Sebastian bites his bottom lip, and he’s doing that staring thing again. Is this how he unnerves his opponents in court? Sits there and stares at them? Effective.
“When’d you meet Ken?”
“Six years ago.” I rememberthatvividly, like it happened days ago instead of years. I’d still been working with Maverick at the funeral home. He’d walked in with a bunch of teenagers—a high school teacher in his old life—following behind him like baby ducks. Everything about him spoke to me. Those tight curls, his intelligent eyes. The way he’d looked at me, even then. Love at first sight. He’d been mine the second I’d seen him. Nothing hasever felt as right or easy as being with him. Not before, and not since.
“And how old are you?”
Where the hell is he going with all these weird questions? Am I suddenly in a job interview? What kind of job would this be? “Thirty-one.”
“You haven’t slept with anyone since you met Ken?”
“I already told you that.”
Seb nods thoughtfully. “Spence, if you’re that hell-bent on sleeping with him, why don’t you ask him how to do it? I imagine he’s had sex at least once with a man. Considering how he looks, and that hair, I’d say more than once.”
Anger flares like gasoline to flame. “Don’t talk about him like that.”
“I think you’re missing my point.”
“You think I want to know that? That I want tothinkabout it? I don’t want to hear about his knowledge, or how he got it.”
More of the fucking staring. I wipe at my face, just in case I have something on it. We didn’t get anything to eat, so there can’t be, but better to be safe than sorry.
“I think you need to talk to him about this,” Sebastian says. “Ask him. It doesn’t matter where he got his experience, Spencer, it really doesn’t. Would you rather learn from me—verbally, I’d like to add, we’re not doing anything physical—or fromhim?”
It’s not about learning anything. I just want to make him feel good. The way he makes me feel good. The way he makes me feel so fucking much that I don’t know how it hasn’t escaped from under my skin to spread across the world.
Chapter sixteen
Kendrick
The second that Spencerwalks through my apartment door, I can tell he isn’t at one hundred percent. All my anxiousness about having him away from me disappears at the sight of his familiar mop of blond hair.
He smiles weakly at me and kicks the front door closed with his heel. He winces when it slams shut.
“Have a good night?” I ask, leaning back against the counter with a mug of coffee cradled in my hands.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Neither could I. The empty space beside me never lets me get a good night’s rest. The nightmares are worse when I can’t wake up and pull him close, when I can’t physically assure myself that he’s fine. That he’s home, and everything is alright.
The messages last night, confirming he was home, along with a play-by-play of him getting ready for bed—which consisted of a lot of drunken, garbled messages that I didn’t bother tryingto interpret—should have been enough to calm me. But they’re never as good as the real thing. The only time I fully relax is when he’s within reach.
I hate that he didn’t come to me last night. Or that he didn’t ask me to stay at his, so I could wait for him. I didn’t push it when he didn’t mention it. I never do. Our entire relationship is based on what he’s willing to give and ask for. Sometimes the line blurs, and I never know where he wants me to sit. So I wait for him to say it. Pieces of my heart break when he doesn’t say what I really want him to, but the second he smiles at me, they heal again. A continuous cycle of breaking and healing, over and over. If that’s what it takes to keep him, then I gladly submit myself to the groundhog situation.
If he’d been with anyone else last night, I might wonder about what happened, even with the constant communication. Sebastian, however—as much as their friendship irritates me—is one of the safest people in the world for him to be around. His four boyfriends keep him occupied, and they’re all sickeningly in love. Sometimes that logic calms me, sometimes it doesn’t. I still don’t like them together.
“Here, drink this.” He leans into me as I hand him my coffee, making sure that he has a good grip before letting it go. I kiss his forehead gently, and his eyes flutter closed. He twists so that his back is against my chest, silently urging me to take hold of him. As if I could ever ignore that request.
“Everything hurts,” he groans.
“Mhmm.” I bet; he looks like death warmed-over. “How much did you drink last night?”
“That fucking lawyer is hiding a steel goddamn gut. He put away just as much as me, and he could walk in a straight line fine. I bet he could still recite the alphabet backward.”
“I imagine his job makes him drink a lot.”
Spencer snorts out a laugh, the mug in his hands wobbling dangerously. “Fuck, probably. I wouldn’t do his job for all the money in the world.”
