again. No matter what Bas said, he was just confused and scared last night. You pushed too hard, and now he’s running, and it’s no more than youdeserve.
When will youlearn?
But when he rolled over, he found Bas sitting in a comfortable red chair next to the bed, dressed in only a pair of black plaid pajama pants, his bare feet propped atop theduvet.
“Good morning, sleepingbeauty.”
“Hey,” Drew croaked, then cleared his throat. “Has the apocalypse come? Is that why you’re up earlier than me? Preparing for your New Year’s resolution to start tomorrow?” He pushed himself to sitting, propping his naked back against theheadboard.
Bas pursed his lips like he was trying to stop himself from smiling and rubbed a hand over his jaw. “No. Everything’s fine. But I kinda worried you might think itwasthe apocalypse, once you’d processed what happened last night. So I’ve been sitting here staring at you for the past two hours, trying to figure out all the arguments you’d come up with for why it was all a mistake we should never repeat, so I could counterthem.”
Drew blinked, eyes wide. He’d imagined a variety of things Bas might say -Sorry, this experiment got out of hand, orLet’s keep things light and have more blowjobs, orI’m gonna need to think about things for the next three months before we can talk again- but this one, the idea that Bas might feel like Drew still needed to be convinced to continue being physical now that they’d started, was so laughable he would never have come up with it on hisown.
“Don’t give me that innocent look,” Bas told him. “You made it pretty clear the other night that you didn’t want to pursue things with me anymore for the sake of our friendship. And then you woke up in the middle of the night, alreadythinking.You’re nearly as bad as I am when it comes to thatshit.”
Drew swallowed the instinctive denial on his lips and thought about it for a moment. “You might have a point,” heconceded.
Bas had said last night that he was sure - had repeated it about a billion times. And yet, this morning Drew had still been preparing for the worst, expecting Bas to run off at some point and ready to mitigate thedamage.
“Whoa. Score one for me,” Bas said, licking his finger and making an invisible hatch mark in the air. “I’d expected this to be wayharder.”
Drew folded his arms over his chest and contemplated his best friend… hislover,holy shit. He resisted the urge to pinch himself. “Let’s hear what else you’ve come up with,” hechallenged.
Bas nodded, taking Drew at his word. He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Okay, well… first of all, it was really good. Last night, Imean.”
Drew snorted. Yeah,goodwould be an understatement. Drew had hadgoodany number of times. Last night was…was….
“Wasn’t it?” Bas frowned, looking at Drew with concern, and Drew blinked, realizing that Bas had misinterpreted his snort. Like maybeheneededreassurance.
“Yeah, Bas. It was so far beyond good that they don’t exist in the same realm,” Drew told him quietly, and Bas smiled, nodding. “But that doesn’tmean…”
“No. No, I know,” Bas said quickly. “That was just my…whajamacallit.My beginning thing. Like at atrial.”
At a trial.Drew pressed his lips together to keep from laughing at the comparison. “Your openingargument?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Bas licked his lips. “Right. So, I know I hurt you in October because I couldn’t wrap my head around shit. I need you to know, that’s not happeningagain.”
“It’snot?”
“Not again,” Bas repeated, his bright blue eyes as serious as Drew had ever seen them. “I’m going to tell you things from now on. Communicate. And if I need to slow down or process things, I’ll… you know… I’ll do itwithyou.”
