Chapter 26 — Sebastian

Sebastian ran, and he didn’t stop until he was behind the wheel of his car, clutching the steering wheel so tightly his fingers tingled. The air caught in his lungs, and he worked his way through one ragged breath after another. Black spots appeared before his eyes, so he shut his eyes tight to chase them away.

When he found he had the breath to do so, he screamed.

He screamed in rage. In pain. In sorrow. He screamed for all of the conveniently dodged truths and the white lies. He screamed because he’d done this to himself.

Sugaring wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t reputable, but that didn’t mean it was bad. He’d kept a few daddies, and when his schedule allowed, he went on one-shot dates with others. He’d only seen Kenneth twice, but both times he hadn’t been impressed.

He should have known it would come back to bite him.

When Sebastian settled down, he turned on the radio. He was desperate for a distraction. Because of Kenneth, he’d just lost it all. His chance at a future with Douglas was shot to pieces, and all because he couldn’t bring himself to open up about his employment history.

Douglas deserved better. He deserved a man who hadn’t sold his time and his company. Sebastian had never sold his body, but after Kenneth’s verbal diarrhea, it sure as hell had sounded like he did. Sebastian didn’t expect Douglas to ever believe him otherwise.

It was hopeless.

Deflated, Sebastian started the car and pulled out of his parking spot. It made him ache to think of all that he was leaving behind, but he couldn’t confront Douglas right now. He needed time to lick his wounds and think things through.

Only home was with Douglas, and he had nowhere to go.

Aimlessly, Sebastian drove the streets until muscle memory brought him to park on a quiet street not all that far from the downtown core. Impersonal apartment buildings spanned the block, spruced up by small shrubs or mediocre flower beds, but otherwise unremarkable.

Sebastian took his phone from his pocket and sank back in his seat. He made a call.

“Yo yo, glad you’re not calling at like three in the morning this time,” Gabriel said as he picked up. “What’s up? You want to make plans? Because I’m free.”

“It wasn’t three in the morning.” Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose in momentary frustration. “I’m outside your apartment. Can I come in?”

“Um… yeah? Is Ian with you?”

“No.”

“Then yeah. There’s no problem. We’ll talk when you get here, okay? I’ll buzz you in.”

Sebastian left his car. He made sure it was locked, then went to stand by the front door to Gabriel’s apartment. The door buzzed. Sebastian pulled it open, then climbed the stairs in the lobby until he arrived on Gabriel’s floor.

Gabriel waited for him at the door, arms folded and expression mildly concerned.

“Hey,” Sebastian said weakly. “Thanks for letting me in.”

“Mmhm.” Gabriel didn’t budge from the doorway. He gave Sebastian a hard, sweeping look that made Sebastian feel like a lab specimen. Then, with a nod, Gabriel moved out of the doorway and invited Sebastian in. “You want some coffee? Some tea? Maybe some tequila?”

“Do you have any beer?” Sebastian asked. He flopped down on Gabriel’s couch, not afraid to make himself at home. “I think I could use a beer.”

“Asking me if I have a beer is like asking a nun if they’ve found God.” Gabriel disappeared into the kitchen, then came back a moment later with two freshly opened bottles. He settled onto the couch by Sebastian’s side and pressed one into his hand. It was chilled. “You’re going to need to start from the beginning so I know exactly where you’re coming from, okay? Last thing I heard, you were sleeping with him and you were upset because you thought he was going to kick you out. I’m assuming you took my advice and talked it out?”

“We did.” Sebastian took a swig of his drink, letting the hops drown out the flavor of his unshed tears. When he swallowed, he wiped his arm across his lips, then continued to speak. “We decided we were going to be a couple. It was great… until today.”

“So what happened today to change that?” Gabriel leaned against the arm of the couch. He tented his legs, slipping his toes beneath Sebastian’s thigh. “You guys had a fight?”

“No. Not really. He spilled the soup I packed for him on his shirt, and he got called into a meeting at the last minute, so he asked if I would bring him a clean one. It was right at the end of the day, so when I showed up with Ian, he told me to stay in his office so we could leave together.”

Gabriel leaned forward. His brows knitted together. “He’s not cheating on you, is he? I swear to god, if he’s cheating on you, I’m going to go find him and tear him limb from limb. No one cheats on my best friend. You are worth so much more than that.”

“No. No, he’s not cheating.” Sebastian shook his head. “It’s nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me. He… there was an incident, and his boss followed him back to his office, and… and he was one of the guys I went on a few sugaring dates with. The really creepy one. The one who made me feel so weirded out that I called you from the bathroom of the restaurant we were at. Do you remember?”

“I remember.” Gabriel didn’t relax. “The douchebag who kept propositioning you for sex. He was the one who thought he could buy you for the right price, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Sebastian stared at his knees. All of his confidence was gone. “The one who pinned me to the wall after our second date and kissed me without my consent. That creep.”

“The one I punched in the face.” Gabriel beamed. “I’ll do it again. Did he touch you?”

“He didn’t touch me, but the things he said…” They echoed in Sebastian’s head, dragging him down. Sugaring had been a good experience—except for Kenneth. “He knows. Douglas knows, I mean. He—” Sebastian let out an exasperated sigh. “He didn’t know before, but with Kenneth there, things came out that shouldn’t have come out, and now everything is ruined.”

