Chapter 5 #3
“Are we really having this conversation while you're drunk?”
“I'm sobering up.” Sort of. He was. The buzz was wearing off, and now he was kind of just feeling tired and worn out, and maybe there was still a tiny buzz.
“Glad to hear it. Do you want to wash your hair?”
“Are you offering to do it or asking if I want to wash my own hair?” He gave his teeth a few more rounds with the brush and then rinsed it under the spray. He opened his mouth and then gargled the warm water.
He grinned at Quinn. “Minty fresh. Want to taste?”
“Nice try.”
Right. Because Quinn didn't really want to kiss Will. He just wanted Peyton. And Sebastian. And Will was like the hanger-on-er. The plus-one he had to deal with.
He turned away from Quinn, unable to keep the hurt from showing on his face. He wasn’t good at hiding his emotions at the best of times, let alone when he’d been drinking. “I can wash my own hair,” Will said quietly.
“Will...”
“Do you have shampoo in here?” Will looked at the recess in the shower wall where the bottles were neatly lined up so he didn’t have to see whatever expression was on Quinn’s face, or whatever was making his voice sound like that.
“I've never looked at you like that.”
“I know,” Will said stiffly. “And I didn't at you, not really, until yesterday.”
Quinn took Will's face in his hands, forcing him to look down. He ran his thumbs across Will's cheeks. “What if we do this, and there's nothing there?”
Will's lips parted in surprise. “But what if there is?”
Quinn slowly pulled Will forward, and then their lips were touching. A featherlight touch, like Quinn was afraid of pressing too hard.
Will braced himself with one hand on Quinn's chest and the other on the tiled shower wall. Quinn's lips were softer than he'd thought they would be. He slid his tongue across Quinn's bottom lip, and Quinn opened for him.
The first strokes of his tongue against Quinn's were tentative. Exploring. He moaned when Quinn responded, moving against him. Fuck. Warmth spread over him like flickering flames, and he pressed harder, searching deeper.
Quinn took control, and Will's knees almost buckled as he leaned into it.
“You know,” Will said breathlessly against Quinn's lips. He couldn't help but take another taste. “I think.” Another. He couldn't keep away. “We're fine.”
“Better than fine,” Quinn replied. He slanted his mouth and pushed Will against the wall, his body keeping him in place. Will wasn't sure his dick was doing much, but damn, it still felt incredible.
Will blinked owlishly when Quinn pulled away.
“No,” Quinn said.
“No,” Will repeated. No, what?
“Not like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like you still have alcohol in your system.”
“It lowers inhibitions, it doesn't create them.”
Quinn tilted up and kissed Will's forehead. Will swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Let me wash your hair,” Quinn said.
“Okay.” As though Will could say no to that.
He was glad he hadn't. Quinn was a pro at washing hair. The gentle massage was soothing and gave him tingles.
By the time Quinn turned off the water, Will was a melty noodle and ready for sleep.
Quinn was also adept at drying someone. Will was learning lots of new and interesting things tonight.
He didn't bother getting dressed and followed Quinn back into the bedroom. Quinn pulled the sheets back from the bed and Will crawled into it, already feeling the pull of sleep as he snuggled into the pillow.
He grabbed out blindly when Quinn went to move away. “Aren't you coming to bed?”
“I'm still doing some work.”
“You're waiting for Peyton,” Will said. “Waiting for him to get back safely.” He would have too if he thought he could keep his eyes open long enough. Quinn would keep Peyton safe tonight for him.
“Yes. I'm just finishing some work on my laptop.”
“Stay in here? I don't... I don't like being alone.”
Quinn kissed his temple. “I'll be right back.”
He came back with his laptop and a bottle of water. He made Will drink the entire thing—which absolutely meant he was gonna be up all night pissing, but he drank it anyway because Quinn asked—and then settled in beside him.
Will fell asleep with one hand on Quinn's thigh, the gentle glow of the screen flashing across his face.
Sebastian woke to someone kicking his bed. He flailed and fell over the side in a tangle of sheets.
“If I were a burglar, you'd be dead.”
Sebastian groaned into the sheet. “F'off.”
“Was that English?”
Sebastian pushed himself up with his arms. “Fuck off, Riley,” he said with perfect pronunciation.
“I'm checking up on you.”
“No, you're not,” Sebastian said with a huff. He sat up, leaned back against the side of his bed, and lifted a knee. “You're here to interrogate me.” He knew he should have never given Riley a key to his place.
