Bewitched by Bellas Brother

Elope with me Miss Private and we’ll sail around the world I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl… “Piazza, New York Catcher”—Belle and Sebastian

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 3

Chapter 1 ISABELLA BRYNE was very nearly the most stunning piece of physical female perfection that Sebastian Craig had ever laid eyes on. She was five feet, eleven inches of Norwegian perfection: hip length, satiny blond hair; eyes the color of the Atlantic Ocean on a summer day with naturally brown lashes and brows; high cheekbones; the faintest brushing of freckles on her faintly tanned skin; a plump, lush mouth; and a straight, small nose. She was brilliant, competent, took shit from nobody, had a razor-edged sense of humor, and worked her ass off academically. In fact, given all her assets—and the fact that when she stood next to dark-haired, blue-eyed, gaminely beautiful Sebastian, they practically glowed like Olympian gods—only two things kept Sebastian from being head over heels in love with her. The first thing was that she often had a temper that made a PMS-ing harpy going into nicotine withdrawal look like a chubby fuzzy bunny that burped daisies and shot rainbows out its ass. The second thing was that Sebastian was so gay he made a parade in San Francisco look like a Bible Belt tent revival. Oh, he toned it down most of the time, unless he wanted to torment someone who did the wedgie dance out of a glass house and Sebastian felt like throwing stones, but oh yes—Sebastian could only look at Bella as the sister of his

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 4 heart and not the wench he wanted in his bed. They adored each other. And gay or not, when he found out that her brother was willing to put them up over the summer so Sebastian could save his money for his second doctorate, he was about ready to have her babies. “So tell me,” he begged, “tell me your brother isn’t some psychotic, gun-toting, homophobic Nazi, or, you know, like the Unabomber, locking himself in the linen closet and making homemade explosives using peanut butter and methamphetamine… because otherwise, Bella, I don’t see a downside.” Bella had shrugged in her laconic way. “I haven’t seen a lot of Asa since I went away to school,” she said. “He… you know. He got his job, got his business, put the rest of us through school. Talks to Mom and Dad once a week. Mom talks his ear off—tells him who’s doing what, what the nieces and nephews are doing, that sort of thing.” She shrugged again. She was the youngest of five children, and Sebastian had met the other three. Classrooms full of sugar-hyped kindergartners talked less. He often wondered if Bella’s surly disposition was to ward off the overwhelming press of family that could be generated from three such unapologetic extroverts—and their rambunctious, terminally charming children. “So, does he do any talking, or is it all your mom?” Bella’s mother, Brenda Bryne, adored Sebastian—and vice versa. She even adored the way he gave her shit about her name. Bella’s upper lip came up in what Sebastian thought of as a lazy-man’s shrug. She’d shrug with her shoulders, but

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 5 it was too much damned effort. “I think Asa and me are both like Dad.” She looked thoughtful then, and Sebastian cocked an eyebrow at her. “The thing is, Dad and me, we don’t talk much, but we get hurt really easy. It’s why I’m such a bitch—easier that way. I just….” And now she looked away. “You know, he just had a horrible divorce out east, and here he is, a single father and back home. It just occurred to me that maybe I should have been more worried. He was always really kind to me when I was a kid.” Sebastian straightened up from his insouciant lean over the counter at Barnes & Noble and looked at her more closely. They both worked there (Sebastian was a day manager and Bella kissed his long shapely toes, as she liked to say) and had been friends and fellow students at U.C. Davis for over four years, when Sebastian had gotten his first doctorate in pre-Renaissance Art History. He’d never seen this particular expression on Bella’s face before—not even when she dumped a bewildered pre-med student for no other reason than that he liked Death Cab for Cutie—which was actually her favorite band. “Omigod, Bella!” he exclaimed, a little horrified. “Is that remorse?” The narrowing of her eyes should have warned him. She pulled a pen from the cup at his elbow (he was working the information kiosk in the store today) and started scribbling furiously on the pad of paper on the counter. “Yes, Sebastian. Absolutely. Today, on May fifteenth, two-thousand-and-ten, Isabella Bryne felt remorse. Here. I’ve made a note of it.” She ripped off the piece of paper, wadded it up into a ball, and shoved it into his hands. “Now here,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 6 just for you, take it into the bathroom, shove it up your ass, and jack off with it. I know you’ll enjoy yourself.” And with that she stalked off, leaving a trail of redtinged funk in her wake. Sebastian ignored her suggestion and unfurled the piece of a paper. While Bella would never be a famous artist, she was a decent caricaturist—in fact, she often doodled or cartooned to express her rather repressed emotions. The piece of paper in Sebastian’s hand had a picture of a lion cub on it, looking playful and befuddled and dear, and Sebastian looked at it thoughtfully before he folded it and put it in his pocket. His parents were living in Europe at the moment and God-knew-where-else at the long term, and Bella was the next best thing he had to a sister. They looked out for each other, and that little piece of paper was a clue to her grouchy, miserable heart. It was worth keeping, but he wouldn’t tell her that. They made peace—they had to. They were moving their shit into Asa Bryne’s house that day. Of course, most of Sebastian’s stuff was in storage—not that he had much. He’d been pretty much traveling from degree to degree since he’d been turned loose on the world at eighteen. That September he’d turned twenty-seven, and the thought had made him sad. “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” he grumbled to Bella as they schlepped their sixth box of books into Asa’s ginormous garage. The whole house was ginormous. It should be—it was situated on six acres of hillside in Ophir surrounded by oak trees, mowed grass, and cattle wire. The house itself was stunning: stained raw wood, wraparound porch, a stand-alone garage that could probably

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 7 hold six vehicles, a porch-side swimming pool that could actually give a passable workout. The yard was oddly shaped; it sort of capped the hillside, and although it looked as though there had been some serious landscaping to get the whole hilltop level, the lawn ran to a patchy, uneven edge before blending into the weeds. They’d parked Bella’s beat-to-shit blue Honda in front of the garage, and started moving Sebastian’s boxes from the truck they’d borrowed from their friend Sammy. Bella’s sudden cramp of bitchiness couldn’t hold up to Sebastian’s determined good will, and eventually she was talking to him again. But judging from the way she was narrowing those spectacular eyes, maybe not for long. “Doing what?” she snapped. “Planning to come with me to Spokane. You like it here. You have family, and not just any family—awesome family. Fun family. Family that has dinner every Sunday and celebrates everybody’s birthdays and gives a shit. Who wouldn’t love your family? I love them to death, they’re wonderful; I want a gym membership changing my name to Bryne. Seriously, Bella-luv, if you had anything resembling a penis, I’d marry you just for a reason to stay.” Bella wrinkled her eyebrows at him. “You don’t need a reason, Sebastian,” she muttered, hefting his suitcases and walking toward the house. He grabbed his favorite box of books and struggled to keep up with her. After taking a look at the spacious—and well kept—garage, complete with work bench, meticulously organized tool rack and chests, and a lot of expensive man-machinery that Sebastian knew nothing about, he was itching to see what the inside of this suburban palace looked like.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 8 It didn’t disappoint. “Oh God—are you sure we don’t sleep with the servants?” he muttered as they walked into the front room from the entryway. Beyond the entryway was a sunken living room—wide, spacious, with a cluster of couches and armchairs in front of a plasma television to one side and another cluster in the center. On either side of the living room was a twin spiral staircase that curved along the wall to meet at a landing that overlooked the sitting area and led back into a hallway. It was a small-scale version of the stuff of Hollywood dreams, and for a moment, Sebastian and Isabella just gaped. “Jesus, Asa,” Bella muttered. “Be ostentatious, would ya?” Except it wasn’t ostentatious, Sebastian thought, his inner princess completely beguiled. It was dreamy. He just stood there and soaked up the awe for a minute while Bella disappeared. The couches were both fabric and leather, in dark, subdued colors—oxblood, dark canvas green, navy— and the arrangement made the living room seem both cozy and personal as well as spacious. The vaulted walls all had skylights near the top, and there was enough natural light to satisfy even Sebastian’s artistic eye. The only thing missing was art on the walls, he thought, and he automatically began to sort through which artists he’d put up to make this whole room perfect. He had a sudden vision of himself, sitting on those couches, surrounded by his beloved books, with his laptop on the coffee table, and swallowed a little lump in his throat. He wanted to belong here too.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 9 Bella sauntered in from the kitchen—which was off to their right with a dining room attached—holding a piece of plain white scratch pad paper. Bella—on a daytrip with Jordan. Back tonight. You and friend get two rooms on right side of upstairs hall. You must share a bathroom. Sorry. A’. “He’s sorry we have to share a bathroom?” Sebastian asked, disbelief in his voice. Considering that he, Bella, and Sammy had been sharing a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment for the last three years, this seemed like the height of luxury. Alas, Sammy had moved in with his partner, Chad, and Sebastian and Bella had been at loose ends on their bookstore salary before they moved to Washington for their next academic adventure. And voila! Bella’s brother moved back into town, and they had a rent-free luxury suite with a swimming pool. Sebastian looked at the note again, blocked out in precise engineer’s printing. Sorry. A’. A’ must be a helluva nice guy, to think he had to apologize for this. Sebastian was even more impressed once he saw the rooms. “Oh, nice,” he commented, running his hand along the dark wood of the bedframe. The bed—burgundy cotton sheets, matching cotton comforter, pillows and bolsters—had been made, and after setting Sebastian’s stuff down, the two of them took a moment to bounce on the relatively new mattress. A queen-sized bed, complete with box springs. “It’s gonna suck going back to the old student cot after this,” Sebastian groaned, throwing himself backward, and Bella sighed in agreement next to him.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 10 Sebastian turned on his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “So, baby, what’s your room like?” Bella blushed, and if Sebastian hadn’t thought he’d get another piece of paper threatening his nether orifice, he would have marked this occasion on a calendar too. “It’s perfect,” she mumbled, and Sebastian popped up off the bed and ran through the bathroom (the tub and shower were sinfully big, he noticed) and then threw open the adjoining door. And stopped dead with his mouth hanging open. “Oh shit, Bella—if this guy wasn’t your brother, I’d say he’s trying to marry you!” The room was… well, it was a gallery for finely made prints, for one thing. All in frames on sanded wood walls, and all of them from Bella’s specialty eras. Rococo, Renaissance, Impressionism—you name an era that was featured widely in women’s historical romances, and Bella had written a paper on it in a Master’s level class. There was at least one print from every era Bella loved in that room, in hand-beveled hardwood frames with specialty, non-glare glass. The quilt on the bed was a pale cream color, with accents of dark gold and pale violet, and the curtains matched. Sebastian knew for a fact these were Bella’s favorite colors—her favorite painting in the world had these colors in it, and her life seemed to be a search for the feelings that color scheme gave her. The floor was the same golden wood as the walls, and there was a deep, plush area throw around the bed. Sebastian threw himself back on the bed and made a strangled sound of enchantment.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 11 “A down pillow top on the mattress. Bella, are you shitting me? Jesus… Sammy’s brother beats the shit out of him as a sign of affection. What did this guy do to you as a kid—run over your kitten? Behead your Barbies? I mean, Jesus, Bella—this is some serious penitence here!” And it was a day for surprises, because Bella looked away, and Sebastian was struck absolutely silent. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and made a noise he’d never heard from her—not in four years of friendship. “It was my fault,” she muttered, making that sniffling sound again. “It was my fault. He didn’t have to do this. Shit, Sebastian, I can’t talk about this right now. I’m a bitch, he’s a good guy, and I need to get our shit moved in so I can spend all summer avoiding him….” Sebastian moved to hug her instinctively. He’d never really been a hugger until he met Bella, but being her absolutely bestest best friend in the entire world gave him certain privileges. Bella was the slyest, meanest, most sarcastic glitch-bitch a boy could have, and they’d been hugging each other like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods since Sebastian had his first breakup when they were roommates. They probably couldn’t live without a hug a day from each other, and Sebastian gave a little bit of thanks for that. Best moments of his life. But Bella wasn’t talking—and she definitely wasn’t hugging—and after moving his shit, then driving to Davis to get hers, Sebastian wasn’t in the mood for anything more than dinner and a shower. Bella got a call on her cell about the time Sebastian had put on his basketball shorts and a Tshirt, enjoying what felt like a stellar air conditioning system

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 12 as he did. Bella came into Sebastian’s room, fresh from her own shower, and flopped on Sebastian’s bed. “That was my brother,” she told him. “He and his kid are out on a fishing/star-gazing expedition, but he said he ordered pizza for us—all paid and everything. He told me it should be here in half an hour and to make ourselves at home.” Sebastian looked at her. Just looked at her. It was like the guy had read his mind. “Jesus, Bella! I think I love the guy already. Please tell me he’s gay. Please, pretty please, with someone else’s cherry on top? Bi. Bi-curious. Watched a friend jerk off in junior high. Anything. I’m dying here. What is your brother like?” Bella’s mouth curved reluctantly into a smile. “He’s hella tall,” she said immediately. “And if he hasn’t cut it yet, he’s got long blond hair down to his waist. He keeps it neat and all, but he’s sort of vain about it—and he’s not vain about anything.” “No vanity? How is that even possible?” Sebastian was beautiful; he was aware of it. He didn’t think it made him more or less than anyone else… but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy appreciative looks, male and female. He was vain about his academic work; he worked hard on it, he thought it was comparable to anyone else’s in the country. He was even vain about his friendship with Bella, because he’d been raised an only child and the temptation to be a spoiled, selfcentered diva-bitch could have been overwhelming. But Bella had once nursed him through the flu and then typed up his next paper from notes while he was still curled over the commode, just so he could make his publishing deadline. He

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 13 wasn’t sure where a girl learned that kind of loyalty, but he was going to clutch it to him with selfish, bony fingers. How could a man who could build this house with his bare hands—and have it decorated with a bare heart, apparently—not have any damned vanity? “I didn’t say he didn’t have pride,” she said softly, and then flopped down on the bed next to him, rolling into his arms for an easy, sexless hug. “I just said he doesn’t really flaunt the shit he does well. And”—she sounded uncomfortable here, as though she was repeating gossip—“I think his pride has taken some hits lately. If you listen to Mom, his ex-wife really fucked him over.” Sebastian pulled back and looked at her, truly curious. “Care to explain?” he asked impatiently when she didn’t go into details. Bella rolled over to her stomach and rested her chin in her hands, tracing her finger moodily on the burgundy comforter. “I don’t know, Sebastian. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t faithful, but beyond that?” She shook her head. “All I know is that Asa got full custody of Jordan, and whether she gave it to him or the courts did, that’s full-blown fucked-up bitch in my book.” Sebastian nodded. She didn’t show it often, but Bella had the same values as the rest of her close-knit family. The children were important—and treasured. “So he’s here, doing the single father bit—and you get free room and board for helping?” For the first time in the past two days, Bella’s lush mouth curved upwards. “Yeah—Jordan was just a little

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 14 squish on the carpet last time I saw him. I can’t wait to meet him.” But it didn’t seem as though it would be that night. They ate pizza on the back deck by the pool, watching the sunrise over Lincoln (or thereabouts—not always easy to tell in the foothills), and split a six-pack of microbrew beer between them in celebration of free room and board in such a spiffy place. Afterward, they went up to Sebastian’s room and watched television on the little set they’d brought with them from their old apartment. Bella fell asleep on the bed next to him in the middle of an NCIS rerun, and Sebastian wasn’t far behind. He wasn’t sure what woke him up a few hours later, but he was starving for leftovers. Bella had gone back to her bed; she insisted he snored and he insisted she was full of it, and the lure of a room to herself must have been irresistible. In the quiet dark of the vast, strange house, his stomach rumbled, and he thought rather greedily that there was more pizza left for him. He kept his sleep shorts and his T-shirt on and padded rather diffidently through the vast house. When he was on top of the landing, he paused and looked out into that magnificent living room, violet in the starlight, and wondered what sort of vision it would take to dream that sort of art up in three dimensions. Then he quit his moment of open hero-worship and padded down the curved staircase in search of pizza. And pudding. And a glass of milk. And some fruit. Ah, gods, this guy had the best stocked refrigerator in the state! Sebastian was still young enough to have an amazing

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 15 metabolism, and he’d spent two days moving shit from Davis to Ophir—he was ready for round two. He had just gathered it all into his arms—stacked up on the pizza box with the carton of milk in his other hand— when a terrible beast wielding a baseball bat came roaring out of the night and scared him shitless. “Auuurrrrggghhhhh!” screamed the naked giant with the baseball bat, and “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” shrieked Sebastian, dropping his midnight snack on the floor, and then Sebastian got a good look at the terrifying man swinging the Louisville slugger like a drumstick and said, “Asa?” and Asa stayed in his crouch, trapping Sebastian against the refrigerator, and said, “Who the fuck are you?” “The guy who almost shit his pants,” Sebastian sputtered, trying not to sit down on the refrigerator shelf from sheer relief. For one thing, he didn’t think it would hold him. “Good God—you really are Bella’s brother, aren’t you?” Asa Bryne straightened up to his full six and a half feet, pushed back a wet, tangled mass of yellow-brown hair that looked like it might actually go to his waist, and blew out a breath. “You’re Bella’s friend from school. Shit. Jesus fucking Humphrey bastard Christmas. I’m fucking sorry—I was changing out at the pool and I saw the light and had a fucking panic attack.” Asa eyed the scattered pieces of midnight snack at his feet and suddenly dropped to his knees and started to pick it up, shoving it into Sebastian’s bemused hands. “Here. Here—you put this on the table, and I’ll go get some fucking towels for the fucking milk.” Asa stalked off, leaving Sebastian to finish picking up the remains of his snack and set it up on the table—which

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 16 he did promptly, when he was done gazing at Asa’s fine, muscular, pale ass as he disappeared in the direction of the washroom. Stop drooling at the straight man, Sebastian. You don’t want to fuck up a perfectly good situation here. But it was no good—Asa returned, wearing a pair of cut-offs, and Sebastian’s brain went on slide-show freeze frame, with the best parts of Bella’s brother highlighted in softly glowing moonlight. Brown-blond hair—wet now, but falling from a jagged part at the top of his head and framing his face like that was where it went when he normally let it. Ocean blue eyes—Bella’s blue eyes, faintly crossed over a bold, Roman nose, with a high, expressive brow and a lantern jaw. He was probably in his late thirties, and he had just enough lines around his eyes and mouth to make him interesting and not just… just… mmmmmm damn! Sebastian had always thought of himself as pretty, but this man—this man was beautiful. He had a face that should have been carved into stone, one that could be memorialized in marble as a general or a king or an emperor. Or just as a wood-erecting panty-wetter with a mouth that could peel the paint off a steel girder. Sebastian wouldn’t forget that impressive oath he’d muttered when he realized there wasn’t an intruder in the house. Ohmigod— the guy really was Bella’s brother. By the time he realized he’d been gaping at Asa as he got on his hands and knees and cleaned up the spilled milk, Sebastian had an erection he couldn’t hide and a burning need to babble like a complete moron. “I’m sorry to scare you like that,” he muttered, getting a sponge from the sink and wiping off the pudding containers

