TYLER
Chapter Fourteen
“All packed?” I asked.
Sebastian shrugged. “Not much there to bring.”
I glanced from my duffel to his. He was right. It was the dreaded week-long trip home. We would be back in no time. I only had to keep telling myself that. We would be back before we knew it.
I tossed my duffel by the sofa facing the wall-mounted TV, then lay down with my hands tucked under my head.
The move dragged my T-shirt up my abs a little and Sebastian looked at it shamelessly.
“Nobody’s ever turned me on as often as you,” he said in a sexy, low tone.
I loved his deep voice. It felt incredible when he moaned against my lips or, even better, around my dick.
In all this time, I had only gotten hotter for him.
Sebastian crossed the room in three big paces and crashed on top of me, making me yelp with surprise and momentary fear. It was always scary having a guy of his size crash onto my torso. But as he landed, we pressed together like two halves of one being, blending, melting into one another.
The noose of melancholy had been tightening around our necks almost invisibly.
It wasn’t until this moment, when I looked into his big, brown eyes, that I realized I was even feeling it.
It itched where it touched me. Like it would help me sever it, I wrapped my arms tightly around Sebastian and held him on top of myself.
I knew Sebastian was looking forward to seeing Eryn, and I also knew he wasn’t looking forward to seeing his brothers.
As to spending time with his parents, I had no clue what he felt.
I was pretty sure Sebastian didn’t know either.
But they were the root of my worries. Their increasing concern with our team and the relationship gossip that reached their ears meant I wasn’t eager to see either of them.
And by that logic, I wouldn’t see much of my boyfriend, either.
But he would be there. He would hear their nonsense. He would have to keep quiet and put up with it.
I felt like such a traitor, plotting to leave him hanging in that pit of judgment and sneering.
But if I had to sit with his father and listen to the eternal damnation that awaited my teammates, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from exploding and telling everyone that I, too, had booked a ticket on hell express.
Sebastian pressed his lips against mine and I managed to forget about the gloomy cloud that hovered above my head. The anticipation of the trip, however short it would be, subsided its pattering and drumming against my heart.
I loved what we were building together. Every game we played and every kiss we shared and every aspiration we had that aligned so perfectly felt natural.
Playfully, Sebastian pulled his head away from me. “One last match before spring break?” he suggested.
I knew exactly what he meant.
We scrambled up and out of the room. The house was oddly quiet, as it always was around breaks, with only a handful of guys staying behind rather than traveling.
Beckett and Caden had left this morning to enjoy Nate Partridge’s mountain home.
Jordan had gone to visit his dad and stepmother before joining Beckett and Caden for the last three days of the break.
Asher, pointedly, stayed behind, saying he wanted to experience the city.
“I’ll have to suffer through the summer with the family,” he’d said.
He and Phoenix were diving into the city explorations already.
Sawyer had moved in with Noah already last year, so he only visited the old team house occasionally.
Avery had taken Grayson to meet the parents.
Paxton remained, chasing hookups in his downtime.
Sebastian and I entered the basement and flicked the lights on.
He hooked up his phone to the speaker to play us some background music while I brought us a couple of cans of beer.
By the time I had my first sip, Sebastian was holding the little ball for table soccer, eyebrows lifted as if daring me.
It was a mind-numbing thing we did and as fun as anything other than sex. It was like meditating but not calming at all. We joked, we laughed, and we set up walls against all external intrusion on our time when we played. It was an escape.
On the wall behind Sebastian was the small, square canvas with my finger-painted nude portrait from behind.
It set fire to my cheeks the first time I spotted it.
Beckett had found it in our room two days after the coming out party when he was looking for Sebastian.
When he saw it, he insisted it needed a place of honor.
Sebastian was way too happy to make Beckett’s wish come true.
They had put the small painting up without telling me and waited until the evening round of table soccer for me to notice.
“Are you checking out your ass?” Sebastian scolded me now after scoring a point.
I snorted. “I’d rather be looking at your ass.”
He shot me a naughty look that pulled my attention away from the painting.
Luckily, it was done as a riff on the post-impressionist style, the colors bright and the strokes bold.
The entire thing was messy and striking.
It was very obviously my figure, even if the depiction hinted at many more hours spent doing hip thrusts and squats than I could prove.
My real ass was nowhere near as round as that.
Still, the fact that the guys put it up was almost touching.
Almost. They were starting to use it as an icon after Sawyer once made the sign of the cross before it and asked Avery if he was supposed to kiss it.
“You know, I was afraid it was gonna pass,” Sebastian said, sitting on the edge of the table. He wore a pair of knee-length shorts, his leg dangling off the side of the soccer table. He lifted the can and sipped his cold beer. “For you or for me. Or both of us at the same time.”
“It crossed my mind, too,” I admitted. “I still catch myself not totally believing this is real.” I moved closer to him until I stood at a single pace of distance away.
Sebastian cocked one side of his mouth into a smile. “It’s the realest thing I ever felt.”
Whenever he spoke like this, my heart hammered faster. Taking the final step, I stood inches away from his body. As Sebastian slid off the edge of the table and stood on his feet, our chests touched.
“We’re not letting anyone come between us,” I said firmly. It was a decision and a non-negotiable one.
“No one,” Sebastian agreed. It almost sounded like a growling threat to those who might. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in so close that air left my lungs. “I’ve been searching for you all my life.”
I felt the same way. And we’d been there all along. But pouring this into words suddenly felt too challenging. Instead, I pressed my lips against his, kissing him deeply and slowly, sealing the promise we had made.
As Sebastian turned us around and lifted me to sit on the edge of the soccer table, his kiss growing more passionate with each heartbeat, I felt empowered to face any challenge our return home could throw at us.
And it would, I knew. Those challenges lurked in the near future.