“You slept with my brother,” Riley said flatly.
“I didn't know he was your brother.” He and Riley had been friends for almost eight years, but during that time they had kept it hidden from everyone around them, which meant no “meet the family.” They made a point to stay away from most personal conversations outside of themselves. He did know that Riley had been adopted, though, so there wasn’t even any familial resemblance he could have fallen back on.
He hadn’t once thought in all the years of random hookups that he might be taking home one of Riley’s five brothers. Let alone the youngest.
“Does that kind of defence work for you in court?”
“As a matter of fact—”
“Don't answer that. My baby brother, Seb.”
“I'm not going to apologise.” Sebastian pushed himself to his feet and dumped his sheets back on the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his hair. “While we're on the subject,” he said, “did you also know that Quinn is in love with that same brother?”
Riley might not know, and maybe Sebastian was letting the cat out of the bag, but right now he couldn't find a fuck to give.
Riley pursed his lips, his eyes hardening. Sebastian knew the answer even before he said it. “Yes.”
Sebastian closed his eyes and almost wished he'd never asked. He’d spent years trying to get over the man, and Quinn had just moved on to falling in love with one of Riley’s brothers, of all people.
Unless it hadn’t been a “moving on” situation; what if…
? “How long?” he bit out, unable to stop digging his own grave.
“Does it matter?”
Sebastian shot to his feet. “You're fucking kidding me, right? You know what I'm asking.” If Riley tried to pretend that he didn't know what Sebastian was talking about, what had prompted him to even ask, Sebastian would punch him.
“Quinn didn't cheat on you.”
“No, that was my job, remember? With you, in fact,” Sebastian said, ignoring the pang of hurt that the memory still evoked. He would never have been capable of anything that Quinn had accused him of. He’d been so in love, he’d drowned in it when Quinn had broken his heart.
Riley flicked his wrist, checking his watch. “You have half an hour for this pity party.”
“Pity party,” Sebastian said flatly.
“What do you want me to say, Seb? What is the point in rehashing this?
What would you gain from any of this information?
It's ancient history.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Quinn met Peyton well after you if that makes you feel any better.” It did.
A little bit. “Which is good, considering Peyton was eighteen when they met. Any younger, and I would have had something to say.”
“Eighteen? How old is Peyton?”
If looks could kill, Sebastian would have been dead.
“Never mind,” Sebastian said. It didn't matter now anyway. It wasn't like he was going to see them ever again.
“Did you talk at all or did you just...” Riley's sharp look could have sliced concrete.
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
Riley looked like he was about two seconds away from growling at him. Sebastian probably should have checked if he was armed before he started mouthing off. His self-preservation had never been that good.
“No,” Riley said shortly.
“Then why did you ask?”
“Why are we friends?”
“I ask you that all the time.”
“I'm going to drink all your coffee.”
“That seems excessive,” Sebastian said. “Do you know how much coffee is in this house?” If either of them tried to drink it all in one sitting, they’d both die a horrific death.
“More than there is food, I'm sure.”
Sebastian blinked as Riley left his room. Wait a second. “Hey!”
TWO HOURS LATER, AND Sebastian wished he'd just stayed in bed. Nothing bad happened in bed.
He pressed his balled-up shirt against the woman’s side, increasing the pressure to try to stop the bleeding.
“The ambulances are on their way,” he told her, hoping she could still hear him.
Her eyes were glazed over, but they were still darting around, and while her breathing was too fast, too panicked, she was at least breathing.
The other people huddled in the small coffee shop that was situated in his building’s foyer were wide-eyed and eerily silent. The front windows had been shattered by the drive-by shooting, and there were bullet holes all over the walls, the counter, the seating area.
Some of the other patrons were bleeding and crying.
Sebastian didn’t know if the woman beneath him had been the only one badly wounded—he was only one person, and he couldn’t see the entire shop from his place on the floor.
All he knew was that the ambulances had to get there soon, or she had no hope of making it.
He could feel blood trickling down his arm, and the area was burning like a motherfucker, but whether that meant he’d been shot, or cut, or something, he didn’t know. His entire focus was on keeping the pressure on the dying woman’s wounds and praying that someone out there was listening.
Sebastian took hold of her hand when the sound of sirens got closer. “Hear that? They’re coming. Just hold on, okay?”