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 17 and the table. “Bella and I just really enjoyed the pizza, you know, and I was starving and I didn’t know anyone was home and… omigod! Do you think we woke your kid? Bella was really looking forward to seeing Jordan. I hope we didn’t just totally freak him out because that would suck, and she’d never forgive me. Have you ever heard your sister when she’s angry? It’s like being dragged naked over sandpaper and dipped in battery acid—deranged harpies have sweeter voices, you know?” “Yeah,” Asa grunted, and Sebastian was surprised enough to drop the jar of canned fruit he’d pulled out of the refrigerator. It didn’t break or spill, but it did thunk loudly enough to make Asa look up. “You talk!” Sebastian stammered. “You shut up!” Asa rolled his eyes and went back to the milk. He was going to need another towel—nearly two quarts of it had hit the tiled floor before Asa had righted the gallon. Sebastian hurried off and grabbed another kitchen towel from the back, then came back and got on his hands and knees to help. He was relieved as hell to find that his hardon had gone to half-mast, because otherwise this situation would have gotten really awkward. “Thanks,” Asa grunted as he finished mopping up his milk. “Sorry I freaked you out,” Sebastian muttered. “I didn’t realize you’d gotten home yet.” Asa shrugged. “Wasn’t ready to sleep yet. Here—gimme.” He held his hands out for towels. Okay—Sebastian took it back. Asa was like Bella squared. Forget minimalist poetry—this guy was like a threeword handbook on how to be taciturn.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 18 And he was still half-naked. Asa came back and sprayed some cleaner on the floor, and Sebastian moved to the table and sighed. Apparently, he was some sort of domestic god to boot. Asa looked up at his sigh and raised his eyebrows. “Problem?” “Feeling useless?” “You’re a guest. Eat. Feel full.” Sebastian sat bemusedly and did. “You wan thom pizza?” he garbled through a full mouth, and Asa stood, putting Sebastian eye-level at his equipment. Sebastian swallowed—hard. Twice. Tried not to cough and failed like an asshole. Asa went to the sink and got him a glass of water, setting it down on the table and waiting solicitously until he drank some and sounded like he was going to live. “You okay?” Asa asked, and Sebastian frowned up at him with watering eyes. “I wasn’t expecting to be eye-level,” he sputtered, and then he felt like an idiot. Asa looked down to where Sebastian had been looking, and the heat of his blush filled the room. “Shit,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean to distract you.” “Dis….” Sebastian sputtered, indignant. “Distract me? You’d be distracted, too, if something that big threatened to stare at you with its one big eye… distracted!” “One big eye?” Asa squeaked, and then he let out a sound between a choke and a snort, and then he took a deep breath. It was loud enough to sound unforgivably intimate in the dark. “I’m sorry,” Sebastian mumbled, mortified. “Sometimes my mouth just does that.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 19 “You may want to find other uses for it,” Asa muttered, and an appalling silence descended between them. “You didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Sebastian interposed, and Asa shook his head. “Not even a little bit,” he muttered. “I’ll go to bed now, before I just blow it a….” Sebastian burst into giggles. “…gain,” Asa finished with a resigned sigh. Sebastian couldn’t even look at him anymore. He did hear the embarrassed sigh, and felt Asa stand up next to him. Then there was a gentle, wide-palmed, blunt-fingered hand in his hair. “You’re adorable,” Asa said. “As long as I don’t open my mouth more than necessary, you and Bella should have a good summer here.” Sebastian choked on his own giggles, and then Asa was gone. Sebastian pulled himself together and was left in the quiet, darkened kitchen, chowing pizza out of sheer embarrassment.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 20

Chapter 2 SEBASTIAN woke up the next morning with the vague disappointment of knowing he had to go to work. He and Bella had transferred to the store in Auburn for the summer—and would be able to work at the one in Spokane in the fall—so it would be a new venue, but, well, it was still work. He kind of liked work. The people who came into bookstores were usually his kind of people. The parents who wanted books for their children were sober and gentle. The women looking for romance books were often happy and jovial. The men looking for mysteries or music were friendly. Very rarely did someone come into a bookstore in a tear-assing hurry, and very often, they were grateful for assistance. Besides that, Sebastian liked books—all kinds. He loved fiction, non-fiction, big picture art books, the smell, the feel, and the potential to sit down with a book, become lost within it and only surface hours later when you needed to pee. Books were the bestest of best friends—and they never bitched if you forgot their birthdays or decided not to call them for a month. This morning he trotted downstairs wearing his usual— jeans, tennis shoes, and a smart-ass T-shirt (today’s sported a rainbow and said “I’m gayer than your gay friend”—a

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 21 present from Bella) and wondered if it would be too forward of a guest to make coffee. Coffee was made, as it turned out, and there was some sort of homemade bread sitting on the counter and a sevenyear-old boy at the table where Sebastian had eaten the night before, playing with a bunch of paper bugs. “Hello,” Sebastian said, a little startled. The boy had dark hair and hazel eyes—but his cheekbones, nose and chin pronounced him his father’s child from first to last. “Hello,” said the boy, unfazed in the least. He took a paper grasshopper and pushed it gently down, smiling when the paper legs pushed back up like springs. “You must be Jordan.” Jordan looked up. “You’re Sebastian. My cousins told me about you. You are smart, like art, love to play racecars and put together puzzles, and are the best babysitter Jeff and Jenna ever had.” Sebastian flushed. An incredible amount of praise in a few simple sentences—from people he’d learned to care about since he’d met Bella, too. “I take it you’ve been to your Gramma ’n’ Grampa’s recently?” Must have been Sunday dinner—he and Bella usually tried to make it, but he’d had to meet the manager in Auburn this past one and talk about the move. Jordan looked back at his paper bugs. “Uhm-hm. I didn’t have any cousins in New Jersey. I like it here.” Sebastian grinned. “Fair enough. I don’t have any cousins anywhere—I like it here too.” He watched as Jordan took a red paper ladybug, folded its wings open, and then pretended it was flying about the kitchen table.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 22 “Do you have any “Ladybugs milk aphids.”

aphids?”

he

asked

curiously.

Jordan looked at him avidly. “No… but I have a book!” With that the kid produced a book on how to fold paper into bugs—and a ream of sturdy paper in myriad colors with a fine wax sheen. They spent the next fifteen minutes working to produce an aphid, and when they were done, Jordan looked at it proudly. “It’s almost as good as the one my dad helped me make!” He pointed again to the green grasshopper, and Sebastian had to concede—it was a marvel of engineering. “Your dad’s very clever,” Sebastian agreed, but he didn’t add that Jordan’s dad seemed to be a hell of a nice guy too. “My dad’s the best,” Jordan told him with a sober nod. “But he still makes me go to summer school.” Sebastian grimaced. Poor guy—summers were for pool splashing and doing absolutely nothing. “That starts today?” The boy shrugged, resigned. “I missed a bunch of days last year. I’m behind.” “Mmm. Tough break, there, kiddo. Rough to spend time in school when the sun is shining.” Jordan nodded glumly, then smiled. “But it gets out at twelve. My dad’s gonna pick me up and take me to work. I’ll stay with him until he’s done.” “When’s that going to be?” The kid sighed. “Late. He’s working on a big house—it’s always late.” Sebastian felt bad for the kid—summer school must suck. “Why’d you miss so many days last year?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 23 The kid shrugged. “My mom was sick. She just sort of forgot to take me. My dad got real mad when he found out.” Forgot to take him? Sebastian began to develop some suspicions about Jordan’s mother and Asa’s ex-wife. “Well, that sucks,” was what he said. “Tell you what— Bella and I get back around four. Maybe if I know where you are, I can pick you up from your dad’s work site and take you back here to do some more swimming. How’s that sound?” The joy on Jordan’s face was totally worth it. “Really? Please? We just got here a week ago, and I love to swim.” The boy already had a tan, and Sebastian had a feeling he might have just been played, but he didn’t mind. Any kid who could spend a morning playing with origami bugs was all right with him. “Yeah, kid—let me talk to your dad and Bella. We’ll come up with a plan.” At that moment, Asa Bryne came down the stairs, dressed in khaki pants and a polo shirt—good boss clothes for an on-site construction foreman, Sebastian thought. They really shouldn’t make the man look like sex on a platter. His long tawny hair was combed and braided, of all things, and yes—it really did hang halfway to his waist when it was dry and in a braid. “Has he conned you out of your life savings yet?” Asa asked wryly, ruffling Jordan’s hair. Jordan grinned up at him, showing two front teeth that were still growing in—with a gap between them, if Sebastian was on the mark. “Nope,” Sebastian said, falling for that smile in a big way. “Just out of a little bit of time. Would you mind if we

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 24 picked him up from your work site? That way we can bring him home for a swim.” The naked gratitude on Asa’s face made him blush. “Thank you—seriously, thanks. That would be awesome.” He gave his son the kind of smile that made his eyes crinkle, even if his mouth didn’t move that much. “It sucks that he has to be in summer school; anything we can do to make it easier… thanks, Sebastian.” Sebastian nodded and swallowed with difficulty, and Asa opened up the refrigerator for some milk. “Did you eat?” he asked Jordan, and Jordan shrugged. Asa rolled his eyes and pulled out the milk and a box of cold cereal, and then turned to Sebastian. “Did you eat, or are you still full from last night?” Sebastian blushed all the way down to his toes. He was sort of hoping that the night before had fallen under the realm of “awkward first impressions to be ignored,” but apparently Asa had no such reservations. “I’ll get something on the way to work,” he said, carefully looking at the origami aphid. “But right now, I’d better wake up Bella.” “Bella’s up,” Bella said, rounding the corner. She was dressed in jeans and a girl’s T-shirt with a chubby bunny. The bunny was wearing a skull-and-crossbones T-shirt with a plaid skirt with a line of piercings up its long ears. “Eat something, babyface; Asa’s not happy unless he’s feeding the masses.” Asa looked up at his sister, and the expression on his face was… painful. He was very happy to see her, Sebastian thought with a cramp in his stomach—very very happy. But he was uncertain of how she’d receive him.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 25 “A leftover from being the oldest,” Asa quipped, sounding for all the world like this was just banter to him. But Sebastian had seen that look on his face—Sebastian knew it mattered. Please, Bella, don’t fuck this up. Your brother is a very nice man. She surprised Sebastian, though. She stepped forward— awkwardly, it was true—but still raised her face slightly to kiss her brother on the cheek. “You were good at it,” she murmured. “Did I hear right— do we get Jordan this afternoon?” Jordan was staring at her in awe. “You’re my Aunt Bella? You’re prettier than Sebastian!” Bella’s grin was one-hundred-percent sweets—yes, indeed I am.”

evil.

“Yes,

“Stow it, heifer,” Sebastian muttered. “He’s never seen you with a hangover.” Asa chuckled and set down a bowl of cereal in front of his son. Sebastian felt a little knot start in the pit of his stomach. It was a very good laugh. He watched as Asa turned back toward the bread and bagels on top of the refrigerator, and spoke to fill in the silence. “I said we’d pick him up when we got off work—do you know where the site is?” Bella shook her head no. “Asa?” “Off of Fowler, down by Schindler, top of the hill, you can’t miss it.” Bella nodded, and a busy silence descended on the kitchen again. Sebastian looked at the two of them in frustration. He knew Bella could be taciturn, and he’d seen

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 26 that Asa could be quiet and cryptic. Jordan had been shy and reserved as they’d put together the aphid, opening up a little but not inclined to talk overmuch, either. At the moment he was munching diligently on his cereal, looking into space and nodding his head in time to music that Sebastian couldn’t hear. Oh God—was Sebastian the only one in this household that spoke? Because that could put a crimp in his summer right there. “My car or yours?” he asked Bella, for the sake of filling in the static, and Bella “hmm”d a little, as though she was surprised to hear the peace broken. “Yours,” she replied promptly. “Your air conditioning works better.” Sebastian made an “ick” sound. “That’s going to be one thing I don’t miss,” he told her seriously. Sebastian hated the heat, and Bella had always claimed to as well. That didn’t stop her from looking stunning in a bikini, but neither of them was a happy camper on days like this one, where the mercury didn’t climb anywhere because it was too busy melting. “If it gets any hotter, I’m going to have to break out the cargo shorts; that’s always a bad idea.” “I don’t know,” Bella said, seeming to lapse into their normal banter again. “You look pretty hot in cargo shorts.” “Yes, why yes I do,” Sebastian agreed, winking at Jordan, who giggled. “But I don’t like sweating anywhere but inside a gym. It’s against my creed.” “But you can’t run if you don’t like to sweat!” Jordan protested, and Sebastian nodded seriously. “That’s the idea!” he said, making his eyes big. The kid giggled again, this time through a mouthful of cereal.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 27 “And if you sweat in a gym, they’ve got the air conditioning cranked to south of an Eskimo’s cold toes, and poof”—he wiggled his fingers—“no sweat!” “Only if you’re not vain, Sebastian,” Bella said dryly. “I’ve seen you sweat at the gym.” Sebastian blushed. “It’s not nice to point that out,” he mumbled. Bella laughed and looked at Jordan, as though to get him to share the joke. “He’s very fond of his pretty muscles,” she said with mock seriousness, and Jordan wrinkled his nose. “I just like running faster,” Jordan said. “I like to run across an African jungle and pretend I’m a lion.” Sebastian smiled at him again. “Do they have any lions in your book?” He nodded to the origami book, and the kid looked excited and then depressed. “No. Only bugs. Bugs don’t run. Lions are mammals. Lions run.” Sebastian nodded sagely. “I’ll look for a book with lions in it at the bookstore.” Jordan smiled at him, but gave no effusive thanks. Sebastian was coming to realize that the greeting he’d gotten when he’d walked into the kitchen was as talkative as the kid got. Silence fell again, and Sebastian’s attention wandered as he thought about how to fill it. Asa was making himself busy at the counter, and without meaning to, Sebastian felt his attention zero in on the most inappropriate place possible. “Sebastian—spicy or sweet?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 28 “Gurk?” He’d been trying not to look at Asa’s backside. It looked good in khakis—tight, muscular, tasty. It had looked better naked. The question had been too close to his own, more prurient thoughts for comfort. “Your bagel. I’ve got tomato pesto spread or cream cheese and strawberry jam; how do you like your bagel?” “Spicy,” Sebastian said dumbly. “Do you want ham in the middle?” “Yes, please. Why are you making me a bagel again?” Asa caught the bagel as it popped out of the toaster and didn’t answer. “Because he likes to mother us,” Bella said, and Asa shrugged. Another silence fell, one in which the only one who seemed to be uncomfortable was Sebastian himself. “I’m going to be talking to myself by the end of the summer, aren’t I?” Sebastian wondered aloud, and Jordan looked at him guilelessly. “I’ll talk to you. As long as you tell me about bugs.” Asa put down what looked to be a gourmet bagel with some amazing schmear and some sliced ham in the middle. It was on a plate with an orange garnish, and Sebastian thought he’d never been served breakfast with quite so much cavalier grace. “Can we stick to lions, kid?” Sebastian asked, shaking out the napkin that had come with the bagel. He took a bite and closed his eyes. Oh God. Did this guy have a bagel delivery truck or something, because this thing had that “just baked” taste soaked in every pore of the bread. “I really want to enjoy this,” he said through a partially full mouth.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 29 This time, he didn’t seem to mind so much when silence fell over the kitchen. But by the time he and Bella had hopped into Sebastian’s Volkswagen Beetle (second generation, of course) and they were zipping around an appalling number of curves to get to Auburn via Ophir, the full impact of the situation had sunk in. “Oh my God!” Sebastian whined, as Bella took the turns like a pro. “You’re a family of non-talkers. I mean, I thought I was safe, because I met the rest of you—but you and Asa, for the love of sitcom television, has neither of you heard of light conversation?” Bella arched a perfectly shaped brow at him. “I didn’t hear you complaining after he fed you.” Sebastian gave a satisfied grunt, in spite of himself. “Really—who would complain about a bagel like that? But Bella—don’t you guys ever talk?” Bella shrugged. “I told you; we’re the quiet ones.” “That’s an awful lot of white repression for me… I don’t know if I can make it.” They came to a three-way stop on Fowler, and Bella paused to let a procession of cars pass her on 193. “I think it will be good for you, sweetie.” “Oh please… it’s like going without oxygen!” Bella shook her head, put her car into first, and hit the accelerator like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. The car lurched across the road and gunned into its place in the long procession of cars wending their way through the foothills, and Sebastian sent a green smile over his shoulder at the car behind them. A woman with coffee, a cigarette, and a Bluetooth headpiece glared at him, and he shrugged,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 30 figuring someone with that many activities to do in the car couldn’t be in that much of a hurry. “You talk too much, Sebastian. You’re always trying to cover silence with banter. Asa always just listens. You could learn a lot from him.” “Easy enough for you to say,” Sebastian muttered. “You grew up with happy noise. I grew up with silence— remember? Happy noise trumps silence, hands down.” Bella couldn’t look at him this time because they hit a series of curves that made Sebastian glad he wasn’t driving, but he felt her regard anyway. “Not when you’re using the happy noise to cover up what you really want.” What? “Huh?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Tell me again what kind of tool our GM is?” Sebastian chuckled evilly. “Princess, I don’t wear this Tshirt to piss off just anybody.” It was true. Sebastian might have had a flamboyant T-shirt collection that he loved as much as framed Impressionist prints, and he could talk like it was an Olympic sport, but he only went totally swish when it would annoy the hell out someone who looked down on him. Their general manager was a conservative man in his forties, with a wife and two children and a chip on his shoulder about working in a bookstore. Sebastian and Bella were not the only ones with master’s degrees, and he wanted to make sure they both knew it. (Sebastian only wished there were some way he could remind the guy he had a PhD without looking totally pretentious.)

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 31 The man took one look at Sebastian’s T-shirt, turned purple, and sputtered. Sebastian and Bella met eyes and waited to see if he’d tackle the moment head-on, with the “not appropriate work attire” speech, or if he’d just cast furtive glances at Sebastian for the rest of the day, to see if he really acted as gay as the T-shirt implied. He chose option B, which was a great deal of fun as far as Sebastian and Bella were concerned. Every time Sebastian smiled, shifted his hips, or laughed, there was Mike Greavy, looking to see if Sebastian was doing that because he was gay, or because he was just a funny guy. The fifth or sixth time he caught Mike’s eyes on him as he helped a customer, Sebastian blew the guy a flirty little kiss and waved. Mike turned red and went back to over-ordering on the Nora Roberts titles. Bella saw it, too, and the two of them burst into a fit of giggles that sustained them until lunch. On their way across the plaza to a salad place for lunch, one of the girls whose shift had just ended caught up with them as they walked. Julie was older—probably in her forties, with three children. She worked part time, and from what Sebastian could see, she had an absolutely zinging sense of humor. “That wasn’t nice,” she said with a mild smirk as they adjusted their pace to hers. “What wasn’t?” Sebastian asked guilelessly. Julie snickered. “I saw that; you know, Mike holds grudges. If you’re not careful, you’re going to be working four-hour closing shifts six nights a week.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 32 Bella shook her head no. “Naw—Sebastian’s buddies with the regional GM; she got him our job here. Mike’s gotta be nice to us or we’ll tell Rhonda on him.” Sebastian was more than buddies. Rhonda had told him more than once that if Sebastian so much as looked at her pretty, she’d give him the GM position of his choice and oust whoever was there already. Julie tilted her head back and laughed. “Brilliant! Excellent—I know you guys aren’t here for long, but do me a favor, would ya? Give him hell! Man, I’ll go to Hot Topic myself; there are T-shirts way more offensive than that.” Sebastian and Bella looked at each other. It had been a long time since they’d gone shopping together. “We are living rent free,” Bella said, and Sebastian grinned. “We’ve got Wednesday off,” he said. And then he thought, “We can take Jordan too.” Bella looked surprised—but not unhappy. “Asa’d like that,” she agreed. Sebastian had learned his lesson, though; he didn’t mention that she sounded like Asa’s opinion of her really mattered. Julie looked at them wistfully. “Alas, I can’t go,” she murmured. “Too many kids, too little time. But look at something for me, wouldya? You know, some sort of largesized Goth-mom thing.” Julie was pleasantly round. “Don’t buy it, you know, because I can’t afford it—but look at it and say, ‘Yeah—that weird old woman from work would like that!’ It’ll be just like I was in high school again.” Sebastian and Bella had been holding off on a laugh as she spoke, but by the time she was done—with a pitch-perfect and straightfaced delivery—they were giggling helplessly, holding onto each other in support.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 33 “We’ll do that,” Sebastian told her, looping an arm around her shoulders. She was barely five-foot-two, and she grinned up at him from eyes that were young, even if her face looked comfortably middle-aged. “Oh my god—honey, if I’d known you in my theater days, I would have been so helplessly in love with you!” Sebastian cocked his head, bemused. “I bet you say that to all the gay men,” he said, hoping she hadn’t thought the T-shirt was just a joke. She hadn’t. “Oh yeah—you name a gay theater major, I had a crush. Worst. Gaydar. Ever. That’s okay, though,” she said, grinning. “When you’re that bad at figuring out who’s gay and who’s not, you pretty much have to be liberal, or you’re going to offend a whole lot of people.” Needless to say, Sebastian and Bella were completely in love with Miss Julie-middle-aged-mom-with-a-philosophydoctorate well before they’d finished their salads. She was acerbic, funny, and obviously in love with her three children and their equally middle-aged father. She was also Mike Greavy’s most helpless victim. “Here, watch,” she said grimly as they walked back inside the store. “He’ll have changed my schedule just to dick with me, because he knows he can’t do it to you.” She was right, of course, but the good news was that she worked Wednesday night now instead of Wednesday morning. They totally tabled the shopping trip and asked Julie if she wanted to bring her kids to Asa’s to swim. It wasn’t until they’d clocked out and were driving toward Asa’s work site that it hit Sebastian that he and Bella had just changed their plans twice in one day in order to help make Jordan’s summer a little less lonely.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 34 “And ours too,” Bella pointed out gently. “It’s not like we hung out a lot with the people down at the Davis store.” Sebastian shrugged. “Yeah, well, you and me are usually pretty self-sufficient.” Sebastian was driving this time; since he knew the roads now, he didn’t have any excuses to let Bella take the wheel. That didn’t keep him from catching the enigmatic look Bella sent him. “What?” “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing. I….” She looked out the window. “I don’t think self-sufficient is what my family needs right now, that’s all.” Sebastian took his hand off the gearshift and used it to stroke her hair back from her face. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” he asked. “You love your brother verymuch-a-lot; even a selfish bitch like me can see it. Why haven’t you talked to him in so long?” He had to shift into second again as they neared a curve, so he moved his hand, but he saw Bella lean into the touch as it left her. She was not usually so needy. “Not now,” she sighed, moving away to rest her forehead against the window. “I’m sure you’ll hear it before the end of the summer, and then it will seem like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but not now.” They got to the construction site not long after that, and as Sebastian set the parking brake with a loud scritch, he caught sight of Asa and made a similar sound in his throat. Gods.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 35 The man was wearing the khakis he’d left the house in, but had taken off the polo shirt to reveal his inner wifebeater—or, at least the white tank top with the same name. He was helping someone lift a stack of beams, carrying them easily on his shoulder, his white-brown braid hanging from under a yellow hat. His wide shoulders and muscular arms were tanned and perfect, and everything, including the six-pack under the tightly ribbed tank, was flexing with motion. Sebastian made another “gurk” sound and thumped his head back against the seat of his car, and Bella turned and grinned at him. “Got it bad, hah?” Sebastian banged his head against the headrest some more in denial. “No, Bella—no. Not at all. Why would I have it bad for a guy who cooks for me, builds three-dimensional art, and cleans the kitchen floor half-naked? I mean… I’d have to be… you know, gay, or something to fall for that sort of loser!” “Cleans the floor naked?” Bella raised her eyebrows. “You know, heifer, you need to learn to sleep lighter. You’d catch more.” Bella blew a raspberry at him and opened the door, letting the baking air of the foothills start an oven-cleaning cycle in the car. “If you don’t tell me that story, I’m gonna take your hard drive out of your computer and hide it until we leave.” “You bitch!” Sebastian shrieked, and he jumped out of the car after her. “You know that’s off limits!” She did, too—and the threat was baseless—but it gave them a good reason to enter the on-site trailer shrieking

