Love, Hypothetically[Theta Alpha Gamma 02 ] (7 page)

wo hours later, he was standing in front of Brad and Sebastian’s door, hands fisted inside his jacket pockets, waiting for someone to answer his nervous—perhaps even timid—knock.

Brad answered the door.
He stared at Paul.
Paul stared back.
He hadn’t quite determined which would be better—

having Sebastian or Brad respond to his knock. After Brad came to the door, he still couldn’t decide, since the man appeared to be missing a shirt. Not that there was anything wrong with Brad shirtless; quite the opposite, in fact.

Therein lay the problem. Sebastian wouldn’t like Paul perving on Brad, but he was a boy toy built for perving on.
Boyfriend! I’m perving on his boyfriend. It was very important to maintain the proper mindset during this meeting. A difficult proposition when one of the parties was wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and nothing else.
“Huh,” Brad said, tugging on his earlobe. Still inspecting Paul, he crossed his arms over his chest—making his muscles bulge—and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, effectively blocking the doorway. “What can I help you with?” he asked after about twenty seconds of silence. He didn’t sound hostile, merely curious.
“Uh, you know, I really did like those pancakes you made. They were delicious. Blueberries. Yum.” Fuck, he was truly, incredibly inept at this.
Brad stared at him another second. “Thank you?”
“Who is it, hon?” Sebastian’s voice—and then the man himself—came up behind Brad, one hand sliding onto his boyfriend’s shoulder. Now Sebastian? He looked hostile. “What are you doing here?”
Paul cleared his throat and straightened his spine. “I came to talk to you. Both of you.”
“Speak,” Sebastian said shortly.
“Umm, I was hoping I could come inside. This might take a bit.” Paul tried smiling. He had a feeling the positive effects of a smile were lost on Sebastian. Paul dropped his eyes and muttered, “I’d like to apologize.”
“And now you’ve done it, so run along.”
“I think we should let him in, babe,” Brad said in a low voice.
“Why would we want to do that?”
“You have more to say, Paul?” Brad asked.
He nodded, staring at the ground.
“You aren’t curious to hear it?” Paul was surprised by the tone of teasing in Brad’s voice. Not that Sebastian wasn’t playful—he taunted everyone, actually—but the intimacy he could hear put a lump in his throat.
Just a tiny one.
“No,” Sebastian said. “I don’t care what he has to say. I don’t like the way he treated you.”
“He said he’s here to apologize, though. He used to be your friend.” Paul heard movement, so he peeked—Brad had turned to face his boyfriend, and all he could see was Brad’s back and Sebastian’s hands flat on his skin, fingers rubbing those thick muscles along his spine. Paul watched those fingers slide up and down on the muscles and listened to them murmur to each other, occasionally catching a word or two.
The tiny lump in his throat grew. They obviously loved each other—he’d never seen Sebastian act remotely like this with anyone else. He was positively protective of Brad. Sebastian wasn’t even protective of his sister. As for Brad— Paul simply didn’t see how he could speak to Sebastian with that particular tone in his voice without a healthy dose of love backing it up. God knew he never could. There was only one person in the world Paul could ever have spoken to that way.
The lump nearly strangled him.
“Okay, I’ll accept that,” Sebastian said louder. “But you can’t lounge around in front of him without a shirt on, yeah?”
“I’ll put a shirt on,” Brad said obediently, clearly amused. They kissed quickly, then Brad walked away from the door, and Paul was left facing a serious, angry Sebastian. Last time he’d seen Sebastian, the man had been so mad Paul had been afraid he’d shoot flames out of his eyes. This time, it was more of an icy anger.
Paul swallowed. “Hello.”
Sebastian looked down his nose at him. “If you’re in any way rude to my boyfriend, I want you to know I won’t stand for it.” Then he turned and stalked away, leaving the door open, presumably so Paul could pass through it.
Jerk. “Does your little boyfriend know you think he can’t take care of himself ?” Paul snapped as he stepped into the apartment. He winced when he heard what he’d said. Dammitall.
Sebastian stopped walking and turned on him, raising a brow. “It’s certainly not too late to ask you to leave.” “I’m sorry,” Paul interjected before he could go on.
Sebastian eyed him suspiciously, but after a second he nodded slightly, indicating a chair that Paul should seat himself in. After he did so, Sebastian sat across from him on the couch. He planted his elbows on his knees, hands clasped, twirled his thumbs around each other and watched Paul.
Fortunately, Brad returned just then—something Paul had never thought he’d think fortunate. He smiled nervously. “You two seem very good together.”
