It turned out he focused on getting progressive candidates elected up and down the ticket, including a very familiar face from downstairs: Senator Wyatt Hastings, pictured with his fiancée, Celine Whitcomb, a philanthropist heiress.
I scrolled through more photos of Sebastian with Wyatt at campaign events and fundraisers, and then candid shots at what looked like private dinners. It was clear they were a unit. Ateam. Though I still didn’t understand the weird sexual dynamic I’d witnessed between the three of them downstairs.
I read for a few more minutes, begrudgingly impressed by everything he’d achieved, and hating that I was impressed.
I clicked away from his website and kept searching, wanting something personal.
That was when things got really fucking weird.
A society magazine article about a gala to raise money for the arts included a photo of Sebastian dressed in a tuxedo, standing between a South Carolina senator I recognized immediately—one who’d spent a decade fighting against same-sex marriage—and a blonde woman in a frilly pastel dress, her arm curved around Sebastian’s waist with a smile that saidmine.
I stared at the screen, my stomach curdling. I clicked on the image to enlarge it, as if getting a closer look would somehow make it make sense.
The screen blurred for a second before I blinked and refocused.
I clicked on the next hit. And the next.
Page after page of photos showed Sebastian with his parents. Sebastian with their friends. Sebastian at fundraisers for right-wing candidates that his father bankrolled.
I dropped the phone and pressed the heels of my palms into my eye sockets.
The Sebastian I’d known ten years ago had once told me he’d rather lose his trust fund than pretend to be someone he wasn’t. Unless, of course, that trust fund had proved too much of a temptation.
One of the Sebastians I’d uncovered was a lie.
I just didn’t know which one.
The hotel barwas dimly lit, jazz drowning out the sound of hushed conversations. A waitress in a black dress started toward me with a smile. I waved her off and headed for the bar.
Then froze.
Sebastian sat at the far end, tossing back the last of his drink like he was trying to drown something.
I almost turned to leave, but stopped short. Fuck that. I pulled my shoulders back. I had just as much right to be here as he did. If I wanted a goddamn beer, I was getting a goddamn beer.
I strode to the bar, scraped the heavy stool back, and dropped down onto it.
Sebastian sat up quickly, his shoulders going tight, and turned to face me fully.
“Seriously?” He lifted his right eyebrow, instantly transporting me back to our suite ten years earlier.
Back then, that bold, knowing lift was all it took to get me naked and panting for him like Pavlov’s horny dog.
I stifled a groan as my dick responded without my permission. I shifted in my seat, trying to adjust myself as inconspicuously as possible.
“I’m not stalking you,” I told him as I hailed the bartender and asked for whatever IPA he had on tap.
“I didn’t say you were.”
He didn’t have to; his pinched, slightly panicked expression said it for him. It might have been ten years since we last saw each other, but some things never changed, and Sebastian’s haughty expressions were one of them.
“You forget, I know you,” I said. “Your feelings are written all over your face.”
His mouth flattened into a hard line. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”
I set my beer down, my hands shaking.
“I know you’re a gay man who cozies up to the very people trying to strip away our rights.”