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 36 laughter at each other, and Jordan looked up at them and smiled. Then held his fingers to his lips and shushed them. “Shhh…,” he murmured. “There’s bugs in here. They’re shy.” Sebastian met Bella’s eyes, and the two of them gathered very respectfully over the severed bottom of a plastic drinking bottle. Curled up in the middle were two pill bugs, and Jordan was gazing at them reverently. “Those are, uhm”—Bella was making “ewie” faces and Sebastian worked hard not to laugh—“those are great bugs, buddy. Did you want to, uhm, take them with us in my car? We can go home and swim.” Jordan looked happy for a minute, and then his face fell. “My dad says I have to let them out before we go. He says they have bug families, and we don’t want their families to miss them. They’re just visiting.” Sebastian gave a sigh of relief, and Bella nodded vigorously. “Your dad is a wise man,” Sebastian said. “How about I….” “How about I take you to go set them free,” Bella interrupted brightly, “and Sebastian can talk to your dad. Hi, Asa! Sebastian, meet us outside!” Sebastian watched her leave through the back door of the trailer with outrage in his eyes, but the little shooshing motions she was making with her hand were surprisingly sober. “Talk to him!” she mouthed, and he narrowed his eyes at her and then turned brightly to Asa, who had entered the front door. “Hi,” he said, feeling foolish. “We were, you know, just here to get Jordan. And to tell you we’re having kids over to

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 37 the house on Wednesday after summer school. We can pick him up, you know, if that’s okay. A friend at work has kids and no pool. We figure you’ve got a kid with a pool and no kids. You know. It would work, right? We’ll clean up. She’s nice, really nice. But married.” Oh Jesus, Sebastian, stop talking. “So, you know, its not a fix-up or anything. We just want to play. Like a pool party. With the kids.” This can only get worse! “But not in an icky way. We just like kids.” See! Got worse! Why won’t he respond! Asa was just looking at him with raised eyebrows and a faint smile on his lean mouth, and Sebastian wanted to smack his own head against the trailer wall on general principle. “So, we were, you know, hoping that would be okay. That’s okay, isn’t it? Oh yeah, and I brought him a book— one with origami lions, and some paisley paper. I’m hoping he likes the paisley, because I thought it was cool. Did you know that the paisley design came from India but it got its name from Scotland?” Are you fucking kidding me? “And I have no idea why I can’t stop talking. Could you please for the love of God respond to me?” Asa blinked sleepy blue eyes and looked bemused. “The party sounds like a good idea. I hope Jordan enjoys himself. I’m grateful.” He smiled slowly, and it was genuine, and Sebastian felt his adrenaline dump ease off a little. “And I had no idea paisley designs crossed continental lines.” Sebastian let out a helpless laugh. “It was a surprise to me too.” Asa nodded, the movement itself seeming to make the air still and calm the moment down. “So everything else works, we’re good.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 38 “Good,” Sebastian responded on a deep breath. “I’ll go now. I swear—Bella’s known me for years. I’m really not an escaped mental patient, it’s just that….” “You’re embarrassed about last night, and now I make you nervous,” Asa said reasonably, and Sebastian let out a horrible tension he didn’t know he had. “Yeah,” Sebastian said, happy with that one syllable, just this once. “Me too,” Asa told him, that bemused expression still there. “I usually make a better impression than that one.” “Yeah,” Sebastian said, feeling his face relax into a real smile. “Well, I was the one who was staring at your crotch.” Asa surprised him then with a gasp of breath and a full flush—and with his fair skin, it was easily visible from the base of his throat to the tops of his cheekbones. He made the same sound the parking brake made in the Volkswagen, and shook his head in exasperation. “You had to go there!” he accused after they stood there for what felt to be a full minute of embarrassed silence, and Sebastian closed his eyes tightly and nodded. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’ll go now. Bella’s waiting.” Asa kept his eyes closed and nodded, and Sebastian slipped out of the trailer, wondering when he’d become a socially disabled savant. The ride home was tempered by Jordan. Jordan didn’t talk much, but he sure did like bugs, and they were able to get him to talk with them about the differences between arachnids and insects, something he had apparently learned in school right before he’d left to come out to California. “Arachnids have eight legs and insects only have six,” he

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 39 said with emphasis, and Bella nodded her head vigorously from the driver’s seat. “Say it!” Jordan insisted, and Bella met Sebastian’s eyes in surprise. “Arachnids have eight legs and insects only have six,” she repeated dutifully, and they both gave sighs of relief when that seemed to satisfy the little boy. “Good,” he said, nodding his head. “I’m going to read now. I don’t get sick when I read in the car.” And then they were left in silence. “What happened?” Bella asked in a furious whisper when it became apparent that Jordan’s attention was laser focused on his book about bugs. Sebastian slanted an irritated look. “Why would you want to know? I thought the fun of bailing was not having to know what happened in the first place!” “No, the fun of bailing is not having to live through the awkwardness but getting the funny parts replayed for you in vivid color!” “Says the woman who made me sit with her through her last two breakups! I don’t want to talk about it!” he snapped, and there was something very like triumph in her face when Bella said, “HA! I knew it! You’re totally crushing on him, aren’t you?” “Now why would I do that?” Sebastian asked. He checked the rearview to make sure the bitterness in his voice hadn’t alerted Jordan to something important and adult in the front seat. “I’ve fallen for straight guys before. You’ve been there—it hurts.” “That wasn’t a straight guy,” Bella said seriously. “That was a married douchebag who would sooner bang a grad student than come out of the closet. That wasn’t your fault.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 40 “I wasn’t a vir….” He looked in the rearview again and revised what he was going to say. “I was a consenting adult,” he finished, and Bella rolled her eyes. “You were twenty-four,” she told him. “Which is how old you are now!” he told her back, and she waved her hand to make that little factoid go away. “I’m mean. I’m a steel-plated bitch and I’m not afraid to use it. You like people, Sebastian. You wanted to believe in forever, and you got the same thing women have been getting for years.” “Which still doesn’t explain why you just threw me at your brother!” Bella glanced in the rearview too—harder, since she was driving this time—and shrugged when Jordan’s attention seemed focused on the bugs. She took a hard turn, and then another, and then answered him. “I don’t think Asa’s hung up on gender,” she said softly, seriously. “I know he was married—but he….” She looked sideways at Sebastian and shrugged. “You didn’t see the way he was looking at you this morning. I’ve seen that look in guys’ eyes—I’ve seen it aimed at me and I’ve seen it aimed at you. Trust me. I know what I’m looking at.” Sebastian flushed then, and wondered if it was as obvious on him as it had been on Asa. “I won’t do that again,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction. “Odds are good you won’t have to,” Bella said. She risked her hand off the stick shift and patted his knee. “Asa never starts anything he doesn’t mean to follow through.” “Well, I don’t think he’s going to start with me!” Whatever Bella’s reply would have been, it was cut off by

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 41 a sound like seagulls hitting an outstretched tarp. Sebastian whirled and looked at Jordan, who was looking at the seat in front of him with horrified eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered, and Sebastian said, “Oh, honey,” and Bella wrinkled her nose as the odor hit the front seat. “Oh Christ!” she exclaimed, wincing. “Let me guess….” “Yeah,” Sebastian told her, cringing. “That whole bit about being able to read and not get sick? That was a total lie.” Jordan burst into tears then, but they were two minutes from home, and Sebastian managed to calm him down and salvage the book. His upholstery, on the other hand—that was going to be a trick.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 42

Chapter 3 TURNED out, Asa had a cleaner for that too. They did their best when they got to the house. First they took Jordan in and got him cleaned up, and then they put him in front of the television with a glass of water and his beloved book. Then Sebastian and Bella spent half an hour trying to clean up the car. They scrubbed their shoulders sore, but the stain—and the stench—remained. They’d pretty much resigned themselves to rattling around in Bella’s beat-to-shit Honda for the rest of the summer, until Asa got home and heard the whole story. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and since they were out at the pool by this time (where they forced Jordan to drink lots of water and wear a plastic hat so he wouldn’t get sick in the sun), they took him at his word. And his word was good, Sebastian concluded later on in the evening. Asa had come back in half an hour, and they’d gotten out of the pool long enough to cook dinner. This time, the quiet didn’t seem quite so oppressive to Sebastian; he started to enjoy the way Bella and Asa worked together in the kitchen without speaking. Jordan would occasionally offer a random comment as they did, but mostly, there was sort of a happy hum of peace there. Since Sebastian usually ran his mouth at a thousand miles a second, the peace was soothing.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 43 After dinner, Asa sat down in the living room to read his son a book and Sebastian went outside to check on his car. His joy at discovering it did not smell like what it had been covered in that afternoon could hardly be contained. He rushed back into the house, thanks tumbling off of his tongue, when he was brought up short by the sight of Asa with his son in his lap. Jordan had fallen fast asleep, and Asa was resting his cheek on his son’s hair. Sebastian skidded to a halt and took a deep breath. “Would you like me to take him?” he asked, thinking that he could probably lift that little body pretty easily. Jordan’s wrists and ankles were slender with growth, and while he was tall for his age, he looked like he’d weigh less than a full-grown tabby cat. Asa shook his head, then shifted his body to move. “I’ll get him,” he murmured. “But I’m coming back, so don’t take my chair.” He flashed a small grin there, to indicate the absurdity of Sebastian needing that one overstuffed armchair when there was enough furniture in the room to host a small party, and then he hoisted his little boy in his arms and went upstairs. Sebastian watched him go for a minute, then broke out his laptop, which Bella had stowed in the downstairs closet, and set it up on the coffee table, just like he’d imagined. This room, even at night, was just such a lovely space; there was low-level track lighting in wall sconces at the higher levels of the room and brighter, reading-level lamps down where they were needed. Sebastian set the laptop out on the coffee table, sat on the couch, and pulled out his research. He was well on his way to explaining why textile arts were arts and not crafts (a stand that hadn’t endeared

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 44 him with his professors at Davis any more than it had with the rest of the online academic community) when Asa came back downstairs. Sebastian looked up from his work and said, “Thank you. Seriously. My car’s the only one with A/C; it would suck if we couldn’t drive it all summer.” Asa shrugged. “It’s my fault, really. I should have warned you: the kid’s a real vomit comet if you don’t keep an eye on him.” Sebastian snickered and grinned, and Asa grinned back. Sebastian stopped laughing and buried himself in his computer, thinking it could be gay porn and it still wouldn’t distract him from the power of that wicked expression on his stomach. Asa sighed and stood up and stretched, moving toward a small wet bar in the corner of the room. “Can I get you something?” he asked solicitously, and Sebastian shook his head. “Mmm, no thank you.” “Can’t write and drink?” “No—actually I write wonderfully when I’m drunk. I just can’t read it when I’m sober, and that’s a problem.” Asa chuckled again, and this time Sebastian managed to join him. It was past nine o’clock now and dark outside, and the darkness added another level of strange intimacy to an oddly begun acquaintance. Asa dropped some ice in a glass and poured a minimal amount of Scotch in after it. “I wasn’t a big drinker until we went back east,” Asa said unexpectedly into the silence. “But everyone back there seems to drink; it got to be a habit to have something right before bed. It’s kind of soothing, but I’m not sure if it’s good for me.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 45 Sebastian shrugged. “That depends on how much you have.” Then, because it just occurred to him, “Where’s Bella?” Asa shrugged. “Upstairs, I think, watching television— what?” Because Sebastian was scowling. Sebastian shook his head. “Heifer told me she was going to help me with this paper, dammit. She keeps throwing me at you like a big spit-wad, and I keep telling her you’re not wearing a catcher’s mitt.” Asa grunted as though he’d been kicked in the solar plexus and tossed back his Scotch with more speed than finesse, then wiped off the melted ice on his mouth with the back of his hand. Sebastian swallowed, swallowed again, and finally gave it up and groaned, dropping his head in his hands. “Why do I keep on doing that?” “I don’t know.” “I mean, I used to carry on perfectly good conversations with straight men and no one ever suspected I was an idiot savant.” “I’m sure you did.” “I don’t know why you make me so damned nervous. I think it’s because I love Bella to distraction and I really want you to like me.” “Understandable.” Sebastian took a breath and looked up to meet Asa’s eyes in an act of naked desperation. “You do like me, don’t you? Even though I’m apparently communicatively handicapped and socially retarded?” Asa nodded kindly, for a moment all father. “Yes,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 46 Sebastian. I do like you. Can we turn on the TV or something? You throw another one of those out there and I’m going to start telling you about my bad marriage just to make things less awkward.” “That would be awesome,” Sebastian said with some relief. “The television or the talking about the marriage?” “Either one,” Sebastian said with what he hoped was a neutral smile. The truth was, he was dying to hear about Asa’s failed marriage. He was really hoping that another man had come between them, and not on her end. Asa’s low chuckle let him know he was being transparent, but then the big man sighed as he was flipping through the channels. “It’s tempting,” he admitted. “But Deirdre and I started out friends, and, maybe, when she gets her shit together, we can do that again. I can’t make that better by bitching about her—it just makes my stomach hurt.” He rubbed it absently under his shirt for emphasis, and Sebastian wondered if his laptop insurance would replace an item that he’d banged against his own head to cure the unrequiteds. “Well, maybe it’s best for both of us if we go with television,” he said, figuring he’d save the laptop beating for his second course of action. The television thing worked, actually. Asa liked the History Channel, and so did Sebastian, and he spent the next hour listening absent-mindedly to a piece about the evolution of the bathroom. When he looked up and saw Asa completely entranced, he had to laugh softly. It was good to find someone else who was impressed with the fact that the

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 47 common washroom had been around for more than seven thousand years. “It was a good piece,” Asa said earnestly. “Especially for someone in my line of work.” Sebastian looked around the beautiful room appreciatively. “I can see that,” he replied with some mildness. “By all means, keep watching the History Channel.” “It doesn’t interfere with your work?” Asa asked, and Sebastian shook his head. “Naw… this is mostly shaping. The real writing is hard. I lock myself in a room and snarl at all intruders like an injured badger for that. This is getting shit lined up so I know which research I’m going to be using for what parts.” Asa nodded. “Good stuff. What’re you going to do with it?” Sebastian flushed. “Well, mostly I’m going to publish it so people can laugh at it.” He watched as Asa’s expressive eyebrows hit his hairline. “I beg your pardon?” The shrug he made didn’t feel forced, which was good, because he was learning to deal with the mockery of the academic world anyway. “See, my stand is that crafts should be treated like art—at least history-wise. Because the thing is that the artists in each historical period got their materials and their inspirations from the same places. The painting may be ‘pure art’—art for the sake of art—but it was also an object of currency, which, to my mind, put it in the same realm as, say, a priceless vase or a carefully crafted piece of weaving or knitting. I’m saying that we would learn more about the philosophies that inspired the art if we didn’t

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 48 make such a hard and fast division between the two worlds….” He trailed off, because, once again, he was talking too much. “I’m sorry… I’ve been writing this paper for a year.” “No—don’t be sorry. It’s interesting.” Sebastian nodded, getting enthusiastic again. “You would think so—you’re the perfect example! I mean, look at this room! It’s art—the curves, the lines, the placement—you did this to look at, to please the people inside the room, but you were also limited or inspired by your materials at hand. It’s….” And now Sebastian really flushed, and his mouth actually hit an air bubble in the gas line and stalled to a halt. “It’s a really beautiful room,” he ended, hobbling in for that weak finish. And now Asa flushed. “Thank you,” he muttered, obviously uncomfortable with the compliment. “Why, uhm, why would your paper get laughed at?” Sebastian shrugged again. “Because most of the art world disagrees,” he said, remembering his professor’s derisive laughter. Of course, Sebastian had broken up with the fucker two years before Sebastian chose that as his dissertation, so maybe the guy had a vested interest in making him feel like a fool, but he still wasn’t the only one to think so. “Most of the art world disagrees, most of academia disagrees—and writing a dissertation like this keeps you off the staff of most colleges.” He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “Which is why you work at a bookstore,” Asa concluded, and Sebastian nodded sheepishly. “Which is why I work in a bookstore. I like it, though. I

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 49 could probably do it for real—I mean, the book ordering, and the promotion and the whole thing, I….” He stumbled to a halt. It was hard to explain why he’d just kept going in academia—even to himself. He looked up and met Asa’s patient gaze. Apparently the guy was willing to wait while he stitched his half-formed thoughts into a passable blanket of excuses. Well, then…. “My parents have this ‘Idea of adulthood’, I guess—and managing a bookstore isn’t it. I’m supposed to be published—and I am—and I’m supposed to do something important with my education, but….” He felt another shrug coming on and gave in to it. “I love my education… I just don’t want to turn it into a profession.” He looked up then and flashed his best, most gamine grin. “So I never leave it, and I don’t have to make that decision.” Asa nodded, obviously thinking carefully. “Don’t you get impatient?” he asked with a frown. “Don’t you want your life to start?” Sebastian felt the creepings of melancholy in his smile. “Well, sure. I just haven’t liked any of the starting places yet.” Asa grunted then, appreciatively. “Well, kid—that’s actually pretty wise. I started my real life in totally the wrong place.” He sighed and looked up the stairs toward where he’d just taken his son. “It’s funny, how sometimes the wrong starting place will get you to the best destinations.” Sebastian grinned. “That’s a very good point.” Of course, now he was really burning with curiosity about Asa’s marriage, but seeing as he just got to the point where they could talk without complete mortification, he figured he’d let that slide for a bit.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 50 Asa smiled quietly back, and Sebastian’s heart did a little flip-flop in his chest, and then Asa reached for the remote control and baseball scores flashed across the big plasma screen. Sebastian looked up and studied them for a second. “Yay! San Francisco won!” “You like baseball?” Sebastian nodded enthusiastically. “Bella and I manage a game at least once a summer. More than that if you count the River Cats—it’s almost a ritual, you know? She has this day she calls ‘Bella’s day off.’ I don’t know what she does— I’m not allowed—but every June tenth, she just spends the day alone, and sometime in the week after that, we go to a baseball game. It’s….” He shook his head. They’d been doing this for five years, and he still didn’t know why. “It’s almost more important to her than Christmas.” Asa’s reaction was not what he expected. The man was leaning forward, impressive body resting on his elbows, which were resting on his knees, and his fingers were buried deep in his hair, pulling it haphazardly from the long braid. “Oh Bella,” Asa whispered. “Dammit… dammit… when are you going to let that go?” “What?” Oh, Jesus—was he never going to be able to have a conversation with this man without stumbling over a landmine? “Asa, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Asa shook his head, clicked off the television, and stood up. “Man, I’ve got to go talk to her.” “Don’t!” Sebastian was in such a hurry to stand up that he almost sent his laptop flipping off the coffee table. Asa turned around, surprised, and Sebastian put his workspace back to order with a grimace. “She won’t thank you for it—give her a little time, okay?