Sebastian snorted. Brad smiled, said “Thanks,” and sat down on the couch, thigh-to-thigh with Sebastian. He sighed and leaned back into the cushions, pulling his boyfriend with him. Sebastian didn’t resist, but they seemed to be having some kind of silent communication through eye contact and body language that Paul couldn’t understand or even fully perceive.
It made him horribly envious.
He gulped. “It seems obvious I was . . . wrong.” He cringed, but it had to be said. Was it his imagination, or did Sebastian look more intrigued and less angry? “And that I should . . . apologize.”
They seemed to be waiting for more. Sebastian tilted his head in exaggerated interest.
Paul took a bracing breath. “I’m sorry for being such a prick to you both.”
They looked at him intently, then at each other. More of the silent communication ensued. Paul began to feel he wasn’t really a concerned party in this scenario, which probably should have been a relief, but gave him a strange feeling of being left out.
On the sidelines of life, as usual.
Oh, trash the morosity already.
Sebastian leaned forward again, elbows back on his knees, Brad’s hand prominent on his upper thigh. For a brief second, he saw Brad’s fingers tighten—more of that silent communication, but this time, Paul had the distinct impression that Brad was telling Sebastian to go easy on him.
Yes, please go easy on me. I’m fragile right now.
“Apology accepted. Now, I don’t suppose you’d like to share with us what your behavior was all about?”
He straightened. He probably should have been expecting this, right? “Um, well, it was mostly due to my—possibly irrational—fear that most jocks and their kind weren’t to be trusted by, um, our kind.”
Sebastian smiled in that way he had, as if he was trying desperately not to laugh in someone’s face. “By ‘our kind,’ I take it you mean gay men?”
“I am one of your kind,” Brad said at practically the same moment. He looked far less amused. Sebastian laid his hand on Brad’s.
Dammitall. Time to go for broke. “And I felt a fair amount of jealousy,” Paul spit out.
“Jealousy of what?” Brad asked, as if he wasn’t a near perfect specimen of manhood.
Paul slumped back in his seat, all the tension that had been holding him together suddenly deserting him. “I had a, um, bad experience once. With a jock. There was a locker room incident.”
Sebastian smiled wider. “That sounds entertaining. I don’t suppose you’d like to share it with us?”
“I don’t really think I could talk about . . . well, I do have this theoretical model . . .” He started by explaining about the hypothetical jock and his hypothetical boyfriend. Eventually, though, he gave up and just told them about Trevor outing him in high school.
“I’d kick his ass,” Brad said.
“That’s your solution to everything, hon,” Sebastian said affectionately.
Brad shrugged. “It works.”
“I’m sure it does, but as Trevor’s about your size, it wasn’t something I considered.” Paul scratched the back of his neck for a second. “To be honest . . . I loved him.”
“Hard to kick the ass of someone you love,” Sebastian mused.
They all honored the truth of that statement with a moment of silence, until Sebastian raised a brow and said, “I get the distinct impression something in particular occurred to encourage you to come make amends tonight.”
Paul cleared his throat. Then he did it again.
“You want a beer or something?” Brad asked, standing up. “I was about to get some anyway.”
“Maybe some water?”
Sebastian smiled. “Paul doesn’t really drink, hon. I’ll take a beer, though, thanks.” Brad leaned down to kiss him again before walking off to the kitchen. Sebastian sighed happily, watching him walk away.
This love thing was rather sickening, wasn’t it? Unless one was actually an involved party, presumably. Being an involved party sounded rather attractive, all things considered.
“You aren’t over this guy, are you?” Sebastian asked him, pulling Paul out of his musings.
He frowned. “That’s what Toby said, too.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened. “You told Toby about this?” “Well, hypothetically.”
He nodded. “Ah.”
After Brad came back, Paul took a deep breath and dove in. “Trevor showed up. He wants me to forgive him and give him a second chance.”
Brad pointed his beer at Paul. “Dude, I hope you’re going to make him work for it.”
Paul blinked. “He’s already done quite a bit, now that I think about it.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there was the, um, blowjob in his office.”
“Ah, good call,” Sebastian said.
“Well, that was sort of, um . . . I may have taken advantage of the situation.”
Sebastian tilted his head in a “well, of course” gesture. Brad lowered his brows and looked grave.
“Then he told me he was sorry and he wanted a chance to prove himself to me again.”
“Should be sorry,” Brad said.
“But I told him it wasn’t going to happen and left.”
Sebastian’s face brightened. “Message didn’t take, hmm?”
“No, he showed up this morning and took me sailing all day.”
“You sail?” Sebastian asked, eyes going wide.
“That seems kind of athletic for you, dude.”
Paul took a deep breath in order not to bite their heads off. “I like sailing.”
Brad and Sebastian made soothing, “Oh, of course” noises and bobbed their heads agreeably. They looked at him expectantly. When Paul didn’t say anything, Sebastian asked, “Is that all? You just sailed all day?”
