Chapter 7 #3
“We’re not the same people we were back then.”
“Are you trying to convince me or you?” Jay asked testily.
Sebastian cupped Jay’s cheeks and pulled him close. “My decision, Jay. He kissed me yesterday. And I—I have to know, okay?”
“Know what? How many ways he can break your heart?” Jay rested his forehead against Sebastian. “What about Will? He’s a sweet boy.”
“He’s not that much younger than we are; don’t call him a boy. And he’s…” Christ, Sebastian did not want to have this conversation with his best friend in the middle of a crime scene where someone had tried to kill him. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
Sebastian turned Jay’s head to where Quinn and Grady had approached Will and Peyton. Quinn said something to Will that they couldn’t hear from this far away, and Will smiled, bending his head closer as he replied.
Jay’s lips parted. “Oh.” He pushed out a breath. “You're kidding, right? There are so many better options in the world for you to choose from, and you're choosing him. Again?”
“I want to choose him.” Maybe he was an idiot.
Quinn had destroyed him once upon a time.
But he couldn't lie to Jay, or himself, about what he wanted.
His night with Will and Peyton had been special.
And the kiss with Quinn yesterday had shown him that it wasn't over between them.
That they'd been kidding themselves if they thought it had ever been over.
Seeing Quinn tangled up with Will and Peyton as well. ..
Something was happening, and he didn't know what it was, but he wanted to follow the threads. He needed to know.
Jay had always told him his curiosity would lead him astray one day. He guessed today was the day.
Jay took a step back and gave Sebastian a severe look. “I don’t like it.”
“I know.”
“He's going to hurt you again.”
“Maybe.”
Jay let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m calling Eli.”
Sebastian opened his mouth to protest, and Jay cut him off. “Your siblings have a right to know that someone tried to gun you down, Seb. Be thankful I’m calling him and not making you do it.”
Okay. Fair point. It wasn’t a phone call that Sebastian wanted to make right then. Or ever. “Quinn is a good guy—regardless of what you think, I don’t think he’s gonna leave me to die if I get any unexpected complications, okay?”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Your concern is noted.”
“And dismissed, as usual.”
Sebastian grinned. “Not dismissed. Just put in that tiny box in the back of my mind… that gets ignored.”
“It’s where you put common sense and self-preservation as well. I hate to break it to you, but I think you’re going to need a bigger box soon.”
Sebastian waved his hand dismissively. “It needed an upgrade years ago.”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
Sebastian wasn’t responding to that.
Quinn glanced behind himself at the porch they were standing on.
Flowers lined the white railing, some hanging, others in pots.
Rope secured a swing seat to the porch roof, painted white and with cushions.
He looked further down to the long gravel driveway that led up to the two-storey beach house, at the gunmetal-grey Lexus he had parked behind.
He’d known that Sebastian was highly sought after as a lawyer, but he hadn’t expected a beach house and a car that cost more than his entire year’s salary. How had Sebastian gotten to work that day? Did he have two?
He'd come a long way from the student that Quinn had once known.
Quinn wanted to know about the years that he'd missed.
Wanted to try and get back at least a fraction of those years by hearing the memories.
If he hadn't messed up, if he hadn't questioned everything that made Sebastian the incredible man that he had always been, what would they have become?
Would they have found a place together, like they'd talked about? Would they have married?
Quinn supposed it didn't matter. This is where their path had led them, and he knew that he couldn't fully regret it. Not when it meant Peyton and Will were in his life too.
Sebastian unlocked the front door and just left it open as he went inside. Quinn assumed that meant he could follow. He hadn’t said a single word to Quinn the entire ride there.
“You really don’t have to stay,” Sebastian said, hanging his keys on a hanging key holder that was… Quinn wasn’t sure what it was. A strange blob kind of shape, and the hooks had been stuck in any which way. Some of them were upside down. It looked like a child’s art project.
“Doctor’s orders.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t know that you’ll be able to say that in an hour or two.”
“I can get someone else to watch me.” He moved further into the house, and Quinn followed behind as he looked around at the sparsely furnished entryway and lounge and then into the kitchen.
The house didn’t look lived in. Like a cold mausoleum.
Or a magazine spread, all the items neatly picked out to resemble a showhouse.