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 51 Just… just trust me. She can be a prickly bitch….” “It’s an act….” “Do you think I don’t know that?” Of course he knew it. All her talk about being a steel-plated bitch? It was like she’d said the night before. She just got hurt easy, that was all. “But… well, she’s been nervous about coming here to live. Let’s just give her a night or two, okay? It’ll come out—it has to. We’re going to be here for almost three months; you just can’t live with that sort of pressure—or at least I can’t, which means Bella can’t because obviously I have no problems whatsoever opening my mouth and making a bad situation worse. Whatever you guys need to talk about—it’ll happen. Just….” Asa had turned back around and was looking like he was ready to sit down again, so Sebastian sat down first and said, “Good. Just, you know, wait. Okay?” Asa nodded, looking at Sebastian with a sort of appreciation that made Sebastian blush all over again. “You’re a really good friend,” he said with admiration, and Sebastian buried his face in his hands. “And you’re an incredibly attractive man. I wish you’d quit looking at me like that, Asa—I’ve fallen for straight men before. It hurts.” Asa “hmmmd” in his throat and walked to put the remote control on the table, putting out his hands when Sebastian glared at him. “Don’t worry—I’m just going to turn in. I’ll wait to talk to her until later.” Sebastian buried his face back in his hands, and it wasn’t until he felt that big, warm, hand resting in his hair for a moment that he realized that Asa hadn’t turned around and left. “I’d never hurt you, Sebastian. Not on purpose. I just

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 52 like you, that’s all.” The hand in his hair left, and Sebastian missed it as he watched Asa disappear gracefully up the stairs.

WEDNESDAY came, and the pool party was a success. Julie was just as funny when she was yelling at her kids to not run around the pool and to be polite to the nice people with the snacks as she was at work, and her kids made it a point to include Jordan in their antics. Eventually, the mayhem quieted down. The thirteen-year-old lay down to sun herself, the ten-year-old picked up a book, and Julie’s eight-year-old sat quietly, playing with Jordan and the collection of plastic bugs his Aunt Bella had just bought him from the store so he could take them to the pool. Sebastian watched them curiously—Jordan didn’t say much to Ariel, either, but Ariel didn’t seem to mind. She would talk and talk and talk, and then ask Jordan his opinion, and he’d grunt and give it to her, and she’d adjust their game accordingly. “Whatcha thinking?” Julie asked at his side, and Sebastian looked up and accepted an iced tea from Bella before he answered. “I’m thinking that they’re like Bella and me,” he said after a moment, and Bella looked to where the little kids were playing and gave a brief smile. “Ariel talks less,” she said, wrinkling her lip at Sebastian. Sebastian rolled his eyes back at her. “Jordan doesn’t get as physically violent,” he said, and stuck out his tongue.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 53 “That’s because she’s bigger than he is!” “And neither of them need smacking upside the head!” Julie chimed in, giggling furiously, and the day went on. But the two conversations had Sebastian thinking about Bella, and how much he’d give to see her happy. She was a furious worker and a top-notch researcher—she’d make an excellent professor, he’d always thought. He could never imagine why she’d hitched her horse to his bizarre, fringe theory wagon when he was so obviously bad for her career, but now that they were a couple of months away from changing states, he might want to do that. Bella had a family here; she even had some credibility in their field. Why was she coming with him? The thought was driven out by two events: the kind of high-drama family things that Sebastian had never had to deal with. He was, after all, the only child of two parents whose complete reserve was one of many benefits of his upbringing that he chose to neglect. Considering how little experience he had in family drama, he thought he did relatively well. The first moment was precipitated by a very tiny, very pretty woman. Sebastian and Bella arrived home one day after a short shift to find her leaning against a little black Jaguar, smoking an expensive cigarette and tapping her long nails systematically on the hood of the car. She had short hair, dyed black, and way too much makeup. She gave them both a hard once-over with toxic-green eyes and took another drag. “Deirdre,” Bella said tersely. “What are you doing here?” “Waiting for my ex-husband to hide our child from me,”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 54 she responded pleasantly, and Sebastian’s eyes widened. Asa’s ex. Uhm. Ick. “That was part of the custody agreement,” Bella warned, and Deirdre rolled her eyes. “I know that, Bella; that’s why I called first.” Bella grunted and “C’mon—let’s go inside.”

bumped

Sebastian’s

shoulder.

Once they got inside, Bella propped herself by the breakfast nook window so they could watch Deirdre finish her cigarette while gossiping furiously about her. “Twat,” Bella hissed. “What the hell does she want?” Sebastian rolled his eyes and shrugged. He hadn’t even known what she looked like—but that didn’t stop him from hating her anyway. A faint creak on the stairs above them was just enough warning for them to scramble back into the kitchen and out the back door to the pool. By creeping to the edge of the house and peering around the corner, they saw Asa gesture his ex-wife up the steps of the wraparound porch and in their general direction. Wonderful—Asa was planning to have their discussion out at the pool, and who really wanted to get caught trying to eavesdrop? Sebastian met Bella’s eyes, and they mouthed “Oh shit!” at each other and scampered back into the kitchen. When they got there, Bella propped the door open and, as they heard Asa’s heated voice coming up the porch, dropped out of sight from the window behind the kitchen counter. Sebastian rolled his eyes in frustration and did the same, coming to a squat next to Bella and practically holding his breath so he could listen to what was going on outside. “Two minutes, Dee Dee? I get a two-minute warning to get Jordan up to his room so we can talk?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 55 “Gimme a break, Ace-hole; I didn’t think I’d find the place so quickly. Look, I don’t want to see Jordan anymore than you want me to—too goddamned messy, we both know that. I just….” Asa made a sound in his throat like a growl, and Deidre snapped at him. “You’re not going to hit me, Asa; we both know it. You’re too good a guy for that. But….” A tremor crept into her voice, a sort of desperate hum. “You know what I need, and you know why I need it, and I’ll tell you why you’re going to give it to me!” They couldn’t see at all, but Sebastian had an image of Deirdre coming up and getting in Asa’s face. He fought the urge to run out there and defend the big man, which was ludicrous, since Asa was damned near a foot and a half taller than she was. “I’m all ears, Deirdre: thrill me.” Asa’s deep, quiet voice was not nearly as emotional as his ex-wife’s. In fact, he sounded more weary than anything else. “The judge gave me custody; you had a more-than-generous settlement, and it was damned near written in blood. Why would I give you more money?” “Because Jim Conrad talks a lot of shit, that’s why, and I know what you did at the Arnolds’ party that weekend.” There was a sudden sucking sound, like Asa was pulling in breath, and Sebastian’s and Bella’s horrified—and horribly curious—stares met. “I know what you did too,” Asa said, his voice full of splinters and fury. “And whatever it is you think you know, nothing trumps having three guys snort meth off your tits, now does it, Dee Dee?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 56 They couldn’t hear anything, but her expression must have been priceless. Sebastian knew his eyes were bigger than balloons, and Bella was looking no less horrified. “You saw that?” she asked, her voice broken too. “Not much could make me down three shots in a row, Dee Dee, but I say that qualifies. Do you still want that money now?” There was a pause, and then a furious growl. “Yes. Yes, dammit, I do. Because if I don’t get it, Asa, I’ll take it to family court. And I can tell our kid that you’ll take blowjobs from a man-slut, and you can tell him that I’m a drugsnorting whore, and we can see just how well adjusted he’s gonna grow up with that shit fermenting in his little noggin, how’s that?” Sebastian and Bella met eyes and mouthed “Oh. My. God,” in perfect synchronicity. Asa must have felt the same way. “Dee Dee, what have I ever done to you? Seriously.” “Don’t go there, Asa,” she begged. “Don’t make this harder… please… just….” “No—I want to know! Man—we weren’t just married, we were friends. When I found out about the drugs, I tried to get you help; when we had to split, I gave you everything you asked for. All I ask—all I’ve ever asked—is that you keep Jordan out of it. Keep him out of the crapfest your life has turned into. As a friend, couldn’t you give me that?” “We’re not talking about friendship,” she said, her voice practically chattering it was shaking so hard. “Asa, I… it’s been three days, man… and I hurt so bad….” “Then take your hurt away from our son!” he begged. “Dammit, he’s a good kid, Dee Dee—all he’s ever wanted is a

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 57 little bit of love….” “Well,” Dee Dee sniffed, “it’s good that he has you, then, isn’t it.” Sebastian gasped, and so did Bella, and now their eyes met in some serious anger. Sebastian thought irrationally about running outside and keying “Bitch” on the hood of that shiny black Jaguar parked outside. “Don’t lie to yourself,” Asa snapped, not begging anymore. “I saw you with him when he was a baby, in his first few years, before the drugs took over. You love your son, Dee Dee. You just love the drugs more.” “Fuck you, Asa.” The words were angry—but she was weeping, and damn if Sebastian didn’t feel some pity in him now. She’d had everything—she’d had Jordan, she’d had Asa for sweet God’s sake—and she’d flushed it all away. “Damn you, don’t make this harder!” “It should be hard! All you have to do to see your son is clean yourself up!” “I can’t. It’s hard. It’s hard and I haven’t had a hit in three goddamned days, and dammit, Asa, for once in your self-righteous life can’t you just give me something! Just give me something! Just give me some fucking cash, and I’ll get out of your life and leave you and your precious son alone!” “Mom?” Oh fuck. Sebastian and Bella looked up to see Jordan rounding the corner of the kitchen, and there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it. “Jordan,” Bella said, standing up and taking his arm, “honey, they’re talking….” “Mom!” Jordan broke free and tore out the kitchen door

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 58 to the porch with Bella and Sebastian hot on his heels. “Mom!” The boy ran out the door and in between the two horrified adults and looked at his mother uncertainly. “Hi, kid,” Deirdre said, wiping her face with her hands. Sebastian saw that her mascara and dark eyeshadow had all run, and his pity stirred a little faster. “Did you come to visit me?” Jordan asked, hope so naked on his little face that Sebastian found his fists clenching. “Look!” he held out his hand and there was the red ladybug that he and Sebastian had played with for over a week. “It’s like the ones you used to put on your roses. I… I thought of you when we made it.” Asa grunted, and Sebastian and Bella both made little whimpers, and Sebastian couldn’t remember hoping for anything with as much fervency as he hoped that Asa’s exwife could pull herself out of her own misery long enough to not be a total bitch to her son. “No, honey,” Deirdre said, her voice choked. “No. I’m… I’m sorry, baby. Your… your dad’s right. I don’t get to visit you until I’m a better grown-up.” She looked at Asa, who glared miserably back. “Damn you, Asa,” she muttered. “You couldn’t have made this easy.” With that she turned and kissed Jordan’s cheek. “You’re a good boy,” she murmured. “And I can’t be your mom right now.” And with that Deirdre Bryne stalked off the porch and out of their day, leaving a track of destruction in her wake. Jordan watched her go, his lower lip thrust out and his bony little fingers ripping the red ladybug into tiny pieces. They fluttered to the ground, and he turned around and ran

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 59 up to his room. Bella said, “I’ll get him,” and Asa said, “Bella, he’s my son….” Bella put out a hand to stop him, and took a deep breath, and then another, and then smoothed back the loose hair that was hanging in her face. Sebastian had never seen her work so hard to get hold of her emotions. “Asa, if I don’t go comfort him, he’s going to think every woman on the planet is his mother, and that would be a real fucking shame.” She wiped her own cheeks with the heels of both hands—without the mascara mess that Deirdre had left behind. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “It was so bad. Why didn’t you tell us?” Asa looked away. Sebastian noticed that his face was blotchy and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The same reason you have ‘Bella’s day off’,” he muttered. “Bella, some shit just hurts too much….” She nodded and walked up to him, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Yeah. Give us some time.” Sebastian had a sudden feeling of displacement as he watched her go. This wasn’t his family. It wasn’t. Something was screaming at him that it was time to walk away. How could he be here? He didn’t understand family drama, he had no experience dealing with this, he would really be more helpful in his room, with the covers over his head…. “How much did you hear?” Asa asked, his eyes still looking out over the porch to the fall of the hill. “Enough,” Sebastian muttered, and then told the truth. “All of it. Enough to know why you and I keep running into each other’s heads whenever I open my mouth.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 60 “I enjoyed it,” Asa said, and Sebastian almost choked on his own tongue. “I did. Deirdre and I hadn’t touched in so long, and then I saw….” He shuddered. “I saw what I saw. And it was pretty awful, and I got very drunk, very fast, and sat down on a couch in the basement rec room, and when I woke up?” A shrug—so very casual for such a big thing. “When I woke up, someone was touching me, and they liked it, and I liked it, and I came.” “Asa, that wasn’t your fault.” “It was all my fault.” Asa nodded, as though trying to explain it to himself. “I saw her acting erratically, but I couldn’t put the clues together. She left Jordan at home alone while she went off and got high, and I didn’t listen to him prattling on long enough to figure out what he was saying. He used to talk your ear off. But not anymore. She used to hole up in her room for days at a time; by the time the school system got ahold of me at work, it had been going on for a month. He missed weeks of school. It was all my fault.” “You trust people,” Sebastian said, aching. “You have to trust people. You have a wife who says she’ll take care of what you both love most… it’s not your fault she forgot what she loved most. You pass out on a friend’s couch, you trust that someone’s not going to come along and drop your pants. It’s not your fault.” “It’s not my fault I came in a stranger’s mouth?” Asa asked bitterly. “It’s just so ugly. All of it. I didn’t want… I didn’t want Bella to know. I didn’t want you to know. I… I didn’t know how to tell you, though. That whatever it was you were thinking, when your mouth went into overdrive, that maybe I was thinking it too.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 61 Sebastian wasn’t sure what kind of sound he made, but whatever it was, Asa risked a look over his shoulder. “I’m not such a catch now, am I?” “Not true.” Sebastian almost laughed. “My last serious relationship was with a married man who kept promising to leave his wife. You’re a definite step up.” Asa struggled with a laugh and scrubbed at his face instead. “I should go see how Bella and Jordan are doing.” “Don’t leave,” Sebastian said, feeling bad. “Look. We’re out at the pool. You’ve got the afternoon off. I’ll go get you a beer. We can sit and watch the cows over on the other hill. We can pretend I never opened my mouth and your ex-wife never came over and the world is a pretty place. I’m an art history major—trust me. I’m good at it.” Asa nodded. “Okay. I… I don’t have any better ideas.” Sebastian nodded, and his stomach—which had turned cold as soon as he’d seen Deirdre—started to warm up again. Started to feel hopeful. Well, stomachs could lie, he thought, but his stomach wasn’t listening, and as he rustled through the kitchen, he found some chips and pretzels for the beer.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 62

Chapter 4 SEBASTIAN was good with the casual story—he and Bella usually told them together now—but he had a sense for when someone needed to be entertained, and he liked to put that knowledge to work. With this in mind, he gave Asa his beer, put a bowl of chips on the patio table, and leaned back in his deck chair so they could both face the sun baking the hills beyond. There was a cover over the porch, and the sun was at their backs, and with a breeze coming off the pool, the temperature was not too bad. As the shadows grew longer and the contrast between bleached grass and green oak trees grew more marked, Sebastian began to see a certain charm to this part of the country, which surprised him. His parents had lived in upstate New York when he’d been a child; he used to think that if the grass wasn’t green, the landscape was obscene. “So,” he said into what might have been an awkward silence, “did Bella ever tell you about our roommate, Sammy?” Asa managed a small smile. “No,” he said, obviously seeing the game of “making things lighter” and agreeing to play. “Why don’t you?” Fortunately for them both (and for Sebastian and Bella’s cachet at parties for the past five years), Sammy was good for hours of fun.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 63 “So the thing was,” Sebastian was saying a half an hour later, “that Sammy never saw an animal he could resist. So this one finals week….” “Oh God!” Bella laughed, her voice carefully pitched. “No—not the monkey story!” Sebastian turned to her and caught her eyes, then darted his own to Jordan. “Absolutely the monkey story. C’mere, Jordan—you want to hear a story about why monkeys should never ever ever ever absolutely under any circumstances leave the zoo?” Jordan’s face had been a study in pinched misery, but at the mention of monkeys outside the zoo, he brightened, and within minutes, Sebastian and Bella had them both laughing about the time Sammy’s boyfriend had smuggled a half-grown chimpanzee into their tiny, two bedroom apartment. Unfortunately, Sammy’s last rescue had been a box of four flea-infested kittens who had left their obnoxious little passengers behind when they’d been given away. “So Mr. Pickles takes two steps inside the apartment,” Sebastian said, chortling, “and it was like one of those cartoons, where a giant pepper shaker just dumps fleas on this poor monkey, and Mr. Pickles lets out a scream….” “Omigod, it almost broke the windows!” Bella chimed in. “I thought my ears would bleed!” Sebastian agreed. “And then he climbs—literally climbs Sammy like a tree and grabs hold of the ceiling fan….” “Which was falling out—the whole thing just dropped six inches out of the ceiling as soon as the chimp put his weight on it….” “And then he fills his diaper.” Sebastian shuddered for effect.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 64 “He wore a diaper?” Jordan asked, wide-eyed, and Sebastian and Bella nodded, playing up to him with all their considerable practice and skill. “But it didn’t matter!” Bella interjected. “Because you know what monkeys do when they poop and they’re all excited, right?” “I’ve seen Madagascar!” Jordan told them, nodding. “They fling poo!” Sebastian closed his eyes and giggled, and then opened them and grinned at the little boy, who smiled back. “Damned straight. The monkeys fling poo—and that’s what Mr. Pickles did, except he was going around in circles from the ceiling fan, which was hanging from the ceiling by, literally, a thread!” “So what did you do?” Jordan asked, hanging on to their every word. Bella picked up the thread. “Well, we were going camping with your cousins that weekend, so we had these ponchos—the plastic kind that keep the rain off, right? And they were lying on the table waiting to be packed, and Sebastian puts one on and throws the other one at me; you should have seen it, it was like an action hero throwing a big old gun, right?” “And Bella caught it like a pro!” “But he throws his on and takes mine out of my hands, and then Sammy and I pushed the couch under the ceiling fan so Sebastian could climb up it….” “And then you crouched behind it like the cowards that you are!” Bella flashed him a wounded look. “We didn’t have the poo-poo poncho, remember!”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 65 “Likely story. Anyway, so I’m wearing the poo-poo poncho, with the hood up, and I climb up on the couch, and when the monkey comes around on his next swing, I catch him in the other poncho and bind it up like a sack, so there I am, a bag full of monkey, and here comes our apartment manager, wondering what the all the ruckus was about…” “And we’re not supposed to have animals in the apartment at all,” Bella explained. “Not at all, and our manager was the biggest….” Sebastian rolled his eyes here, because the word he usually used was “tool” or something less polite. “Meanie,” Bella supplied, and Sebastian nodded his head. “Meanie,” Sebastian agreed. “He was a real meanie. Anyway, so here he comes, and I’m holding this bag full of monkey, and there is monkey poop literally falling off the walls all around us, and the manager demands to know what in the heck we’re doing, right?” “Oh, wait—let me tell this part!” Bella’s blue eyes were sparkling, and Sebastian couldn’t help but look at her with all of his affection. “So Sebastian’s holding this bag of monkey, and the apartment’s raining poop, and he says, ‘We keep telling you that, uhm, crap is falling apart around here, and now it’s coming from the ceiling!’” Asa boomed laughter then, and Jordan giggled, and Asa leaned over and hugged his son around the shoulders. “So, Jordan, what do you think? Should we go get a monkey of our very own?” Jordan shook his head vigorously. “No… no, Dad—I don’t want any monkey poop in my room!” “Good,” Asa grinned, and his ocean-blue eyes fluttered

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 66 closed and he kissed his son’s temple. “Good. Here—you go wash your hands, and I’ll go in and make us some dinner, and—” “And Sebastian will help you while Bella sets the table,” Bella interjected. This time it was Asa who rolled his eyes at her while she stuck out her tongue, and this time, both Asa and Sebastian laughed as they all went into the house. Asa stopped him at the door, and they let Bella chase Jordan up the stairs, squealing with laughter as she threatened him with phantom monkey poop. “Thank you,” he said softly, and Sebastian stopped short and almost ran into him, since he’d been bringing up the rear. Sebastian shrugged. “It’s an old story.” “No—thank you. You made… you made what could have been a really horrible day… well, less horrible. Maybe when Jordan remembers this day later, he’ll remember you and Bella, and not….” He didn’t need to finish that sentence. “Anyway—thank you. You guys… you’re great. You’re family. You have really brought Bella out of her shell, I think, and… well. I’m grateful. Thank you.” Sebastian shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Don’t thank me—just don’t let me cook. I burn water. But that’s another….” “Story,” Asa finished for him, and this time, when they met eyes, the look caught and held for a minute, and as they walked into the house, Sebastian’s stomach held more butterflies than hope. “Hey, Sebastian,” Asa said thoughtfully as they entered the kitchen and he started rooting around the refrigerator. “What in the hell was Sammy’s boyfriend doing with a

