Cassidy giggled. As the apartment lapsed into silence, Martin hovered where he was. The two artists hunched in front of him, intent on their work.
“Well, I should get going.” Better to head off the inevitable awkwardness. They clearly had a plan for the day, and he was intruding. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“You can stay for a bit, if you want,” Seb said without looking up. “I don’t have TV, but there’s all the books you can handle downstairs, and the Wi-Fi password is ThisIsMine27, no spaces, with the first letter of each word capitalized.”
Martin paused, thinking of the one password protected Wi-Fi network he could access from the bookshop.
“Are youGet Your Own?”
“Well, I’m not sharing with all those busybodies downstairs.” Seb glanced up at Martin from under his lashes. His pale pink lips stretched into a smile that held something other than his usual sarcasm. Martin swallowed hard as attraction stirred in his chest, a dusty feeling he hadn’t encountered in quite some time. He shouldn’t have been surprised Seb, with his charm and good looks, rattled it loose. Martin trembled as he tried it out for a second, then dismissed it as quickly as it came on.
Seb didn’t appear to notice, or feel the same thing, so Martin excused himself, promising to return. He went downstairs and pulled a few books off a shelf labeled ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’
When he returned, he settled on Seb’s sagging green couch. It was surprisingly comfortable, not broken down so much as well-worn. Loved. Martin relaxed deeper, waiting for a spring to pop out of nowhere and remind him that this wasn’t his place, but the cushions let him sink in.
Lulled into a tentative comfort by the quiet industry of the apartment, he sprawled along the couch and worked his way through half of the first book. It was a western saga about feuding families, the kind who made Brian and Jess’s earlier scene look positively functional. Martin slipped into the story, losing track of time until Cassidy shook his shoulder.
“Sorry.” She giggled as he startled. “I’m making grilled cheese for lunch. Do you want one?”
“Oh. No.” He checked his watch. After one o’clock. He’d been there for hours. “That’s fine. I don’t want you to—”
“If you say you don’t want her to go to the trouble, I’ll throw this book at you. She’s offering. Take her up on it.” Seb’s voice was low, and Martin’s eyes darted to him. Seb glanced up from the book he was cutting into, smirk and eyebrows back in their permanent expression of sly teasing. Martin pressed himself a little more deeply into the couch.
“A sandwich would be great. Thanks.”
“Ketchup or no ketchup?”
Martin wrinkled his nose. “No ketchup.”
Cassidy sighed and glanced across the room. “He was doing so well, too.”
Seb gave a one-shouldered shrug as he cut a long line through the book under his hand. “He’ll learn.”
They ate on their knees, hunched around the coffee table. Martin couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a grilled cheese sandwich. The sandwich was delicious, simple and comforting, reminding him of cool fall days at home when he and Brian had been kids.
Martin didn’t have much to say, but Seb and Cassidy kept up an easy conversation. Seb laughed openly at Cassidy’s jokes, unrestrained in a way that Martin hadn’t seen before. When he laughed, Seb’s eyes and forehead crinkled, showing real humor. It was a contrast to the wry smirks he gave in public, where he always seemed ready with the punch line Martin couldn’t see coming. His kindness toward Cassidy was a side that might be worth getting to know instead of simply admiring from a distance.
“Can I ask you something?” Cassidy said.
“You’re not really giving him a choice, are you?” Seb’s reply made Martin realize the original question had been directed at him.
“Oh.” He set down his plate and brushed crumbs off his knees. “Sure.”
“You were a professor, right?”
Her use of the past tense made him flinch. “That’s right.”
“So you taught a lot of classes?”
“Yes.”
“So you must have graded a lot of assignments? Read a lot of essays?” She twisted a strand of her curly hair around one finger.
“Just spit it out, Cass.” Seb chewed on his grilled cheese.
“Would you help me write my application essay?” Cassidy said it so fast Martin nearly missed it, and then her eyes went wide.
“Oh. Um. I’m not really—that wasn’t...” He tried to think how to explain. “An admission essay is more of a personal statement. My students wrote academic essays. Research and—”
