5
Seb was being a dick, but he couldn’t shut his mouth off. First blood. All confrontations went that way. When Martin started to argue, Seb’s default was to go on the offensive. Hurt, anger, and then defiance crossed over Martin’s face, and Seb was momentarily impressed. Maybe he was more than a cowardly lion after all.
Martin’s posturing about his fucking doctorate sealed his fate, though. As if all the useless information gave him credibility to be anything but a world-class snob. Seb couldn’t help his reaction, and it didn't take much to glare down the nervous professor.
“I’m sorry for intruding,” Martin said, then walked wordlessly out of the apartment.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Cassidy said when he was gone.
Seb had to bite back a dozen angry words before he replied. “Please don’t bring people into my apartment when I’m not here.”
“He wasn’t hurting anything.”
“It’s my home, Cass. You can’t bring people up here and let them touch my things.” He’d nearly gone nuclear at the sight of the book in Martin’s hand, delicate pages flapping. He hadn’t seen any tears in the paper, but that didn’t mean everything was still intact.
“You sound like my sister.” Cassidy rolled up her drawing and secured it with a cord. “Don’t touch my things, Cassidy. It’s too complicated for you to understand, Cassidy. I’m not stupid, you know?”
Seb sighed. He was still irritated, but upsetting Cass wouldn’t solve anything.
“You’re not stupid. I’m sorry if I overreacted.”
“You should apologize to him.” Cass picked up her charcoal tin and slid it into her backpack.
Seb groaned.
Fuck.
She was right. He needed to apologize.
Cass rolled her eyes as she hefted her backpack onto her shoulder.
“I have to go pick up my mom.” She stalked to the door and thumped down the stairs, taking extra care to bang her bag against the wall with every step.
Seb collapsed on the couch, flinging his arm over his eyes. That had been a disaster, and Martin never stood a chance. Seb had more than three decades of practice winning even the most vicious of arguments. Someone should have told Martin there was no withstanding the Stevenson men when they got pissed off about something.
Even if the something they were pissed off about wasn’t the oblivious and well-meaning professor standing in front of them.
As Seb had come around the last corner on his way back to the apartment, Oliver called again. Seb had been dodging pretty successfully since their ambush Skype session, but Oliver seemed to take the silence as a challenge. He called more frequently, and finally, in a fit of annoyance, Seb had picked up.
“For god’s sake, Seb,” Oliver had said, apparently going for the direct approach since the bush beating had failed so completely last time. “I’m not asking you to move back in or get on your knees and grovel as soon as you arrive. But I need you to fucking be there.”
Seb hadn’t responded in words longer than four letters before he’d told Oliver he had to go. If he’d stayed on the phone any longer, he would have started yelling right there on the street, cursing a stream so foul one of Seacroft’s kind citizens would have called 911 on him for creating a public disturbance. Anger and frustration had vibrated through his bones as he’d pushed into the bookstore.
Martin’s misfortune was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, holding the first piece Seb succeeded in getting placed at a juried show. He had unleashed all of the feelings he hadn’t been able to set free, and Martin, and even Cass a little, had been collateral damage.
The vibration of his phone in his pocket made him jump. As he prepared mentally for another yelling match, his jaw clenched. He was relieved when the caller ID said it was Kenneth instead.
“Hello, darling,” Kenneth said as soon as Seb answered the call.
“Hello, Kenny.” He grinned as he pictured Kenneth’s silent pout at the nickname.
“How’s everything in the salt mine?”
“Fine.”
“Fine? Fine as in you’re ahead of schedule and you’ve come up with something even my genius wouldn’t expect? Or fine as in you’ve been frozen in indecision since my last call and nothing has been moved ahead, but you don’t want me to find out because you know I’ll be pounding on the front door of that hovel you call a studio by tomorrow morning?”
“You’re not usually the one to do the pounding.” Seb couldn’t help the evil grin that spread across his face, which grew when Kenneth let out a cry of mock outrage.