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 67 monkey?” Sebastian laughed. “Well, see, the thing is, Sammy’s boyfriend is a biology major, and Mr. Pickles was supposed to be an experiment, but Chad read the experiment wrong….” And by the time Asa had produced omelets and Sebastian had produced, well, a couple of pieces of toast with butter, the story of Mr. Pickles, the monkey who was never neutered in spite of what Chad’s worst fears had been, had Asa laughing all over again. Together, they made it through the day, and by the time they put Jordan to bed that night, the boy didn’t mention his mother at all. “He’ll think about her,” Bella predicted. “He may even ask about her. And that’s never going to go away. But as long as she doesn’t come back to mess with him, I think he should be all right for now—but I’d invest in a shrink, Asa, that was pretty brutal.” Asa grunted and changed the channel. They were all downstairs, watching television. Sebastian hadn’t even attempted to get his computer out; he knew for a fact that Bella would need him as her own personal pillow this night, and she didn’t prove him wrong. He sat in the corner of the couch with one leg up and the other on the ground, and she lay on top of him, like a lover—or a sister—and rested her head on his chest. “I just wish we could go back to the place where I could pretend none of it happened,” Asa growled, and Bella slanted a look at Sebastian full of questions and slyness. “We all have our damage, Asa,” was what she said. “You just need to stop beating yourself up for yours.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 68 Asa darted her a disgruntled look. “I could say the same to you, Isabella, you know that, right?” “Conversation over,” Bella snapped, and Sebastian looked down at her and grinned. “What?” she demanded. Sebastian lifted a shoulder. “It’s just funny to see him get the better of you, that’s all. It doesn’t happen often.” She stuck an elbow in his ribs and said, “Hey—do you want me to get up?” “No, no no…,” Sebastian said hastily—the back door and all of the windows were open, and it was actually a little bit chilly in the room, after the oppressive heat of the foothills during the day. She was keeping him warm, and he was softening her fall. It’s what they did for each other. Sebastian looked at Asa sprawled out in his chair and watching Burn Notice with the concentration of a fanatic. His slightly crossed blue eyes were scowling over that fine Roman nose, and his lean mouth was compressed with his attention to the television. His long body, chiseled on construction sites and honed by the runs Sebastian knew he took most mornings, was balanced somewhere between intellectual attention and physical at-ease, and that shower of brown-gold hair was up in a heavy queue on the crown of his head. Sebastian had seen Bella do that when she wanted her own hair off her neck, and Sebastian’s fingers just itched to pull the band out and feel the coarse, smooth lot of it ribbon across his hands. Bella whimpered, needing comfort, and Sebastian’s arms went around her shoulders a little tighter. Of course, sometimes, you took what you could get. Apparently Asa was made of sterner stuff than that—or

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 69 his philosophy was a little sterner, anyway, because Sebastian had just finished his shower and was lying in the lush, rich bed that he’d been treated to for the past week, when he heard Asa knocking on Bella’s bedroom door. The walls weren’t particularly thin—a thing Sebastian never thought he’d miss. (He and Bella used to lie awake at night and roll their eyes at each other from across the space between their twin beds every time Sammy had Chad over to have sex. Chad was pretty good at keeping quiet, but Sammy had a rather predictable repertoire of sex talk, and he tended to shout it in order. On the nights he was particularly vocal, they’d see who could lip sync the best when Sammy had his “people four apartments down can hear you” orgasm.) It didn’t matter; he might not have been able to hear the exact words, but he could definitely hear the stretched-thin quality of Bella’s voice, and he knew when Asa gave up for the evening and kissed her goodnight. He was a little surprised, however, when he didn’t hear Asa’s tread back in the hallway, but heard his knock on Sebastian’s door from the bathroom instead. “Come in?” Sebastian was already in bed, but he was wearing sleep shorts—that made him decent, right? Even without the shirt? Shit. Who knew? “Was that a question?” Asa asked as he entered, and Sebastian scowled. “I don’t know—is there a polite way of refusing someone entry to your room when they’re coming from a bathroom?” Asa stopped and tilted his head, that shower of gold hair feathering his shoulders. “That’s a good question. Weird, but good.” He shook his head. “Anyway, getting back to the reason I’m here: I just pissed Bella off, and I’m going to piss

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 70 her off some more. I….” His blunt, matter-of-fact air disappeared. “I’ve seen the two of you. You’re beyond friends. If you back my play, she may go along with it.” Sebastian sat up and pulled his knees under his arms. “Uhm… only if it’s good for her,” he said seriously. “I… I wouldn’t hurt her for anything.” Asa nodded. “I know you wouldn’t. It’s just… she’s hurting, Sebastian. I know you can see it. I… you know how you told me that this entire horrible bullshit day wasn’t my fault? Well, what’s hurting her wasn’t really her fault, either, and the parts that were, well, she needs to forgive herself, that’s all. Anyway… she’s gonna get pissed at me—just, you know, hold off on punching me in the nose and moving out, could you?” Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “Have you seen how gay I am? Punching somebody is right out.” Asa’s mouth quirked, in spite of how serious he’d been the moment before. “My construction foreman is pretty gay, and if he ever decided to slug me, I wouldn’t get up for a week.” Sebastian shook his head. “Nope—I’m not that butch. I may be able to manage a bitch-slap, but you would have to really cross the line.” Asa chuckled a little, and then looked at Sebastian with frank admiration. “How do you do that? You… you just make everything all right with a couple of words.” He blinked those fierce blue eyes and swallowed and looked away. “It’s a good gift. I’m grateful for it today.” Sebastian flushed and wondered if you could see it all the way down his neck, like he could on Asa. “I’m glad to help,” he said lamely. “And honestly? The fact that you’re

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 71 still talking to me after a week of seeing me at awkward social savant? Well, I’m impressed. I think anyone else would have gotten a restraining order by now.” Asa said, “Possibly, but not for that,” and then the skin near his throat went so red it was almost purple, and Sebastian became acutely aware that he wasn’t wearing anything but his sleep shorts. A thick, thudding silence blanketed them both, and Sebastian looked at Asa, leaning back against the wall in jeans and a button-down shirt, and Asa met his gaze for a thick, fraught moment. Sebastian got a sudden chill; he knew his nipples pebbled, and his groin grew heavy, and while Asa couldn’t see one, his sharp gaze fixated on the other for a moment, and then they were back to locking eyes again. “Asa,” Sebastian asked through the thickness in his throat, “do you want to touch me?” Asa licked his lips and took a breath that seemed to shudder his great, tall body. “Very much,” he said hoarsely. “But I don’t know how.” Sebastian nodded, reminded himself fiercely of Bella in the next room and Jordan across the hall, and wondered how loud he’d be if he jumped out of bed and forced Asa against the wall and pulled his jeans down to his knees and thrust the erection he could see bulging against Asa’s thigh as far down his own throat as he could take. “I’m going to lie down now,” was what he did say—and he said it slowly, “…and turn my back, and turn off the light. Anything you do then, in the dark, that’s… that’s between us. And I’ll never tell a soul.” Asa looked… looked hungry. Sebastian’s self-protective

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 72 instinct was sounding off over his shoulder at full volume, telling him that if Asa had been in the closet this long, this could probably not end well, but… but Asa looked hungry, and Sebastian was feeling like dessert. He stared blindly into the far reaches of the woodpaneled room for so long, he was almost afraid he’d fallen asleep in the dark, and Asa had left. Then he felt it—the tiniest stir of air along the curve of his ear… oh God… Asa’s lips—the lean ones that carved smiles out of quiet breath— were teasing him there. Sebastian let out a long sigh, and those lips moved down to his jaw, and then into the hollow of his throat. Asa’s hand came down on Sebastian’s shoulder for balance, and the skin of his fingers was hard and rough on the taut skin there, but his touch was tender as he squeezed slightly, and rubbed a little circle with his thumb. That long, gold-brown hair shook down from the crown of his head and tickled Sebastian’s shoulder; he grunted and twitched, and Asa swore and moved it back. The movement must have brought Asa back to himself, because he went to leave, and Sebastian—still looking into the reaches of the room—caught that hard, workingman’s hand before it could leave his skin. “Don’t stop—at least not yet. That was barely a taste,” he murmured. “Mmmm….” Asa made another nip into the hollow of his throat and then whispered a kiss to the back of his neck, while that hand traveled to Sebastian’s bicep and squeezed. Sebastian breathed deeply again and undulated his hips because his groin was positively aching, and Asa moved back to the hollow of his ear.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 73 “This,” he whispered throatily, “is much better than a blowjob from a stranger.” Sebastian whimpered and was a deep breath away from turning and taking Asa’s face in his hands and ravishing the man’s mouth like the dominant lover he never had been when Asa left him abruptly and whispered away, closing the door carefully behind him. Sebastian barely waited until the door snicked shut to move his hand under his sleep shorts to his aching cock. He squeezed hard, and stroked, and once, twice, one more time, and remembered the feeling of those lips on his neck, that hand on his shoulder, that voice in his ear…. He came hard enough to see white spots in front of his eyes, and his body convulsed around his groin. He stayed there, shaking, his hand and shorts dripping with come, until his breath evened out. As he got up and ran to the washroom to rinse off and change his sleep shorts, the thought kept hammering through his brain like John Henry on an iron spike. Oh, Jesus, Sebastian. What in the fuck would you ever do if he touched you for real?

HE WASN’T sure—but it was definitely fun to think about. It was fun to think about as he and Bella left before breakfast to go count inventory. It was fun to think about at work, as he taunted Mike Greavy unmercifully. It was fun to think about at lunch, as he stole the chicken off of Bella’s Caesar salad. It was a blast to think of at Hot Topic, because Julie finally had a day they could go shopping for T-shirts that would make their boss shit his pants. (Sebastian’s read “My

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 74 computer goes down on me,” Bella’s read “Fruit Fly,” and Julie’s simply read “Straight But Not Narrow” in rainbow letters.) It was even fun to think about after they got Jordan and went to go swim before dinner. It was fun to think about right until Asa walked in the door and all of the oxygen got sucked out of the room by a big vacuum cleaner that seemed to have a direct line to Sebastian’s nether regions. Holy Crow—Sebastian had never gotten hard just hearing a man’s voice as he came through the door. And then he heard what Asa was (oh-so-casually) saying to Bella, and his happy hard-on got sad and small again, because, dammit, here was the other family-drama shoe. “Bella, I got some tickets to a Giants game on the tenth; would you and Sebastian be interested in going?” “The tenth?” Bella paused the complicated bit of chopping she was doing for the pesto she was planning to put on their pasta. “How about you, Sebastian?” Asa asked, and met his eyes, startled, and realized that this was Asa had asked him to back the night before. Oh looked at Bella to see what her reaction was, followed her lead.

Sebastian the “play” Jesus. He and then

“The tenth?” he echoed, narrowing his eyes. Oh gods, couldn’t the guy give him any warning? “I don’t go anywhere on the tenth,” Bella said, her voice getting dangerously stubborn, and then Asa pulled out the big guns. “Hey, Jordan—don’t you want Bella and Sebastian to come with us to the game?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 75 Jordan turned to them excitedly. He was busy playing with his box of origami bugs; Sebastian had remade the ladybug with gold and purple paisley, just like Aunt Bella’s room, and the red ladybug hadn’t been mentioned since. “Would you come with us, Aunt Bella? Please? Dad lets me bring books and an iPod, but we always cheer when someone hits. Sebastian, will you come too?” Sebastian glared at Asa and then looked back at Bella, who was looking uncharacteristically fragile. “Only if Bella can,” he said softly, and Bella’s expression was agonized as she dropped the knife and murmured, “Asa, could you finish?” before darting out of the room. “Nice going,” Sebastian hissed as he passed Asa, and Asa didn’t back down. “It is if she’ll tell you why,” he hissed back, and then he shooed Sebastian off to calm Bella down while he moved to go finish dinner.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 76

Chapter 5 SEBASTIAN didn’t bother to knock on Bella’s door; he just barged right in. “You should learn to knock,” she muttered, and he rolled his eyes. “Heifer, if you think I haven’t seen your junk before, you’re sadly mistaken. I just don’t give a shit.” It was an old discussion—but some bits are just comfort, and he figured she needed comfort right now. “Seriously, Sebastian—this isn’t the time.” “Bullshit, Isabella—this is exactly the time. Your brother just went out of his way to piss you off, and I think he did it so I can come in and kiss your boo-boos. It would be great if I knew what boo-boos I’m making better, you think?” Bella blew out a breath and flopped on her bed, tracing another pattern on the gorgeous comforter. Her braid of white-blonde hair pooled beneath her shoulder. “Yeah, don’t think I didn’t notice you two doing the old eye-hug, psychiccommunication thing when I walked in,” she snapped. “You knew this was coming.” “I knew something was coming,” Sebastian snapped back, coming to sit beside her. “Believe me, if I had a direct line to your brother’s brain, I would have ducked better when he thought of this particular idea. No one fucks with your ‘Bella’s day off’—no one. So why is he?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 77 Bella shrugged. “He… he’s the only person in the world who knows what it’s about, that’s all.” “And obviously he thinks it needs to stop.” Sebastian sighed and flopped backward next to her, eyeing her from upside down. “C’mon, heifer—there are a lot of things we’d both rather be doing right now. Cooking, eating, watching The Closer….” “Kissing my brother?” “If it’s on the menu,” he retorted mildly, “but right now it’s not. What’s on the menu is making Bella feel better. How can you be the center of the universe if you don’t feel better?” She blew out a breath. “Bitch.” “Twat. Now spill.” “It’s an old story,” she muttered. “You know, high school girl goes to party and wakes up pregnant?” Sebastian blinked and sat up. “It’s only old if she remembers getting that way,” he said, trying badly to hide his shock. “Only a little,” Bella said. She was holding her jaw so fiercely, Sebastian was worried she might break her teeth. It didn’t help—her lower lip was quivering anyway. Sebastian sighed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she pulled her legs underneath her to sit down. When she was done, she leaned her head against his chest. “Well, we’re on your old stomping grounds. Show me the bastard and I’ll sic your brother on him.” Bella smiled faintly. “You won’t kill him yourself?” “I could bitch-slap him to death.” “That I’d pay to see,” she quipped, but her voice was

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 78 brittle, and they were both ignoring the fact that his “Gaydar Offline: Grope Everyone” T-shirt was slowly getting soaked. “Besides, Asa already beat him up.” She shrugged. “He didn’t drug me—I just… you know, I’d never had a beer before, and we both got pretty wasted. It was just two kids, being dumber than a box of diapers, you know?” “You didn’t tell your parents?” She’d said only Asa knew. “No. Asa was the oldest. We all worshipped him. So, I woke up half-naked and called him, and he came—no questions asked, you know? I poured the whole mess out on him, and he held me and told me it would all be okay, and took me to the clinic for the morning-after pill. Then he lied to Mom and Dad because I begged him to, and took me to the abortion clinic when the morning after pill didn’t take. And the whole time, he didn’t judge and didn’t yell, and he was just this awesome stand-up guy, but….” “But he was your big brother and you worshipped him.” “And he got to see me as a pathetic disaster. And I felt like I let him down so bad. He was so wonderful, Sebastian, and I just stopped talking to him. Just… I don’t know, made him a big blank spot in my life. I became all about school, I blew off my friends, and I… I just stopped talking to my brother, and he was the one who made it all right… how could I do that?” “You were embarrassed,” he said, not sure why she couldn’t see it. “I was stupid and self-centered and pissed off and….” “And embarrassed, and young, and your brother forgave you a long time ago. Was the tenth the day of the party?” “No.” Her voice was a mess—all the initial sounds in her

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 79 words sounded like “B”—and Sebastian was pretty sure he would have to burn this shirt, but he didn’t care. “It was the day of the abortion—and I felt like crap, because I never thought I’d get one, and I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do, and he… he didn’t… care. He said that it was my body and my life and everybody got a doover. He took me to a baseball game afterwards,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding him until his ribs groaned—but that wasn’t why Sebastian wanted to bang his head against the wall to make the pain go away. “Who was playing?” he asked after a moment. “Giants and Dodgers. Dodgers won.” “Fuckers.” “Yeah.” “This game’s against the Padres.” “They suck this year.” “Yeah.” “Wanna go?” There was a terrible quiet then, and for a moment, he was afraid she’d fallen asleep. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “You guys seem to function pretty good, you know. Even with this hanging between you.” They had—maybe it was just that Bella had grown up in her family, where every member was valued and had a job to do. “We used to laugh a lot more,” she said. “In fact, we used to be a lot like you and me.” Sebastian couldn’t decide whether to feel honored or depressed. Then Bella said, “Except I picked you and I got saddled with him,” and he decided it was definitely honored.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 80 “Yeah—well, I lucked out with you, Princess. Nobody shops Abercrombie & Fitch like you.” “If only you’d wear something besides gay-T-shirt chic!” She sat up then, and wiped her face with her hands. Her face was blotchy and red and, for once, not inhumanly beautiful as she looked woefully at his shirt. “It’s a look,” he said mildly, and she nodded. “They show off your chest,” she conceded. They sat there, just sat there, quietly, until the blotchiness on her face faded and the faintly cynical curl to her lip had been restored. “I don’t think worse of you, either, you know that, right?” he said quietly. “You’re still my Bella-love.” Bella smiled a little, in spite of herself. “You… you were my first real friend after high school. Pretty much my best friend ever. It was easier, you know, keeping it from you, because you were a boy. I told myself you didn’t tell your gay friend that shit.” Sebastian widened his eyes, thinking about it. “I have to admit, it didn’t even occur to me, you know? I don’t know if that’s the gay thing, or the diva thing—I just was okay with leaving you alone.” He looked away. “Doesn’t say much for me.” He paused. “Says volumes for your brother, though.” Bella leaned her head against his shoulder. “It says you’re my best friend. And it says I might actually have to talk to him about this some day.” “Doesn’t have to be now.” They sat there for another moment, not looking at each other, just being quiet and warm. Finally she looked at him and nodded shakily, and he stood and kissed her forehead.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 81 “Here—you go wash your face and tell your brother we’ll go, and I’m going to go change my shirt, deal?” She nodded. “He always fucks up the pasta anyway. He cooks it way too long.” Sebastian shrugged. “Little kids like it mushy.” “Not like us adults, right?” “Naw… we like it spicy.” He grinned, and she grinned back, and then—another Bella surprise—she hugged him again, and harder. “I love you, Sebastian. Really love you. Like family, but better.” Sebastian melted a little inside. His whole life, his family had been two voices on the other end of a telephone. Bella was his family now, and her family was too. “That’s an honor, Bell—I mean that,” he told her, not a trace of snark in his voice. “My family really is great, isn’t it?” “If you could make it legal, I’d let them adopt me.” “Mm….” She had been going to say something—he could hear it in her noises—but then she put her hands on his arms and shoved. “Go change. I got boogers on your shirt and it’s grossing me out!” She sounded so much like herself that he figured the other thing had been his imagination. “Bella?” he said, as he put his hand on the doorknob to the shared bathroom. “Yeah?” “I really love you too.” By the time he heard Asa’s knock, he’d thrown the shirt

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 82 in the hamper and was looking through the pile of clothes on his dresser. (They were on the dresser because putting them in the dresser had never been his style. This helped to explain the tight T-shirt fashion sense—when they were tight, you couldn’t see the wrinkles.) “Come in! Oh shit!” Oh shit—he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Wasn’t that suggestive? The night before had been an experiment, a simmering undertone to all of their dealings until now… how presumptuous was it that he would let this man into his room when he didn’t have on a shirt? Asa chuckled as he opened the door, and then stopped short with wide, amused eyes when he saw Sebastian holding a Placebo concert T-shirt in front of his chest like a virgin girl. “I’ve, uhm, I’ve seen a man’s chest before,” Asa said drolly. Sebastian glared at him, sniffed the pits, decided the shirt was clean, and put it on hastily. When he was done, he crossed his arms and glared at Asa some more. “I hate family drama,” he said when Asa just looked at him. “I hate it. I don’t know how to deal with it. Part of the reason I hang with Bella is that she’s not the dramatic type. I’ve had more family drama in the last two days than I’ve had in my entire life, and I blame you!” Asa looked instantly contrite, and Sebastian felt like shit. It was hard to pout like a diva when the guy had just had his heart put through an industrial cheese grater. “As you should,” Asa agreed. “You’re right, it was a little much so soon.” “Why? Why did it have to be today?” Asa blinked and thrust his hand through his hair. It

