“Mmm, this is good,” I said dumbly, unsure if I was referring to the lager or the butter chicken.
Sebastian’s amusement only seemed to grow at my evasiveness, and he took a smooth step closer, causing me to take a matching step back.
“How was your nap?” he asked, his sharp blue eyes never leaving mine. “Was the bed comfortable?”
“Uhm, yep, uh-huh.Supercomfy, thank you,” I yammered, stuffing more butter chicken in my mouth to give myself an excuse to shut up.
“Good, that’s good. Like I said, I want you to be comfortable here… not like…” Slowly, his playful, flirty demeanor darkened to that strange, lonely sadness he seemed to keep regressing into, and I frowned, taking another large sip of beer to wash down the rest of my food.
The look on his face wassoabruptly desolate, I found myself reaching out to touch his arm in an attempt to anchor him.
Hefroze,and I could literally see gooseflesh ripple up the side of his neck under his collared shirt.
I frowned as he almost stopped breathing for a moment, and his gaze dropped to where my hand was resting on his arm over his shirt, before darting back up to my face.
“Sorry…” I mumbled, moving to pull my hand away, but he snatched up my hand and pressed it back onto his arm, shivering slightly as my palm pressed into the fabric of his shirt.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he stared at where his hand lay on top of mine, almost in awe, and he gently ran his thumb over my knuckles tenderly.
“It’s okay. You can… touch me,” he breathed, almost as if he couldn’t believe that I was.
This was such an odd interaction. I had no idea how to respond, so I just sat there while he gently continued to run his fingers over my knuckles.
After a long moment, he seemed to come back to himself and shook his head, carding his hand nervously through those thick golden waves of his.
“Sorry,” he apologized, laughing awkwardly. “I don’t know if you read the handbook yet, but employees aren’t supposed to really touch each other. It’s meant to be a deterrent for excessive sexual harassment cases on campus, which in theory is a good thing, but in practice… I just… It’s been a long time.”
I frowned as a strange, niggling warning bell fired off in the back of my mind. But whenever I tried to focus on it, it seemed to dance away.
“Anyway, have you had enough to eat? Want to hang out for a bit before we call it a night? Want to play some pool?”
Shaking my head to rid myself of the strangeness of this place and Sebastian’s behavior, I nodded, giving him what I hoped was a confident smile.
“Uhm, sure. I’ve never played before. You’ll have to teach me.”
Sebastian’s eyes flashed, and he smiled.
“I can do that.”
NOVA play: An Honest Mistake (feat. Lizzy Land) by Mating Ritual, Lizzy Land
Isipped away at my beer as I watched Sebastian set up the pool game. He put the balls in the triangle thinggie, scrubbed the tips of the sticks with blue stuff, then handed one to me.
“Here, I’ll show you how to break,” he said, before setting up his shot at the end of the table.
His lean body stretched over the velvet, and I couldn’t help but notice the way his shirt pulled against him in all the right places.
The dim, overhead lighting cast gentle shadows over the sharp planes of his face, and I really couldn’t deny how attractive he was.
Like a bronzed, Greek god, perfectly symmetrical, but somehow also a little boyish and charming.
He cracked the cue ball, and the rest of the balls shot off in different directions. Two solids immediately hit the pockets, and he grinned, explaining that solids were now his and he was meant to play again until he missed.
“Watch me, then you try,” he ordered softly, and I did my best to observe his technique as he proceeded to expertly sink several more solids.
When he finally missed, he scooped up his beer and took a swig, smirking at me.
“Your turn.”