It made his heart feel heavy with a lingering sadness he didn't know what to do with.
“Then call them, and I’ll wait until they get here.”
Sebastian sighed and turned back. “Quinn, what are you doing?”
Quinn tapped his fingers on the marble counter. “Making sure you're okay?”
“Let me clarify; what the hell are we doing? With us? With them?”
“I slept with Peyton,” Quinn said. “With Will there.” With Will watching, touching Peyton. “And I kissed Will.” If he was going for honesty, he might as well just add everything.
Sebastian visibly swallowed. “Fuck me, Quinn. Seriously. What are you thinking? That you and I can somehow get back what we lost, and just for extra fuckery, let's add them too?”
“I don't know,” Quinn said honestly. “I know this is messy. Beyond messy.”
“What happens when you decide that I can't be trusted again? What happens when we go right back to where we were?” Sebastian hunched over the kitchen bench, his hands gripping the edges.
Quinn didn't have an answer for that. “Everything's different now.”
Sebastian gave a helpless shrug, looking like he wasn't sure if he wanted to cry or scream.
Quinn wanted to hold him. He didn't know what he was doing any better than Sebastian did.
They were all finding their way blindly in the dark.
All he knew was that this time, he wasn't giving up without a fight.
“I thought about it over the years,” Sebastian said into the stilted silence.
“About what?”
“You, with other people. I heard about that fucking cop you were dating.” He bent his head further down, his knuckles going white against the black marble.
“I destroyed him in court because I was jealous; did you know that?
How fucking stupid and juvenile is that?
Even Caleb asked me what the fuck was wrong with me.
I've always been good at breaking people down, but I'd never been cruel, not until then.”
“Seb...” Quinn had actually heard about that. Eric had come to him spitting mad, and Quinn had asked him to leave because he refused to listen to anything bad about the man that still held his heart. Not like that. He had been unfair to Eric in so many ways.
“I hated him. I hated you. How dare he have something that was mine? How dare you give it to him?” Sebastian tipped his head back with a dark chuckle.
“How dare you move on when I never could?
I spent years trying to get you out of my head and you just..
. got on with your life like I'd never mattered.”
Quinn moved closer, crowding him. “I never moved on.”
Sebastian let out a pained breath. “I don't hate thinking of you with them. I can't explain why, why it's different.”
Quinn couldn't explain it either, but he felt the same way. The idea of Sebastian with other people had made him sick over the years, but there was nothing but affection and heat when he thought of him with Will and Peyton.
“I can’t make sense of any of this.”
“You don’t always have to think so hard, Seb.” Quinn closed his eyes and rested his fingers against the side of Sebastian’s neck, feeling the rapid pulse beneath his tips. “Sometimes you can just feel.”
“And what should I be feeling?” Sebastian said. The sarcasm was there, but underneath it was a raw vulnerability. A sliver of trust that Quinn had no intention of breaking again.
Quinn didn’t answer with words. He tilted his head, capturing Sebastian’s lips beneath his.
Hands settled on his hips, fingers digging into him.
He kept the kiss shallow and soft, not seeking entrance.
It wasn’t a kiss meant to lead anywhere; it was one meant just to be.
Giving comfort and asking for it in return.
The shape of his lips fit perfectly against Sebastian’s, two pieces slotting together, coming home.
Quinn realised that it didn't matter what they could have been.
They were where they needed to be, here at this moment.
“Pack a bag.”
“Why?”
“I want to take you home.”
Sebastian’s breath hitched. His fingers dug in further into Quinn’s hips, and Quinn knew he would have bruises there. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“You think too much.” Quinn took hold of Sebastian’s chin and tilted his head up.
“Not sure I've ever been accused of that,” Sebastian murmured.
“Should we mark the occasion?”
Sebastian pursed his lips as he glared. There was a mix of anger and hurt and lust all swirling in his gorgeous dark-blue eyes. Quinn would give the world to know what he was thinking.
“Kiss me again,” Sebastian said.
Quinn obliged. He would always oblige. If Sebastian had asked, at any point in all the time they’d known each other, Quinn would have given it to him. He wondered if Sebastian knew that. What he would have done with the knowledge if he did.