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 83 was down from the braid and fell appealingly down his back and over his shoulder, framing his lean face on one side when he was done. “Because that’s when I bought the tickets,” he said, still musing on the question. “Why wouldn’t it be today?” And now Sebastian felt incredibly childish. “Because I was all happy and high today,” he said, as though that made any sense. Asa’s eyebrows went even higher, and he gave a little quirk of his chin as though to say, Proceed… so Sebastian did. “You… you touched me last night. I… you know. I was riding that… weren’t you?” A tiny corner of that tightly compressed mouth lifted up, and Asa’s eyes softened. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I was. I just know how to juggle, that’s all.” He took two more steps into the room and closed the door. Sebastian rolled his eyes. “I don’t. Bella’s miserable, and my day is supposed to suck from beginning to end. I’m happy and getting”—well, it wasn’t laid yet, was it?— “touched, and my day is supposed to rock.” Asa frowned and advanced another step. “That sounds a little co-dependent. You can’t do that when you have kids; you’d go insane.” Sebastian shook his head. “Yeah—I figured that when I got to know Jordan’s cousins. But they’re only a once-a-week deal. Kids—you know, they’re like roller-coasters, but when you get to be older, you don’t like the rollercoaster so much. You keep going up and down and that makes you sick to your stomach and eventually you think you’ve done

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 84 something hideous to your neck and you realize that you don’t like the rollercoaster anymore. The ferris wheel maybe, and the haunted house ride, absolutely, but not the rollercoaster, right?” He caught himself in the middle of his rambling to realize that Asa had moved and that they were now standing closer together—in the daylight, at least—than they had since they’d met. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Offering you a hug,” Asa said simply. “You’re right. It’s been a rough couple of days. I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. Come here and let me hold you.” Oh. “Oh.” Oh jeez. It was everything a good hug should be. Asa’s shoulders were wide, and he was tall but not too much taller than Sebastian. Sebastian could rest his chin on Asa’s shoulder easily, and through slitted eyes, he got a nice look at that clean profile, long jawbone, faint, pale stubble, and all. He sighed and sank into the feeling of warm arms around his shoulders and a chest of iron against his, and then Asa dropped a kiss in his hair and held him even tighter. Sebastian actually groaned, like an old dog, and wondered if he could make Asa into a whole other skin—sort of a secret boyfriend coat. He made a sound of protest when Asa rubbed his shoulders and then stepped back. “Dinner’s almost ready,” he said, his voice deep and surprisingly regretful. Sebastian nodded. “Asa?” he asked, taking his own step back and feeling like his world had been put in order with one press of body to body, “why is it you don’t talk much, but you seem to say a helluva lot?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 85 Asa’s mouth turned up at the corner again. “It’s an art,” he said slyly. “Maybe you should write your next paper on it.” He snickered and proceeded down the stairs, and Sebastian threw a raspberry at his back and followed him. But Sebastian had to admit, he felt a whole lot better about the family rollercoaster after that hug. Jordan was excited that they’d both be going, and Bella seemed to pull herself together after a while. It was hard to stay morose in the face of that quiet happiness, Sebastian thought, and he answered Jordan’s questions with enough optimism for all three of the adults at the table. Asa had said that the little boy actually used to chatter—Sebastian was sort of hoping that with enough encouragement, the kid might actually turn into a kindred spirit, and he wouldn’t be the only one with a mouth running at a hundred miles a minute. Dinner was finished, dishes were done, and their small people unit continued on in what Sebastian had to admit was a soothing routine. A little pang yanked at Sebastian’s solar plexus as they all sat in the living room: Asa reading to Jordan, Sebastian and Bella sitting on the couch with their legs tangled, and alternative rock playing softly on the stereo behind them. This was temporary. It was hard to get back to his book after that. Asa came by his room that night again too. Sebastian had been sitting up in bed, poring over a history text that discussed the process of making “indigo,” or “royal blue,” and how the color itself had been the cause of a hundred years of warfare (which Sebastian thought was an

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 86 excellent point in his thesis), when he heard Asa go into Bella’s room. A few minutes later, there was the knock on his own door, and he had a plan. Unashamedly, he put the book down, turned off the lamp, and stretched out, bare back to the bathroom door, before he called, “Come in!” He heard Asa’s quiet “Hmmm…” as he walked in. “Not embarrassed about not wearing a shirt now, are we?” he said quietly as he closed the door. “Be quiet—you’re ruining the illusion of spontaneity and seduction,” Sebastian told him, annoyed. “You’re not wearing a shirt, Sebastian, and I want to touch you. Consider seduction achieved.” Sebastian turned his head then and found that Asa was disconcertingly close, his blue-gray eyes more fierce than his mild voice had implied. “Seduction isn’t achieved until I get laid,” he said shortly, and Asa clamped his lips together in quiet laughter as Sebastian continued. “And you’re a man-virgin, so I assume that’s going to take a while, because there’s going to be that whole ‘This is a man, it feels so weird, do I really want to touch him, maybe it was just the alcohol talking, I’m not really gay, this is just a summer thing, or a rebound thing, or a my-ex-wife-was-askank thing blah blah blah’ bullshit, and if it’s not that there’s the whole ‘maybe I’ve been gay my whole life’ realization, and that’s always traumatic, so I figured I’d just go slow, and let you touch me, and—” And Asa kissed him. Open mouth to open mouth, hot, wet, tangling tongue invading him, big, rough hands framing his face, and that

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 87 satiny, coarse curtain of hair draping them both. Sebastian made a sound of surprise, and then he saw that Asa’s eyes were closed so he closed his own, splayed his hand against Asa’s chest and fell into the kiss like a princess fell onto a swan’s down mattress. Oh… oohhhh… oooooooooooo…. Asa tasted like dinner, and like Scotch, and like comfort and sanctuary and all of the big, warm, man-things that Sebastian had craved pretty much most of his life. The man breathed softly through his nose when he needed air and slanted his head like he knew how to kiss and he knew how to kiss anyone who wanted to kiss him back. Without breaking the kiss, he put his weight on one shoulder and turned Sebastian on his back. Sebastian sighed and sank into the mattress, and opened his mouth a little wider. Asa grunted and pulled away, sucking on his tongue at the last. Asa pressed his forehead against Sebastian’s, and Sebastian tried to get a hold on his own words. “But… but….” He couldn’t even get hold of his own breath. “I know I’m a man-virgin,” Asa panted in response, “but I’m almost forty years old. I do know how to get to second base.” “Ungh…,” Sebastian managed. “Will you need help getting to third?” Asa’s chuckle reverberated through his chest, and Sebastian felt it through his fingertips. “I’m pretty sure we’ll figure it out. I assume you’re willing to help, right?” “God!” And where did his words go again? Asa didn’t care, it seemed. He rubbed his palms over the smooth skin of

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 88 Sebastian’s chest, and Sebastian arched against him like a cat. He did it again, slowly, and then a little rougher, and then a little faster, and Sebastian made a soft keening sound, and Asa laughed and kept rubbing him. The rough skin of his palms caught on Sebastian’s nipples, and Sebastian undulated his hips and moaned, and then, oh God, too good to be true, that hand moved with certainty down to the biggest happy of happy places. Asa lowered his head for another kiss, and while Sebastian opened his mouth and just accepted Asa’s invasion, that hard hand palmed his cock through his sleep shorts, and Sebastian groaned against his mouth. “Feels like mine,” Asa mumbled. “How’s it feel when I do this?” He closed his hand and squeezed, and Sebastian grabbed both his shoulders, muffled a long groan against his mouth, and thrust into that hard pressure convulsively. Oh, God… oh God oh God oh God oh God…. “Is that a yes?” Asa asked, and Sebastian barely managed a “God, please…” as Asa kept stroking him through his clothes. The soft cotton of his boxer-briefs became a rough, pleasurable torture, and Sebastian’s hands were shaking, and so were the muscles in his biceps as he clutched Asa closer, and so were the muscles of his lower back as he thrust up against that hard-palmed, sure-handed grip. Asa did know what he was doing, and it occurred to Sebastian like a gray light in a cloudy brain that even straight men played with a gay man’s favorite equipment. The end came far more quickly than Sebastian had anticipated, and Asa muffled his groan/scream of orgasm with another kiss, and the inside of Sebastian’s underwear became warm and sticky as he shot. Asa’s thumb played

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 89 with the growing wet spot on the front of Sebastian’s shorts until Sebastian managed his first word in ten minutes. “Tender,” he hissed, grabbing Asa’s hand, and Asa stopped immediately. “Sorry.” “Don’t be. God. Was that only second base?” Asa smiled smugly and slid an arm under Sebastian’s neck so that when he cuddled, from his kneeling position on the side of the bed, he really held on like a lover, and Sebastian was such a slut for touch at this point that he cuddled up to Asa without shame or worry. “Yeah. I might need a little coaching through third, but we’ll save that for another night.” Sebastian fought back a whimper; he didn’t want Asa to leave. The snuggling was good, but he was sleepy, and dammit, this man had just taken care of him through a handjob of epic fantastic-ness. He was going to say something—something shameless and pleading—but Asa looked at him regretfully with those lovely blue-gray eyes. He planted a hard, firm kiss on Sebastian’s lips, then disentangled himself and stood up to move toward the door. “I’d stay for a little while, Sebastian—I would,” he said softly. “But Jordan crawled in with me last night about this time. He’ll be looking for me in a couple of minutes—I should be there.” Sebastian wasn’t the baby in this relationship. He should have known that. Shouldn’t he have known that? Well, he did now. “Of course,” he said, trying to look like he really did get it and wasn’t saying that to seem like a good guy when he wasn’t. “I… I don’t have kids. I’m not used to

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 90 thinking like that….” Asa smiled. “It takes a while. I’m sorry I have to go.” With that he walked out, closing the door behind him, and left Sebastian to clean up the aftermath of an unexpected homerun. The next day was Saturday, and they had to work. On the way, Bella asked him when he was going to kiss her brother. It’s a good thing she was driving, because he probably would have hit a tree if he’d been at the wheel. “What makes you think I’m going to kiss your brother?” he asked, playing for time. Bella caught her breath and looked sideways at his face before shifting for the next curve. “Oh my God! Sebastian! You already have!” Sebastian didn’t say a word. “Come on—you always spill! I mean, I’ve known you through four guys; you always spill the beans! ‘Dishing’ is what we do!” Sebastian looked at her unhappily. Four guys in five years was not that many, he reflected. Bella had only had three. “It’s not what we do,” he answered quietly. “We don’t ‘dish,’ Bella. We communicate. But this is your brother. It’s not Scotty, the rebound guy from Starbucks.” Scotty was apparently living in monogamous bliss with some hotshot lawyer in Sacramento now. Bella looked at him again and shook her head. “You’re right, Sebastian. We don’t dish. But we don’t keep secrets, either. This is sounding serious, and it hasn’t even gotten serious yet. Talk to me!” Sebastian sighed and leaned his head on the window

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 91 again. “Bella, what does this place look like in August?” “Same as it does now—brown. You’ve seen it on the way to my parents.” “Yeah. I don’t think it registered,” Sebastian muttered. “I only saw the green—you know, like it is in April.” “It’s pretty in April.” “Yeah. You know, August is going to be here way too fast.” Bella’s hand on his knee was comforting. She did know—and apparently she understood. They were uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the way.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 92

Chapter 6 SEBASTIAN loved Bella’s parents’ house. They had an extensive backyard, and long years of gardening for pleasure around giant boulders and cattle wire had produced a creatively landscaped, pleasantly green space of nearly an acre through which to chase children, play horseshoes, set up a doughboy pool, barbecue, or (on the concrete porch) play cards. Bella’s father, Bjorn (Bjorn and Brenda Bryne… Sebastian never got tired of saying it) liked to tinker; he’d laid out one of those misting hoses from the rafters of the porch overhang, and even though the temperature in the foothills that day had been in the high nineties, under the porch, it was a cool eighty. Sebastian spent a good hour or two chasing Jenna, Jason, Jeff, Jessica, Janelle, and Jordan (he loved this family!) around the soft-sided pool. He splashed, he threw soft Frisbees, he gave rides around the outside edge on floaties, and, to the tiny Janelle, who was not quite four, he was the floatie for most of the time. Eventually, though, the kids were ushered out—the pool was in the shade and had no heater—and most of them had blue lips and fingernails, but they were still sorry to get out. Sebastian clambered over the ladder and grabbed his towel off the cattle-wire fence that separated the backyard proper from the quarter that was sectioned off as the dog pen. Four

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 93 dogs were climbing over the granite rocks and tree roots that made their run interesting, barking with excitement. Later, when the kids weren’t quite so rambunctious, they’d be let out to play too. “Yeah?” Sebastian called to his favorite, a yellow lab named Killer, “You think you’re bad? Yeah? C’mon, Killer— come get me!” The dog looked at Sebastian with soulful eyes. Mostly, that big yellow animal was a cuddler; the reason he got locked up was that when he got too excited, he’d run to somebody through whomever was in his way. He was always contrite, but that didn’t help the person lying flat on his or her back and trying to suck in a lungful of wind. Asa—who had spent most of the afternoon being grilled politely and charmingly by his mother—wandered over, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. He was wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt, hanging loosely over a T-shirt stretched tight across his lovely, muscular chest, and Sebastian tried to keep his starry-eyed looks to himself. The family did not need to see him drooling over the eldest Bryne, and the oldest Bryne did not need to come out because he’d developed a crush on his houseguest. “Jordan,” Asa called, “your clothes are inside by the bathroom. Make sure you get changed; dinner is in a few minutes, and I think the kids eat inside tonight.” He looked at Sebastian and shrugged. “Flies,” he explained. “Apparently grownups can fend them off, but the kids get to eat fly-free.” Sebastian grinned, toweling off his dark hair and slinging the towel over his shoulders. “Excellent. Guess who eats at the kids’ table tonight!”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 94 Asa grinned back. “Lucky bastard. I’m stuck with the adults, and so’s Bella. I want a do-over.” Sebastian thought about two nights before and flushed. Then he thought about the night before and flushed harder. They’d simply talked quietly when Asa came in—nothing heavy, nothing groundbreaking. But Asa had kissed him on his way out, and if Sebastian had been standing when the kiss had started, he wouldn’t have been when it ended. As Asa’s hand had touched the door, though, Sebastian had found his voice. “Asa, what are we doing?” Asa turned to him. “Dating,” he said decisively. “Are you straight or gay?” Asa rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Sebastian—where angels fear to tread! I’m bi. I’ve always known it, okay? You keep trying to frighten me with the fact that I’m kissing a man goodnight. Trust me. I know.” Asa leaned closer to him now, and when he spoke, it was almost in the hollow of Sebastian’s ear. “What are you thinking about?” Sebastian smiled faintly and looked away. “I’m thinking I’d better get dressed,” he lied, and Asa lightly touched shoulders with him. He met those ocean-blue eyes almost involuntarily, and grimaced. “This is your parents’ home, Asa. It’s one thing to be all brave in your own; but you want to keep this quiet here, trust me. Besides—when I leave in August and only come back during holidays, you can pretend we were never a thing.” Asa’s brows pulled in, and for the first time, Sebastian could really see their age difference. “Stop telling me how to

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 95 manage my family, Sebastian. And stop ending our relationship before it’s begun. Who says I won’t want to see you when you come back for the holidays?” Sebastian lifted up a corner of his mouth and looked longingly to where the children were gathered, dripping on the concrete porch before they went inside to change. He’d never been a kid like that; he’d always been perfectly dressed and quietly alone. He loved seeing these children here. But then, so did all the Brynes. “You don’t want a summer boy,” he said quietly. “Boy or girl, you want a forever one.” Asa nodded. “And who says you can’t come back, Sebastian? Doctorates only take a year or two. Give it a chance—hell, let’s get to third base, at least. Or are you getting spooked because you know my parents?” Sebastian shook his head. He was dry now, but it was still cool under the oak tree. Almost convulsively, he pulled the towel around his shoulders. “I’m getting freaked out because I love your parents. Knowing I’m gay is one thing. Sleeping with their beloved older son is another. I’m going to go get dressed. We can talk about this later.” Behind him he heard Asa sigh. “For a guy who spends four nights a week swimming because he can’t go to the gym, you’ve got the heart of a runner, you know that, Sebastian?” Sebastian pretended he didn’t hear. But things lightened up over dinner. The family was good at talking—but the kids were better at it. Sebastian enjoyed sitting the children’s table; he told them jokes that every parent dreaded (like the one about the “see-food” diet or the brainsucker starving) and then listened to them talk

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 96 about how space aliens were tougher than Spongebob. The only bad thing about eating at the kids’ table was that they were always done in a minute and a half. Little Janelle helped by sipping slowly at her juice box and telling him a story about how she wasn’t afraid of monsters but spiders were skeery, but eventually, Sebastian had to go outside and join the adults. “Finally! We were starting to think you were giving up your grown-up card!” Sebastian grinned at Courtney, Bella’s sister, and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “Sweetheart, it never arrived in the mail.” “Likely story,” Courtney’s husband, Jim, said from her other side. “I think you just signed the student deferral plan—you’ll get little plastic pieces once a year until you’re a senior citizen!” The table laughed, and the banter began. Bella had two sisters—Courtney and Denise—and two brothers—Emmet and Asa. The three middle Brynes were married to equally talkative people, and banter at the grown-up table was one of Sebastian’s favorite things. His childhood had been filled with quiet meals in the kitchen or rather stiff formal dinners. Sitting down with a group of people as gregarious as he was—and who were kind, not snarky and superior like a lot of college undergrads—had become one of his favorite things. This particular night, though, he was content to sit and let the banter wash over him until Isabella’s mother, Brenda leaned over. “What’s the matter, Sebastian—you look sad.” Sebastian smiled at her. “Just a little melancholy,” he admitted, because hiding wasn’t his style. “I’m going to miss this.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 97 “But only for a little while,” Brenda said firmly. “You’re not leaving the family, Sebastian; you and Bella still get Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even other summers. I’ll put you up myself, you know that.” Sebastian smiled at her and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Brenda was a medium-sized, self-contained woman whose face still held the elegant beauty of her children—but she was also maternal and warm, and Sebastian had come to treasure her. “You’re right. I’m just sentimental.” He smiled to let her know that it was all good, and she looked at him perceptively. “You’re just wondering how badly you want another doctorate, and if maybe you don’t want the rest of your life to start,” she said baldly. “You can’t sit at the kids’ table forever, Sebastian.” Sebastian gave his best effort to a smile and watched as Asa excused himself from the table to go check on Jordan. “Will you still cook for me if I’m sitting at the grown-ups’ table?” he asked, trying to be facetious. Brenda got his attention with a hand on his arm, and he found himself staring into a set of gray-blue eyes so similar to Asa’s and Bella’s that his breath caught. “I’ll cook for you as long as you show up at my door, Sebastian. Nothing can get in the way of that—right?” Sebastian smiled again, this time with all his heart. “Thanks,” he murmured. “You… you really don’t know what that means to me.” Brenda followed Sebastian’s eyes; Jordan and Asa were peering avidly into a shrub by the tire swing in the yard, and Sebastian wondered what bug Jordan had spotted now.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 98 “I think I know better than you do,” she murmured, and then she kissed his temple unexpectedly. “I’m going to go get dessert; go tell them it’s strawberries and ice cream.” Sebastian had to field several children on his way to get to Asa and Jordan, and he was laughing and breathless by the time he arrived. Something about Jordan’s intentness on the glossy-leafed small tree made him quiet abruptly, though, so he didn’t need the little boy’s glare to shut him up as he approached. “Sh!” Jordan hissed, and Sebastian nodded his head in serious agreement. “Absolutely,” he whispered. “Why am I shushing?” “It’s a chrysalis!” Jordan told him fiercely. “And it’s going to be a butterfly soon.” Sebastian caught Asa’s eye, and they both nodded seriously. “Gotcha,” Sebastian said, and then his need to have the last word faded, and they both settled in and watched. After about a minute, Sebastian looked at Asa and mouthed, “It’s not doing anything!” Asa grimaced and mouthed back, “I know!” Sebastian raised his eyebrows, and he and Asa crouched shoulder to shoulder for another couple of moments while the little boy stared rapturously at the pudgy green thing suspended from the leaf of the tree. “Uhm, Jordan?” Sebastian said hesitantly. “Uhm… that butterfly might not come out for a little while… butterflies are usually, you know, uhm, in that state for a couple of weeks.” He shot a meaningful look at Asa. “They don’t usually just come out and be all pretty and gay after hanging