We had lived through the thick of it, escaped the claws of predetermined lives, broken the cycle of misery that plagued our parents, and scraped together some semblance of happiness. It was the best we could do.
I had no doubt that revisiting those memories would test this bond, but I also had no doubt that we were too good to be pulled apart.
Sebastian’s kisses grew hotter and I kissed him back just as fiercely.
Our tongues battled one another for dominance.
Our hands explored each other’s bodies like it was our first time.
I was never bored of examining his physique again and again and again.
I could stare at him all day long and lick him all through the night without feeling like I’d done it before.
He filled me with the kind of thrill I had never encountered before in my life.
I no longer doubted that I was bisexual.
The exact mechanics of my sexuality were unclear to me since checking out any other guy on the planet didn’t interest me.
Then again, I’d lost interest in girls since kissing Sebastian that first time.
He was like a fountain of infinite attraction.
He was the best friend I had always assumed I would spend my life with in one way or another.
I’d just never put the pieces together until the night I kissed him.
My fingers ran through his thick, dark locks, and my lips dragged over his face.
As I stood on my feet, I wrapped my body around his, and we held each other in total stillness.
The tumbling footsteps outside the basement door announced the new arrivals.
Sebastian and I pulled a little back from one another.
Words filled my mouth, but it wasn’t the moment to say them.
So I just looked into Sebastian’s eyes until Asher and Phoenix sauntered inside.
They both swayed on their feet a little bit, tipsy grins on their faces and glassy looks in their eyes.
Asher marched up to the little painting and gave his respects, then threw his arms over Sebastian’s and my shoulders.
“I’m so happy you two got together,” he drawled.
Asher smashed his lips against our faces, one after the other, giving us each a loud, friendly kiss.
Phoenix laughed. “Em-bem-ber-embarrassing.” He tripped over his foot and dropped into the armchair beside him. “Whoops!” He laughed louder.
“What’s the time?” I asked Sebastian, frowning. “You guys are wasted.”
“Kinda jealous,” Asher said, slurring a little less than his roommate. “Best friends. Grew up together. That’s so sweet.” He tacked on the last sentence slowly, simply, with a sigh.
“Yes, it’s very sweet,” Sebastian said in an oddly motherly tone. It filled me with laughter I didn’t want to release.
“Jordan would kick your ass if he saw you now,” I muttered instead.
Asher snorted. “Jordan. Big, scary Jordan.” He sighed again, but with satisfaction. “What a night.”
“Where were you, guys?” Sebastian asked.
“About…and…about,” Phoenix singsonged. “No. Hold on. About and…”
Asher interrupted his friend’s torturous attempt at getting it right by giggling like a kid.
He was more hanging on our shoulders than hugging us.
“Scary,” he murmured. “Doesn’t scare me, though.
” As he chewed his words, Sebastian and I dragged him to the sofa without exchanging a single look to coordinate.
Our heads were simply aligned. “Not afraid of Jordan…he’s a… ” Asher hiccupped. “Smartass.”
“What the hell did you two drink?” I demanded of neither of them in particular. “Absinthe?”
“You sound like him,” Asher said, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t know fun. To have fun. How.”
Phoenix rolled with laughter.
I lifted Asher’s legs on the sofa and tucked a pillow under his head.
“He’s hot,” Asher said. “Saw him…on the lake…oopsie…” He grabbed the edge of the sofa like it was a rodeo bull trying to send him flying.
Sebastian and I exchanged a look, frowns creeping in. “If he pukes all over the place…” I said and drifted.
Sebastian shook his head with concern. “We can’t leave them here.”
“Can we drag them up two flights of stairs?” I asked.
“The living room would work,” Sebastian said.
“…swimming…watched him…” Asher rambled on about something while I crossed the basement and looked at the stairs.
“Can I ha-have some fridge?” Phoenix asked. “No. Mini…beer.” He kicked his feet in the air as he laughed. “Some fridge, please,” he added pointedly.
I caught Sebastian’s eye roll and shrugged. “At least Jordan and Beckett aren’t here to see this.”
“Hot!” Asher declared. He was red-faced and limp on the sofa, one hand still clutching the cushion like he would fall off the face of Earth if he let go.
“I’m not undressing him no matter how hot he feels,” Sebastian said.
“So hot,” Asher said in an overly sad tone.
“Let’s get them upstairs,” I suggested.
Sebastian crossed the room to Phoenix and examined the freshman briefly, then decided Phoenix could stand and didn’t need to be carried upstairs.
He lifted him out of the armchair and wrapped one arm under the guy’s armpits, then pulled him across the basement to the stairs.
Which left me with the rambling mess on the sofa.
I sighed to myself and shook my head slowly as I dragged Asher to stand up.
“…don’t see me…” Asher’s words faded sadly. “…can’t see me…years.”
I wasn’t listening to him very carefully until now. Something about his tone made me frown harder. “Dude, are you…?” I snapped my mouth shut. It was none of my business, especially since the guy was wasted. “You need to shut up,” I said gently. “You shouldn’t be telling me this.”
“Can’t say,” Asher murmured. As we crossed the basement, he leaned his head on my shoulder and hummed. He was basically falling asleep on his feet. “Can’t tell anyone.”
“Hush,” I whispered. “It’s gonna be alright. You need to sleep.” He was going to have a terrible day tomorrow. Then again, that was what college was for.
Sebastian and I put our drunk teammates on the two sofas in the living room, then walked into their room freely to get pillows and blankets and emergency buckets for them.
We tucked the fools in and headed to our room, pausing at the foot of the stairs to look at them one more time.
“They grow up so fast,” I said in a fatherly tone.
Sebastian laughed and wrapped his arm around my waist. He kissed my cheek and we moved on.