“That’s a pretty broad statement.” Gabriel relaxed against the arm of the couch. “I know that you’re disappointed, but that’s no reason to give up hope.”

“Kenneth spun it to make me sound like a whore.” Sebastian pulled his legs up to his chest and hugged them. The smaller he got, the better he felt. “Even when I set him straight and stated that I wasn’t and would never be, he kept poking and prodding, twisting facts around to make it seem like I was this… this atrocious slut.”

“I wouldn’t call you atrocious…”

Sebastian shot Gabriel a look of pure poison, and Gabriel laughed. Gabriel got up from the couch, beer in hand, to cross the room and look out the window. When he turned around, some of the laughter lingered in his eyes, but for the most part it had been dispelled.

“I was kidding. You’re not a slut, Sebastian. Sugaring isn’t even that bad. So you went on a bunch of dates with some desperate guys. So what? One of them paid for your apartment. One of them bought you a car. One of them paid off your tuition. It sounds to me like you were making the most of your time without doing anything you didn’t feel comfortable with.”

“I know.” Sebastian took another swig of beer to keep his mouth busy. His turbulent emotions made it hard to speak, and drinking meant he could avoid words for that much longer. “I think that’s the problem. I know, but Douglas doesn’t. I’ve been taking care of his son for a month, we’ve been sharing a bed, and now all of a sudden he finds out these dirty secrets about me. Can you imagine what he must think? I bet he thinks I’ve sold myself. And then…”

“What?” Gabriel dragged a chair over to the couch, sitting opposite Sebastian.

“He spun this story that is totally untrue, where he made it sound like I was a gold-digger using Douglas for money.”

“Why the hell would you do that when you were a sugar baby? Gold-diggers are a step lower on the totem. The men you went on sugaring dates with knew you wouldn’t put out, and they paid you anyway.”

Sebastian buried his face in his hands. In the heat of the moment, Kenneth’s threats and vicious lies had overwhelmed him. He hadn’t been thinking straight. If calm, collected, sensible Gabriel had been there, he could have talked Kenneth down. Sebastian didn’t have the capacity to be so logical while under pressure.

Gabriel sighed. “Do I need to tell you to beg for forgiveness and suck his dick, or are you going to do the sensible thing and talk to him about your problems?”

Sebastian stared at his knees. He was rewarded with another sigh.

“Sebastian, I know that you’re upset, and I know how scary it must be, and how heart-wrenching, but… you’ve got to do this. If you want to stay with Douglas, you’re going to have to fight for him.” Gabriel sipped at his beer, then let it hang between his legs. His elbows rested on his thighs, hands dipped down to suspend the bottle by its neck. “And I know it’s not fair, but sometimes life isn’t fair. If you don’t fight for this—for love—then what will you fight for?”

Love?

Sebastian stared down the neck of his beer bottle. He tossed the word around in his head, trying in vain to debunk it. He’d been hooked on Douglas since the first time their paths had crossed, but love?

The flighty, weightless feeling that spread through his chest and made his limbs feel like they could float wasn’t a product of lust. The way Douglas made him smile just by existing wasn’t a sign of typical affection. All of the times Sebastian’s mind had been drawn to Douglas out of the blue, and all of the little things he’d done for Douglas’ benefit since he’d moved in weren’t because Douglas was his employer.

It was all because Sebastian was in love.

He blushed.

“So here’s what you’re going to do.” Gabriel took a deep drink of beer, then grabbed the bottle and firmly planted it on the coffee table. The glass clinked loudly. “You’re going to take whatever time you need to pull yourself together—but it’s not going to be too long. An afternoon, maybe overnight, but no longer than twenty-four hours. Then you’re going to get back in your car and you’re going to find him. You’re going to sit him down and you’re going to explain what it is that you did in the past, and what your plans are for the future. You’re going to bare your soul to him. And if he doesn’t want anything to do with that? It’s his loss, not yours.”

“It would be my loss, too,” Sebastian murmured. “I don’t want to lose him. I love him, Gabriel. I love him, and I love Ian, and I want to make it work. If this hadn’t happened, we could have been a family.”

“And you can still be a family if you’re brave enough to fight for it.” Gabriel shrugged. “Not everything in life is your choice, but you can always try to turn a bad situation around. If you don’t try, nothing will change.”

Sebastian saw the value in what Gabriel said, and he recognized it to be the truth. He nodded, more to commit himself to it than to express his agreement.

“So what’s the plan?” Gabriel asked. “Let me know and I’ll be there as best I can to support you.”

“I think I need to stay here overnight to make sure I’m over this. In the morning, I’ll go to see him. I need some time to think about what I really want and the best way to go about getting it.”

And some time to calm down and remind myself that the past is the past. I didn’t do anything wrong.

Gabriel smiled. “Sounds good. You know I’ve got room for you here. And no matter what happens, I’ve always got your back.”

“You’re honestly the best.”

Gabriel shrugged. “What else are best friends for? I know you’d do the same for me.”

No matter what happened between him and Douglas, Sebastian had nothing to fear. Whether he found his family with Douglas and Ian, or whether he found it elsewhere, he was going to be okay.