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 99 out in the dark for a while.” Asa quirked up a small corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry, Jordan; they can see the sun through the chrysalis, just like you can see it through your T-shirt. But Sebastian’s right that this particular butterfly might not be ready to come out right now. He’s late. The other butterfly that Sebastian is thinking about is all ready to fly.” Jordan had no idea what they were talking about. “You mean he’s not going to come out of his chrysalis tonight?” he asked over his shoulder. At that moment, Jason, who was Jordan’s age, came galloping over breathlessly. “Jordan! Jordan! Guess what! Grandma said we can stay the night on her floor! Aunt Bella’s gonna stay too! We’re gonna go to the zoo tomorrow; can you come!” Jordan looked up at his father with his heart in his eyes. “Dad… please? I’ll be so good in summer school for the rest of the week. Please? And I can check on the butterfly tomorrow!” Asa looked at him and ruffled his hair, then winked at Sebastian. “Yeah, kid—go tell Grandma you can stay.” Jordan dashed away, leaving Sebastian and Asa still standing shoulder to shoulder. Sebastian couldn’t seem to move away. “So,” Asa said conversationally, “want to go home and play butterflies?” Sebastian grimaced. “Do you promise not to pull my wings off?” Asa looked at him sideways. “Do you promise to fly back?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 100 Sebastian sighed. “I can’t answer that right now.” “I promise not to pull your wings off anyway.” Asa’s arm was so warm… and Sebastian moved closer to him, just a little. He let the evening wash over him: the coolness of twilight, the smell of grass and the pool and the horses on the property next door. Brenda planted bulbs every year; there were irises and crocuses and even wild roses on the far end of the yard, crawling along cattle-wire fence. The night was lovely, and Asa…. Asa’s arm snuck behind them, and he rested his hand lightly on the small of Sebastian’s back. Sebastian had put on a T-shirt after swimming, but Asa’s hand seemed to burn right through that. He shuddered while Asa ran a rough thumb back and forth across the waistband of Sebastian’s tie-dye rainbow swim trunks. Well, Asa was lovely too. “I’ll have to trust that you won’t,” Sebastian murmured, and the pressure of that hand became firmer and more insistent. “You can always trust me, Sebastian,” he said, and then, probably because nobody was behind them, that hand moved, cupped his bottom, and squeezed suggestively. Sebastian’s whole body tingled with the flush of blood under his skin. Asa moved forward to work out the details of Jordan’s stay with Grandma, and Sebastian lingered back and watched the solid, hard line of his shoulders as he walked. A wave of helplessness swept over him. He wanted so badly to belong here, in this place he loved, with this man who seemed to be strong and safe and kind; all of the things he’d wanted in his life, wrapped up in a package that smelled like a June evening.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 101 Exactly who leaves that sort of thing for a snowy mountain in Spokane? They had driven to the Bryne’s in Asa’s SUV, and the trip back was much quieter with only the two of them in the car. “When will they be back tomorrow?” Sebastian asked into the dark. “Mom said late; I figure around six or seven.” “For the zoo?” The zoo in Sacramento was only a half hour away! “The San Francisco Zoo,” Asa corrected with a grim smile. “Apparently it’s something Mom and Courtney were cooking up, and since you two don’t work tomorrow, Bella wanted in.” “That’s funny—Bella usually bai….” Oh God, Sebastian felt thick. Bella had been all smiles as they’d left; she’d even batted her eyes at Sebastian and blown him a kiss. “Bella usually what?” Asa didn’t have to shift in this car—but it didn’t matter. He was so damned good at powering it through the darkness that all Sebastian could do was look at his hands and wonder what it would be like to be “driven.” “Uhm….” Sebastian flushed, and looked at those hands again. “Bails. She usually bails on trips with the kids. Maybe, uhm… maybe she just wanted to spend more time with Jordan.” Asa kept his eyes on the shifting, curvy road, but Sebastian could feel an electric tension between them, strong enough to pull all his blood to his groin. “Yeah, Sebastian,” Asa said gently, humoring him.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 102 “That’s it. She wanted to spend more time with Jordan.” “Yeah,” Sebastian echoed greyly. “Sebastian?” “Yeah?” “Why is it that I’m the ‘man-virgin’—but you’re the one who’s so afraid to make love?” They could both hear the airquotes; Asa didn’t even have to take his hand off the wheel. Sebastian grew even more uncomfortable—and even more aroused. “I have more to lose if this goes wrong.” His voice came out small and rough. “That’s not true,” Asa said mildly. “I haven’t been really touched in over a year. You play your cards right, and I could lose my heart.” Sebastian swallowed. “That would be painful,” he acknowledged. He would know. “What do you have to lose, Sebastian?” Asa asked quietly, and Sebastian looked away. “Well, we both know who gets to keep the family in the split,” Sebastian said miserably, and it was the truth. If things went wrong, there went his one place for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It had taken him five years of being Bella’s friend—five years of holding babies and chasing children and changing diapers and laughing with her family—and now he felt like he’d gotten his MA in human relationships. One bad breakup with a guy walking the gayside and it could all mean shit, and, dammit, that would hurt. Asa pulled the car into the driveway and put out a restraining arm to keep Sebastian from leaving immediately. “It’s the same thing I have to lose,” he said, and Sebastian

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 103 had to concede. “Are you afraid of what your family will say if you come out?” Sebastian asked unhappily. That restraining arm dropped, and Asa’s hand stayed companionably on his thigh. Asa rolled his eyes, in his grim, paternal way. “Hardly!” he chuckled. “I came out. My mother was more afraid for you than she was for me.” Sebastian gaped at him like a jellyfish in peanut butter. “Wha…?” Shrug. “Our exact conversation? Mom said, ‘Are you going to bring home a girl anytime soon, Asa?’ And I looked directly at you and said, ‘I may bring home someone, Mom; I’m feeling pretty equal opportunity these days.’ Mom looked at you and said, ‘As long as your opportunity doesn’t stop visiting my home for dinner or during holidays, that’s fine. We like him. He’s family too.’” Sebastian couldn’t quite get a handle on his words. He was moved—a little embarrassed, but mostly moved. “She really said that?” Oh, God bless Brenda Bryne. “That’s got to be the sweetest story of coming out in the history of gayness. Or, I guess, bi-ness, in your case. Really?” He just couldn’t seem to wrap his brain around it. “That was so damned easy.” Asa looked at him in the darkness. “What was it like for you?” Sebastian shrugged and looked away. “It was like getting my first blowjob over summer vacation after my senior year and having a big light bulb come on as to why I never liked girls.” It had been from the guy who came over to clean the pool, and it had been exquisite. “And then I was away at school, and there was no one to impress but myself.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 104 I told my mom over the phone, and she asked that my behavior not become too embarrassing—her exact words, by the way—and then… it was just me. As gay as I wanted to be, I guess.” Asa made a little “Aha” sound, and his warm hand found a place under the cuff of Sebastian’s cargo shorts. Sebastian’s entire body went on high alert, and he just looked at Asa helplessly, out of breath in one electric touch. “Aha what?” he asked. Part of him wanted to go inside and just get busy, but part of him wanted this breathless moment in the darkness never to end. “I get the T-shirts now,” Asa rumbled, stroking his thigh slightly. “What’s to get?” Sebastian slid forward in his seat a little and spread his legs. It felt shameless; he didn’t care. Asa was touching him, and he’d already learned from experience that good things ensued when that happened. “I get why you feel like you need to come out every day. You realized something important about yourself, and there was no one there to care.” Sebastian shrugged, and Asa’s hand stalled out on the tender part of his upper thigh. “There are nightmare stories out there, you know,” he said. “Kids getting disinherited, kicked out of the house, beaten. Mine was no big deal.” His ass cheeks clenched on the car seat, so he could bring himself closer to Asa’s big hand. Asa turned—with difficulty, because his legs were long and there was a steering wheel and a gearshift and things—so that he was facing Sebastian in the dark, and then he leaned forward so that their faces were in proximity. “It’s a big deal to me, Sebastian.” His voice slowed down

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 105 then, and he moved a little closer with each syllable. “I’m very, very, ve-ry, glad. That. You. Like. Men.” Sebastian felt his reservations, his fears, and his vague, restless certainty that he was cheating pain somehow, melt off his skin like sweat. He turned his face to meet Asa’s kiss and whispered, “So. Am. I.” Ahhhh… so good. Asa tasted so good. Warm, safe, male. Once again he was everything Sebastian craved, every good thing he wanted from a partner, and when that big, capable hand planted itself between Sebastian’s shoulder blades and urged him forward, Sebastian groaned and opened himself, as wide and as pliant and as willing as he could be. Asa took advantage of his softness and pulled him closer, crushing his mouth in a terrific, primal hunger. Sebastian answered back, wanting him so badly he started fumbling with the seat latch to see if it would recline. It did, with a thump, and Asa pulled back from him with narrowed eyes and a growl. “I’m thirty-eight years old, Sebastian—I’m not having sex in the car. Now hop out and hurry, dammit!” Sebastian laughed and did what he was told. He took a moment to fix the car seat, so Asa beat him in, and while he was shutting the door behind him, Asa seized his shoulders and pressed him against the wall of the entryway, kissing him until his eyes rolled back in his head. “God….” Asa pulled away and started kissing the corner of his jaw, by his earlobe. The earlobe got in the way and Asa nibbled on it, and Sebastian’s knees went a little weak. “Asa… do you have any idea what you’re doing?” “Mmmm… I’ve watched porn…,” Asa confessed, and he bent down low enough to scrape Sebastian’s collarbone with

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 106 his teeth a little. Sebastian grunted and grappled with him, holding him around the middle while he shuddered, hard. “You didn’t need porn…,” he groaned. “But I need to taste you.” And oh, he did. Asa was the tallest, broadest, sturdiest lover Sebastian had ever been with. The need to do some holding, some tasting of his own, was overwhelming. Sebastian straightened and grabbed Asa’s shoulders, and Asa let himself be shoved against the wall in his turn. “Are you manhandling me?” he panted, and Sebastian fumbled with the belt at his shorts and nodded. He managed the shorts and pushed them along with the white boxer-briefs down around Asa’s knees. “You are a man and I’m going to handle you, yes.” Sebastian paused a minute to run his hands under Asa’s shirt and linger for a moment on that broad, rangy chest. He could feel the muscle definition under his palms and he sighed—he could probably stay at chest level for hours, but Asa’s burgeoning erection butted up against Sebastian’s hip. Sebastian went to grin up at Asa, and calm, mature, reserved Asa was staring at him with the same open-eyed wonder that his son had shown a butterfly chrysalis hours before. Ohmigod… I’m Asa’s magic man. Sebastian’s first blowjob from another man had been… magical. Sebastian had been outside, sunning himself, and the pool cleaner had been running around, doing his thing. The guy had been pretty—blond, tan, wearing only a pair of cut-offs—and Sebastian must have been ogling him from the very beginning, without admitting how much the lean muscles in his flank or flat, pink nipples had been turning him on. They’d chatted briefly, and then he’d closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy the sun on his face. When he opened

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 107 them, the guy had been crouching by Sebastian’s chaise, his hand splayed across Sebastian’s stomach. Shh… I only want to taste you. He had left Sebastian limp and sated, with his shorts roughly pulled up over his hips and a bemused smile on his face. It had been… magic. Sebastian was Asa’s magic man—the first man to show Asa how good it could be, how amazing and perfect that press of flesh could feel when it was the right person doing it. It was suddenly an awesome responsibility, and an amazing honor. “I’ll do it right,” he whispered. “Here… just… just stand still….” He sank to his knees there in the hallway and held it, ripe and full, in his hand. It was enormous. Proportional to Asa, and more so, it was thick and long; Sebastian couldn’t quite touch his thumb and forefinger around it. He stroked it from base to tip, and enjoyed hearing Asa’s startled gasp. He extended his tongue then and licked the broad, flat head. (The head itself was plum-sized; Sebastian almost wriggled in excitement, because that thing was going to be inside his body if it killed him!) Asa settled back against the wall and put those big, safe-harbor hands in Sebastian’s hair, and Sebastian got down to the task throbbing in his hand. He wrapped his lips around his teeth and engulfed it, hearing Asa moan and liking that sound—it made his own cock ache—and then he moved his head forward. He couldn’t go that far, and he used his fist to tighten at the base and then met it halfway with his mouth. Lots of spit, lots of

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 108 lubrication, and he stroked with his fist and bobbed with his head, and Asa grunted and then grunted again. His hands tightened in Sebastian’s hair, and Sebastian shuddered. God, he was hard. He was hard and he was aching, and he didn’t even want to fumble with his own shorts to get himself off. He would rather rub his palm up Asa’s thigh and feel the taut muscles quiver, or pull his mouth back on Asa’s cock and swirl his tongue about the head to taste the precome. Oh, damn… it was just all so good…. He gave his head a particularly hard shove, lodging that thick plum-sized cock-head in his throat as far as he could, and then he hollowed his cheeks and sucked back. Asa had spent some time swimming after dinner; he tasted like pool water, and a little like sweat, and like fabric softener. Clean things—honest things. The things that meant Asa, all condensed in the musky scent of his pubic hair and the veiny slick of his skin. Asa gave a growl and then cried his name hoarsely into the muted dark of the hallway, and he didn’t even have to say “I’m gonna… God, Sebastian, I’m gonna….” for Sebastian to know he was going to come and not to care. He thrust his head forward one more time and then swallowed rapidly as Asa spurted in his throat. Asa grabbed his hair tighter, and Sebastian wrapped both arms around Asa’s legs and held on, and an orgasm rocked that big, muscular, solid body that Sebastian felt in his own core. Oh damn, oh God, oh wow, oh shit…. He’d done that. They kept their positions for a moment, and then Sebastian pulled back and wiped his mouth self-consciously with his hand. Hesitantly he raised his eyes to see Asa

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 109 bending his head and meeting his gaze in the dark. “Okay?” Asa smiled, then shuddered sensuously. He reached out a hand and pushed Sebastian’s dark hair from where it had fallen forward into his face. “Better than okay,” he said, stroking a thumb along Sebastian’s cheek. “That was… it was better than awesome. It was magic.” Sebastian felt grin blossom, slow as a lily, across his face. “Magic?” “Magic. C’mere so I can kiss you,” he whispered, and he pulled Sebastian to his feet. “Magic?” Sebastian asked again. It was the word he’d needed; it was what he’d been working for. Hearing it was like hearing a bell in his soul, telling him that he was doing the right thing with the right man. “I swear,” Asa whispered, right before his mouth closed over Sebastian’s. “Magic.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 110

Chapter 7 ASA’S bedroom was huge, and the king-size bed in the middle of it wasn’t small. When they’d caught their breath in the entry way, Asa had pulled his pants up with one hand and grabbed Sebastian’s hand with the other, and the next thing Sebastian knew, they were in the middle of the big room with the denim quilt and the cream-colored walls and dark tan carpet, and all Sebastian could do was look at that big bed. He couldn’t quite remember being so intimidated by a bed before. Most of his relationships had been college relationships; the trick had been to find a single bed without a roommate present. Even his one “adult” relationship had been with a man who didn’t want his wife to know; Bella had disapproved, so they’d had most of their sex in his professor’s office. That alone should have been a red alert right there, but that wasn’t what Sebastian was thinking now. What he was thinking was that this bed was a grownup’s bed. Grownups had sex in a bed like that. Sebastian might not have been the man-virgin, but it was more and more clear that Asa was the one who hadn’t been sending his grown-up card back in the mail. Asa turned to Sebastian as he stood in the doorway,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 111 staring wide-eyed at that bed, illuminated by the skylight overhead. “I promise to be gentle,” he said with a faint smile, and when Sebastian returned it, he raised a thumb to stroke Sebastian’s lower lip. “You are soooo beautiful,” he muttered, and Sebastian looked at him helplessly. Asa’s hair had been brushed dry at his parents’ house, and it hung from a part at his temple to frame his lean, handsome face. Sebastian’s hand came up of its own volition and ran through that curtain of hair; he’d been itching to touch it since he’d first seen Asa, naked in the moonlight. “Said the sun to the flower,” Sebastian told him back. Asa blinked, slowly, the expression giving Sebastian the impression of Bella’s hastily drawn lion cub all over again. “No one’s ever said that to you?” Hard to believe. “I mean… your wife? A girlfriend? Someone?” Asa shook his head and his hair curtained over his eyes as he looked out. “Handsome,” he said modestly. “Women call men ‘handsome.’ At least the women I knew.” Sebastian couldn’t help a disdainful sniff. “Bella calls men ‘beautiful’ all the time. I think you just knew the wrong women.” The thought was terrifying, and his eyes grew really large. Asa was done with that, though. His big hands smoothed back Sebastian’s dark, curly hair as he pulled Sebastian close enough to kiss. “Sebastian, I’m about to take you into my bed and get to know you really well, so I want to put this to rest right now. Six months ago, I went to a house party, got drunk, and woke up coming in a man’s mouth. I haven’t touched—or been touched—by any one since. Until you. But I’ve had six

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 112 months to get my head to this place we are right now, you understand? All that soul searching? It’s been done—and it’s been done quietly, and in my own head, and I’m fine with it.” Sebastian nodded a little and then tried to protest, but Asa kissed his forehead gently, and stepped closer. Their bodies were almost flush, almost so close it was hard to keep balance, and in spite of himself, Sebastian found himself shivering into that wide-chested embrace. He wanted so badly to believe, and Asa knew it. “It’s not that I’ve known the wrong women,” Asa continued. He smoothed his palms along Sebastian’s upper arms in a way that made Sebastian’s knees go wobbly and weak. “I just haven’t known the right person. You care about me—you care about my family—and it scares the hell out of you. Don’t think I don’t get that. But don’t let what I have or haven’t done in bed with another male body get in the way— not now. Not again. I’ve been fantasizing about men for most of my life. I’ve been fantasizing about you since you screamed back at me in front of the refrigerator. Every time you opened your mouth and stuck your foot in it, I wished it was my tongue instead. And now… now you’ve had me. You had me in your mouth and helpless. Are you going to tell me that only happened because I haven’t been touched, or are you going to believe that happened because it was you touching me?” Sebastian shuddered, wrapped his arms around Asa’s waist, and started kissing his neck, his jawline, his collarbone, his chest. He thought it was the only answer he had. Asa tilted his head back and allowed Sebastian to slide his Hawaiian shirt off his shoulders, and then raised his arms so Sebastian could pull off his T-shirt. Sebastian

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 113 lowered his head and was about to pull a flat, tan-pink nipple into his mouth to worry the end when Asa cupped those big hands around his jaw and stopped him. Those hands were shaking. “Answer me, Sebastian,” he rasped. “I need to hear you say it.” Sebastian clenched his arms around Asa again and shuddered. “Say what?” “Say you know it’s you.” He shuddered harder. “Say it,” Asa insisted, and Sebastian licked his lips and gazed up with limpid eyes in the darkness. For a moment, he didn’t think he could, but Asa’s face was concerned, and open, and trusting—and determined. Sebastian’s body was absolutely throbbing with the need to be with this man, and his only ticket on the ride was to admit that it wasn’t just a thing or an experiment: it was truly making love. “It’s me,” he rasped, surprised when he heard his own voice. “It’s me. You care about me… my body….” Oh God. Asa gave a smothered grunt of impatience and thrust his hips roughly against Sebastian’s thigh. “My body does this to you,” he finished, and Asa’s smile gleamed briefly, both arrogant and relieved. “Absolutely.” And he lowered his head and took Sebastian’s mouth in a kiss so brutal, it was almost like he lost time. When he came to, he was sprawled on the bed, shirtless and shoeless (they were only flip-flops) and Asa was pulling at his shorts and his underwear. Sebastian grunted and arched his hips, and then he was naked.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 114 Asa was naked, too, and crawling up the bed between his legs. He was a little awkward, at first, with Sebastian’s cock. He held it in his hands and drew one finger from the base to the tip, and then two. Sebastian kept his eyes open as long as he could, watching as Asa ran a finger under the ridge of the head and then rubbed the taut line of flesh right under the crown. Asa was careful and methodical, alternately rubbing, stroking, or squeezing. Then, when Sebastian’s carefully suppressed quiet seemed to goad him on, he tried licking. Sebastian’s eyes closed and his back came off the bed, and he practically screamed Asa’s name. Every nerve ending in his body tried to turn itself inside out in an effort not to come. Asa chuckled, his lips brushing the skin alongside the shaft, and Sebastian bucked some more and whimpered, “Asa….” “You want to come?” Asa’s customary calm was only damaged a little by the rough breathing of arousal; otherwise, he seemed completely captivated by watching Sebastian lose his ever-loving mind. “Nnnghhhahhhhhaaaaa!!!!” “Then come,” Asa whispered, and he completely engulfed Sebastian’s prick with his mouth, squeezing at the base like Sebastian had done. Sebastian screamed and groaned at the same time. His fingers clenched in the comforter, and he spilled thickly into Asa’s mouth, panting and gibbering and curling his toes and then curling his thighs and his stomach around Asa’s head. For his part, Asa didn’t stop sucking, didn’t stop swallowing, until Sebastian had fallen limply back against the pillow and

