Sebastian
Seb stoodat the laboratory window, gazing across the hillside while he sipped from his fizzy water. The moon was out, reflecting silver shadows off the snow.
“Tell me about the party you’re going to tonight,” he said, turning back to Alexandria’s projection on the screen. She was busy doing her makeup, slowly applying thick mascara and batting her eyes in a round mirror.
“I thought you didn’t care about my parties, Seb.”
“I need a distraction,” he sighed. “Declan is out doing a perimeter walk. It feels kind of weird to be alone.”
“I wish you’d come to Brooklyn,” she said, as she did every time they talked. “It’s not like you’re getting any research done anyway.”
Seb flopped down into a desk chair. “That’s very true. I couldn’t even focus enough to read over the latest results my father’s lab sent me.”
“Because little hearts and Cupids were floating in front of your eyes?”
“No,” Seb grumbled. “Machine guns and blindfolds.” He tapped his fingers against the desk, then glanced once more at the stack of papers he had failed to read. “And the occasional Cupid, I guess.”
Alexandria giggled, then shoved her mascara wand back in its tube. “As I suspected. You’ve always wanted your own personal knight in shining armor.”
Seb scoffed. “I have not.”
“Have to. It’s one of the reasons you’ve never dated anyone, Seb. You’re praying some perfect man is going to just come and knock on your door when the time is right.”
Seb held his wrist high for the camera, then tapped his watch. “The time was right for some guy to sweep me off my feet about five years ago, when I decided I wanted to lose my virginity.” He realized how loud he was talking and bit down on his bottom lip before Declan came back and caught a monologue on his lack of a sex life.
“More reason to stop waiting, Seb dear.”
“And what? Throw myself at the tattooed straight man who polishes his guns in my living room?”
“I was going to say come to Brooklyn and hit up a gay club with me, but whatever floats your boat.”
Seb could tell his head wasn’t screwed on straight. For most single men his age, the idea of visiting his best friend in Brooklyn and going to the clubs would be exciting. Instead, just like always, the thought sent shivers of anxiety down his skin. Compared to flirty men, throbbing music, and crowded dance floor, staying home and battling it out with intruders seemed like a walk in the park.
Sometimes, he felt like his social anxiety was new, or at least growing over time. Certainly, back when he was in school, he had left the dorm every day. Maybe secluding himself with his work had been an unhealthy idea and made it impossible for him to relate to normal people. But then again, when he thought to those days in school, pretty much the only conversations he had were about physics, and the closest he got to something social was a group study session. And when he did share anything about himself, especially his hydrogen power dreams, the other students would laugh in his face.
For as long as he could remember, in fact, Alexandria had been his only true friend. The one difference was that, these days, she appeared in pixels instead of in the flesh.
“I’ll come visit soon,” Seb promised. “Now just isn’t the right time.”
“Oh Seb,” Alexandria sighed, then popped the top off a tube of purple lipstick. “The boys won’t wait for you forever.”
“Neither will hydrogen power,” Seb grumbled, then spotted Declan, trudging back across the snow. “Gotta go. Have fun dancing, Alexandria!”
Declan seemed to have something in his arms, but Seb couldn’t quite discern what it was. He stared as the man shuffled back down the path he had earlier cut through the snow, then reached the light at the front of the house, his arms folded over his chest the whole way.
Earlier that day, when Seb had managed to get Declan talking about his work more, it had suddenly seemed so obvious that he had some sort of criminal past. The fact that his nephew knew about local connections to the Blue Devils set off some alarms, but the way Declan danced around the specifics of his past employment seemed to confirm it.
Strangely, the truth only made Seb feel safer in his protection. He knew that the kinds of men his father typically hired for security were professionals and that they were all competent at their jobs, but they never had the same effect on him. With Declan, Seb felt somehow that the man would fight for him and that anyone who tried to hurt Seb would face a fast, fierce response.
Seb was drawn to that power. It did something to him he didn’t expect. Something that seemed to explode the world he had carefully built, where everything was predictable and quiet.
The feeling was strong enough, in fact, to get him to step outside of the mansion for the first time in days.
Seb kicked on a pair of snow boots and pulled a heavy down jacket over his house clothes. The hood practically swallowing his face, he stepped outside and crossed to Declan.
“Hey,” Declan said, nodding his head back. “You know anything about this girl?”
The wind whipped through the air, and cold grasped at Seb’s hands and the pink of his cheeks. He started to worry about being vulnerable to intruders outside, but his eyes lingered on Declan’s gaze and on the faint creases near his eyes, and that anxiety melted away.