He was ridiculously out of his element, here. He’d never been the guy who regaled others with his exploits, and this participatory thing was just . . . icky. It made him feel like he was wearing a layer of fine-grained sandpaper under his skin. Hadn’t he given them enough? All but filleted his emotions already? And these greedy bastards wanted more, still?
“Yeah, um, I think we get it,” Brad said quietly after a few seconds of watching him squirm.
“But we’d have a clearer picture if we had more details, of course,” Sebastian added with his sly smile.
Brad rolled his eyes in affectionate exasperation and leaned over to peck Sebastian’s cheek. “I don’t think he wants to share, babe,” he whispered loudly in his ear.
Sebastian grinned broadly, turning to Brad as if he were the cutest little puppy in the world, and then—to Paul’s complete horror—they began emoting all over each other.
Just a week before, he would have left the room with an explosive display of disgust. A polite person would presumably avert their eyes, which was probably what he should have been doing now, but it was like a train wreck; he simply couldn’t look away.
A very affectionate, loving, touching train wreck where all the victims were filled with warmth and caring and the onlookers became horrendously jealous and felt keenly what they were missing in their pitiful, lonely little lives. What they would continue to miss if they didn’t just figure their shit out and—
“Sorry,” Sebastian said, clearing his throat and sitting up again. Brad’s head lay in his lap now.
Paul looked closer, because he could swear . . . Sebastian was blushing. Well, today was just full of wonders, wasn’t it? “So, um, when did this all happen?” Sebastian asked.
“He requested me specifically to tutor his athletes, and then asked me to meet him in his office yesterday morning. That’s when this started.”
“Yesterday?” Sebastian asked. “That’s moving fast, isn’t it?”
Brad lifted his head off Sebastian’s lap. “What athletes?”
“Oh, I may have forgot to mention his, um, appointment as head coach to the Calapooya women’s softball team.” Paul laughed weakly when they simply stared at him. “He-he?”
“Your old high school boyfriend is the new women’s softball coach? Coach Gardiner?” Brad clarified, head still hovering over Sebastian’s thighs. He relaxed back onto Sebastian’s lap when Paul nodded. “I’ve met him. Nice guy.”
“I guess you could think that, if he hadn’t sacrificed you on the altar of the breeders in your teens,” Paul replied, slumping in his seat, his backbone giving out on him.
Sebastian snorted. “Oh, stop pretending you aren’t over that.”
His spine straightened like steel. “I’m not over it!”
“You let him do you on the boat, didn’t you?”
Paul squirmed, his spine suddenly rubbery again.
“And in his office?” Brad asked.
Oh, wait, he had an answer for that one. “That was revenge?”
Maybe say it with more conviction next time.
“It’s not at all like you to let yourself be taken advantage of,” Sebastian observed. “Interesting.”
“I’m not some case study,” Paul bitched.
“As a matter of fact, I think you didn’t feel taken advantage of at all. I think you felt exposed and vulnerable.”
Paul pointed at him, narrowing his eyes. “Have you changed your major to psych? Those people are always trying to read false intent into others’ actions and then analyze it.”
“Change my major in my last year of grad school? If I didn’t know better, Paul, I’d think you were prevaricating.”
Paul gaped mutely in affront.
“Oh, Jesus, he’s pulling out the big words,” Brad mumbled in Sebastian’s lap, eyelids drooping. He roused himself slightly to say, “Invite him to the party, babe.”
Sebastian petted Brad’s hair a second, but continued to inspect Paul like a lab rat. “I’m surprised you didn’t let your emotions get the better of you and blow up at him at some point.”
“Ha! I did!” Paul crowed triumphantly, standing. Wait. Confused, he dropped back into his chair.
“There’s the prick we all know and love,” Brad slurred, eyes closed.
“Oh, no,” Paul moaned, hiding his head in his hands. “I did blow up at him, and I said awful things that I didn’t mean and now even if I do want to try having a relationship with Trevor, he won’t want to.”
“So you do want to?” Sebastian asked after letting Paul moan for a moment.
He nodded into his hands, afraid to face the world outside his fingers.
“Maybe you should explain yourself to him,” Sebastian suggested. Brad snored softly, possibly in agreement.
“There’s still the trust issue,” Paul said against his forearms.
“He’s not asking you to trust him immediately, right? He simply wants a chance to prove he’s trustworthy again.”
Paul peeked between his fingers and nodded. Sebastian was clearly taking this situation seriously and trying to advise him. Would wonders never cease today? Paul dropped his hands and said it out loud. “I want to try again with him. I did love him once, and maybe, hypothetically, I could again?”