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 115 lay there, panting, while stroking that long gold and brown hair away from Asa’s face. When Asa looked up and grinned, there was a slippery glaze shining around his mouth, and Sebastian stared at him, wide-eyed and breathless, while Asa wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Sebastian swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “What?” Asa pulled up to rest his chin on Sebastian’s stomach, and Sebastian ran his hand through that coarse, satiny hair fitfully. “You look so happy.” “You look so scared.” “I’ve done this before.” Asa bent his head and kissed the tenderness of Sebastian’s abdomen. “I haven’t. You’ll have to walk me through it.” Sebastian chuckled. “Walk you through what? We both just came.” Asa’s grin was predatory in the darkness. “Yeah, but it’s been a while for me. I’m ready to go again; and this time I’ve got some staying power.” Sebastian’s misgivings melted in the face of that quiet, unbounded optimism. “Really?” Asa nodded and nuzzled about Sebastian’s ribcage, putting his mouth over a pink nipple and suckling on it. Sebastian hissed and arched his back and felt—incredibly— the beginnings of arousal stirring in his groin. Asa pulled away and puffed a little breath on the wet nipple, making it tingle, and Sebastian fought a whine. “It’s

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 116 been a while,” he said again, seriously. “Before that house party, we had sex maybe once a month. My skin is starving.” Sebastian felt a sudden sense of optimism himself. Asa’s skin was smooth and golden; the time working under the sun and swimming in the pool had given him a lean overlay of muscles and a massy chest. He extended a more confident hand and began to swallow some of that glorious golden skin with his palm. “I’ll feed it,” he whispered, looking forward to it. “But it’s been over a year for me… I might not remember what I’m doing, either.” Asa’s eyes were puzzled and colorless in the dark. “A year? Really?” Sebastian didn’t want to talk about it, not now. He rolled to his side and curled over Asa’s body, meeting his mouth in the middle. Asa wrapped his arms and legs around Sebastian’s long, slender strength and kissed him back, and for a moment, it was just them, naked in the moonlight, lost in each other. They eventually made it beyond kissing and to the bottle of lube in Asa’s corner drawer. Asa started out by pushing Sebastian onto his back and kneading at the inside of his thighs until they were nice and loose and his cock was once again hard and aching. Sebastian felt exposed, there, in front of Asa’s regard: vulnerable. But Asa spoke softly to him; he wasn’t witty, not often, but he was grave and kind and excited to be touching Sebastian with nothing between them but silver shadows. Sebastian, for his part, gave terse, half-embarrassed

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 117 instructions, and tutoring Asa in how to make love that way was one of the most erotic things he’d ever done. “Okay…,” he mumbled, covering his eyes with his hands and concentrating on the sensation and not the wanton abandon of being splayed out for Asa’s curious, devouring gaze. “Uhm… are your fingers wet? I mean, I know there’s lots of porn out there where some bastard just spits twice and just pounds away, but I tried that once and it hurt like a sonovabitch… ahhhhhh….” Asa’s two highly lubricated fingers traced a slick path from Sebastian’s testicles and lower, down, confidently stroking that tender bit of skin beneath, and then into the cleft of Sebastian’s ass. They both knew what came next. One finger breached him, and Sebastian moaned, because it was good. He’d always liked this part: the stretching, the preparation, the anticipation. If he could just close his eyes and sink into this…. “Sebastian!” Asa commanded, and Sebastian opened his eyes with difficulty. Asa kept his gaze and added another finger, and when Sebastian would have closed his eyes again, Asa scowled. “Look at me.” He moved his fingers again, and Sebastian kept his eyes desperately on Asa’s, even as he arched his back and moaned again. “I can’t….” “Look at me! I had better be as important to you as you are to me!” Sebastian’s eyes grew wide and shiny, and Asa scissored cruel, taunting fingers inside his body. “There…” Sebastian panted, because one of the fingers had grazed his

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 118 bundle of nerves. “A little harder… there….” He went to reach for his cock, because it all felt so good, but Asa grabbed his cock with his other hand. “Just keep looking at me,” he ordered, and if Sebastian had felt vulnerable before, he felt positively helpless now. But Asa knew a man’s body—had apparently been living with his own for a number of years. He kept a steady pressure inside of Sebastian and a smooth stroking motion on the outside. Sebastian kept his eyes on Asa’s clean, faintly Romannosed profile, loving every line, every shadow of it more as Asa’s concentration on his task increased. Finally, his eyes closed because they had to, and he found himself begging incoherently. “Please… please… please… oh God… please….” Asa’s fingers disappeared, and Sebastian went to move to his hands and knees. The flat of Asa’s hand in his chest stopped him. “I’ve watched the movies, Sebastian; I want to see your eyes.” Sebastian had no answer to that; he just lay there, spreading his thighs and lifting his hips, and felt Asa’s huge, slick body poise at his entrance. There was the first bit of pressure, and then…. “Ahhhh…,” he hissed. The aching, burning pain…. “Should I stop?” Asa’s voice was all concern. “God no… just… Gawwwwwwwddddd….”

slowly…

slowly…

slowly…

Asa was all the way inside him now, but he wasn’t moving. Sebastian opened his eyes and saw that faintly

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 119 cross-eyed, serious regard and managed, “You can move now, please….” Asa’s faint smile was almost as good as that powerful, lean body moving over him, moving inside of him, slowly, so slowly… and the rhythm built itself, the pleasure burned into his bloodstream, and he started flexing his thighs and moving under Asa, and finally he begged, “Faster…. Please, dammit, faster….” Asa’s hips started pounding like a jackhammer; he threw his head back, and squeezed his eyes shut, and Sebastian felt compelled to watch him, straining with every muscle toward that elusive, incandescent peak. Asa’s stomach rubbed up against Sebastian’s cock when he wasn’t ready for it; he was unprepared for his own orgasm, for the sudden, slick spatter of his come on his belly. His eyes closed and then opened, and he cried out, and Asa grunted, then moaned. “So damned sexy,” Asa rasped, keeping that steady, hard pounding. “So good… so… so… Gawwwwwdddd….” Sebastian’s hands went from clenching in the sheets to wrapping around Asa’s shoulders as this giant of a man threw everything he had into a shuddering, gasping orgasm. For a moment, Sebastian rubbed his shoulders, stroked his neck, nuzzled against his chest, calming him, soothing him, after the terrifying flex and spasm of muscle rocked him in climax. Asa dropped to his elbows and shuddered in Sebastian’s arms, and Sebastian had a revelation. Both of us, he thought. Both of us are vulnerable here. You can’t look a man in the eye while you’re fucking him silly and not lay a piece of your heart there.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 120 Of course, Sebastian was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get his piece back.

SEBASTIAN had always had a secret perversion for the smell of sex. Sex of any sort—gay, hetero, solitary—the smell of it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his body tingle. Asa didn’t drag him to the shower when they were done. Instead, he pulled up the comforter, wrapped his arms around Sebastian, and settled his head on the big fluffy pillow, and all without a single word. “No shower?” “No shower,” Asa mumbled. “Don’t mind sweat.” “You sure?” “Do you want one?” “No, but most guys want showers immediately. I mean, I like one in the morning, and I’m pretty sure morning sex is out, but considering what my first urge to do in the morning is anyway, I don’t think we want to go there. But I was just making sure, you know, because, I didn’t want my stench to offend….” Asa kissed his sweaty forehead. “No stench. No talking. Just breathe.” Sebastian did. He fell asleep almost immediately and dreamed of Asa’s touch on his skin. And cookies. He woke up with two hard-ons, one his own and aching, and the other Asa’s and prodding him in the hip. Their bodies were naked in the hard sunshine coming in through

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 121 the skylight, and in spite of the sweat, Sebastian didn’t want to stop touching Asa in the least. Asa apparently felt the same. Disregarding morning breath, his mouth claimed Sebastian’s before Sebastian could even focus his eyes, and Sebastian returned the kiss ardently. Their bodies moved, but not beyond the clench stage, and as Sebastian’s arousal escalated, he ground up against Asa’s lower stomach, and Asa returned the favor against Sebastian’s hip. They both groaned inside each other’s mouths at the same time, and their movements became hurried, more frenzied, more desperate. Asa was the one who pulled his hips away and shoved a hand between them to capture Sebastian’s cock, and he pulled—firmly but not too roughly, in spite of his own urgency, and the awkward position. Sebastian tilted his head back, and Asa plundered his mouth some more, and kept stroking him off as he did it. Oh God… I can’t believe I called him a man-virgin. This man had a better head on his shoulders for sex than Sebastian had ever possessed. As Sebastian thrust inside that hard grip, he had to admit that Asa knew how to please a body—any body—and that he did it because he put that body’s needs first. But his own needs weren’t too far behind. As Sebastian shuddered in a lazy morning orgasm, Asa continued frotting against his hip. The slick come that had spattered against Sebastian’s stomach dripped down, and Asa’s cock grew slippery and his movements faster. Sebastian clung to him as Asa buried his face in Sebastian’s neck and groaned and spurted, adding to the general coating of spend on their skin. They lay panting in the warm summer morning, and

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 122 while Sebastian tried to put together what had just happened, Asa spoke, his voice muffled against Sebastian’s neck. “Sebastian?” “Mm?” “Now we can shower.”

SHOWER they did, and then they dressed in sleep shorts and nothing else. Asa made them a mushroom and Swiss cheese omelet that should have gone in some sort of breakfast hall of fame. Sebastian toasted bread and managed not to carve big holes in the middle this time when he put on the butter. This could be because Asa had started buying the spreadable kind, but Sebastian wasn’t going to bring it up and tempt fate. Sebastian loved to watch Asa cook. His face lapsed into calm, serene lines, his lean lips quirked up a little, and he moved like a dancer from counter to stove to drawer to cupboard. It was like watching poetry, and Sebastian had learned a certain degree of stillness just by not wanting to interrupt him while he worked. Finally, the omelet was plated (with an orange slice and parsley) and they sat next to each other at the little dining room table and ate quietly—and slowly. Sebastian closed his eyes to savor every bite. “So much better than Top Ramen on a hot plate,” he said with enthusiasm. “What made you learn to cook? I mean, your mom’s a good cook, she really is, but you’re like, I don’t know, gourmet level. It doesn’t seem to run in the

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 123 family—Bella’s competent but it’s not a passion or anything—but you—you’re like Top Chef, the Supermodel version, or American Idol in food….” He trailed off, aware that Asa was simply looking at him, that faint, grave smile on his face, while Sebastian rambled on. “You do that a lot,” Asa said quietly. “I know,” Sebastian blushed. He did. He rambled, he prattled; he and Bella always seemed to complement each other because they bantered together instead of Sebastian being a one-man banter-spew, but when he was by himself… well…. “I like it,” Asa said quietly, taking a bite of omelet. “Yeah?” “Yeah—now that everything you say isn’t a come on….” “Because, like, we already came!” “Exactly.” Asa smiled sweetly at him, and Sebastian blushed. It had been an honest compliment, and now he found he had nothing to say. They ate in quiet for a minute, and then pushed away their plates. Asa hunkered over his coffee (he was a diehard hot coffee drinker, even in the summer) and looked at Sebastian thoughtfully. “So,” he said, taking a sip. “When are you going to tell me about it?” Sebastian looked at him blankly over his glass of milk. (He only did coffee at Starbucks, when it was frozen with lots of sugar and cream, preferably blended.) “About what?” “About the man who broke your heart and made you absolutely sure that any man who had been married is going to do the same?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 124 Sebastian shrugged… and tried to keep his heart from doing a stiletto tap dance in his ribs. “I told you about him; he was a married college professor, and I was a grad student. I thought it was forever, and he thought I was a quickie in the office. Old story. It was old before it started.” Asa’s hands were so big, Sebastian marveled. He might have had a degree in engineering and architecture (according to his sister) but his hands were the hands of a construction worker: wide-palmed, rough, and strong. When one of them covered Sebastian’s hand as they sat at the table, Sebastian had to fight against feeling fragile. “It wasn’t old to you,” Asa said gently. “My story was old too—bored housewife, substance abuse—it’s the same shit that daytime TV has been doing for years. But to me it felt like someone ripped my skin off with a salt-crusted beltsander.” Sebastian shrugged again and kept his eyes on his milk. “See,” he said at last, “the really embarrassing thing was that I bought the fantasy. I was sure this guy was going to get a divorce and come out of the closet, and we were going to be the poster-children for straight-man-goes-gay, you know? I… I just knew.” Asa’s thumb stroked over Sebastian’s wrist. “What changed your mind?” Sebastian managed to smile through the mortification. “Bella. She staged an intervention. One night I thought we were driving for ice cream, but noooo, we were driving for his daughter’s soccer game. I don’t know how she found out where it was; I mean, for all I know, Bella told people she was the one having the affair. All I know is that I was wearing my straightest T-shirt and a pair of loose jeans, and

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 125 suddenly we’re walking hand in hand through a park, and she nods her head and there they are. Mr. and Mrs. Threekid-family. He’s got his arm around his teenaged daughter’s shoulders, and his twelve-year-old son is smiling up at him, and his wife has her hand on his arm, and they’re all rooting for the little girl on the field, and it hits me. I’m a homewrecker. Gay or not, out of the closet or in, I’m the guy that wants to wreck this pretty little picture. I’m the bad guy.” Asa’s hand squeezed tighter. “He’s the bad guy. He’s the guy who lied to people. He’s the guy who broke faith. What did you do?” Sebastian couldn’t look at him. Absolution. God—what he wouldn’t have given for absolution back then. “I didn’t have to do anything. He saw me, there on the field, and Bella grabbed my hand, and we walked by pretending to be girlfriend and boyfriend—not that we had to. He looked so panicked, but I smiled and waved and said, “Hi, Professor Martin!” and we just walked on by.” He let out a little laugh. “And then I cried all the way home like the big emotional fag I am….” “Stop that!” Sebastian sniffled. “No, it’s true; I sobbed in the car, and Bella got out and bought, like, two gallons of cookie dough ice cream and a copy of Twister, which is, like, my guilty pleasure movie of all time, and we went back home and had a little pity party. Monday at school, he asked to see me in his office—per usual—and I told him I had another commitment, and that’s all she wrote.” It sounded very noble, but Sebastian just had to add the kicker here, because Asa deserved to hear it. “Until he blackballed my second dissertation, of course, forcing me to look at other

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 126 colleges if I wanted to write the damned thing.” Asa grimaced. “Fucker.” Sebastian turned a shining face to him, even through the blurring of tears of pain past. “You do understand,” he said smiling, and Asa leaned over and kissed him. “I really do.”

IT

WAS a good day. Asa took the day off, and when they

weren’t making love or swimming or reading, they were talking. Sebastian wasn’t just magically better, much like he suspected Asa was not just magically over his own damage (how could he be?) but getting it out there, having the words make his fears real? Well, it made it easier to remind himself that they might be real, but they didn’t seem to be justified here. At least not now. Of course, Jordan was coming home, and Sebastian knew it was all going to change. “I get it,” he said logically, after Bella called and said they were on their way. “I know you can’t PDA—not with your son here. I mean, you know, it’s bad enough that his mother just did what she did”—and all the adults had been walking on eggshells since—“but to have Dad come out of the closet? No—I mean, you know, too traumatic. No worries. No clingy boyfriend. I’m a grownup, he’s a kid. I adore him; you know, he comes first, and I won’t….” Asa kissed him, and as Sebastian’s brain shorted out, it occurred to him that Asa did that a lot when he babbled. How very convenient… mmmmm…. They pulled back, panting, and Asa rested his head

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 127 against Sebastian’s and reminded him that they had both just put on clothes again. “Besides,” Asa said softly, as though the kiss had been part of the conversation, “if I knew you weren’t just taking off at the end of the summer, I’d deal with it. I’d tell him. He’s a smart kid, and he loves you already. But you’ll be gone, and that’s what he can’t deal with.” Sebastian gaped, and Asa pulled away completely. “I’m going to go start dinner.” He walked away, and Sebastian was left staring after his wide shoulders as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. He couldn’t shake the idea that this time he was the bad guy again. Oh Bella—how is it that I’m the one who’s going to break his heart? I thought that was your job. But he was afraid to even talk to her about it; he was pretty sure he knew what she’d say.

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Chapter 8 THE baseball game was one of the best days of Sebastian’s life. Of course, nearly every day that summer was one of the best days of Sebastian’s life, but the baseball game stood out in a spectacular fashion. They left early that day and spent the morning at the wharf being tourists. Bella and Sebastian took advantage of Asa’s generous nature and bought Jordan everything he looked at. They spent a particular amount of time at a puppet store, and in addition to the fantastic dragon puppet in their bag, the three “children,” as Asa called them dryly, walked around with other puppets on their hands having imaginary conversations for at least an hour. When that had palled (although it never really did; they brought the puppets with them to the stadium and pulled them out of their pockets on occasion to comment on the game), they took a ferry around the bay, from bridge to bridge with Alcatraz in the middle. The day was clear, and the water was a stunning shade of blue and the sky was a different stunning shade of blue. Sebastian and Bella spent ten minutes on the prow of the little ferry coming up with as many synonyms for “blue” as they could think of: azure, cobalt, indigo, turquoise (“Although that’s not a true blue,” Bella nitpicked, and Sebastian stuck out his tongue), navy, Persian, Prussian,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 129 Duke, and federal, trying to put a name to the shades of gorgeous that sat at their outstretched fingertips. Bella looked over her shoulder where Asa was hunkering in the cabin with Jordan; it got cold in the wind, and Jordan had wanted some hot chocolate and a place to draw. “Have you two decided yet?” she asked quietly. Sebastian followed her gaze. Asa looked up at him with his quiet, grave smile, and waved. Sebastian waved back. “Decided what?” “Decided what you’re doing yet?” Bella knew what they were doing. How could she not? She’d given them both meaningful looks when she and Jordan had come back from the zoo the week before. Asa had arched an eyebrow and Sebastian had blushed, and Sebastian had prepared himself for the grilling of his life the next morning. It never arrived. Bella had looked at him and patted his knee and said, “I think you’re both gonna bleed all over me before this is done.” Sebastian hadn’t had an answer to that. He still didn’t. “Yeah,” he told her now with a faintly ironic smile. “We’re using lots of lube.” Bella wrinkled her nose. “Jesus, Sebastian, that’s my brother… eeeeeewwwww….” Sebastian laughed, and Bella followed, but it had the sound of a faked orgasm, and they both knew it. Sebastian couldn’t keep anything from Bella; he never could.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 130 “I think leaving in August is going to make that pity party we had after Professor Douchebag look like backstage at a Placebo concert.” Bella grunted affirmatively and kept her eyes out over the solid blue horizon, where big clouds grazed like sheep on a hill. “I’m gonna miss the shit out of Jordan.” It was true. Jordan would have been devastated by his mother’s defection if Bella hadn’t been there. She and Sebastian picked him up from summer school as often as possible, took him to the zoo (the closer one, the Sacramento Zoo), played with him at the pool, and read him books. Jordan asked Sebastian to play Nintendo with him and came to Bella when he skinned his knee, and while Sebastian had always loved playing with the Bryne children, Bella’s reaction to Jordan surprised him. They seemed to be kindred souls. Sebastian had been the one person Bella opened up to, and he enjoyed that. Jordan seemed to be the one person she could be quiet with. They could sit together for half an hour, not saying anything, just moving plastic bugs about on a table. Bella would sketch her amazing, absurd caricatures, and Jordan would color carefully and artistically in the finely detailed coloring books that Sebastian brought him almost daily from the bookstore. Whereas before, Sebastian would have said that Bella was no more maternal than he himself had a uterus, he began to see the true mother in her. Bella had just been waiting for the right time—perhaps even the right soul. Sebastian had been her first try, and he hadn’t ended up badly, but Jordan… Jordan was the child of her heart.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 131 Sebastian had to swallow twice to say it. “You could always stay.” “I wouldn’t leave you, Sebastian. Jordan has Asa—you need me.” He closed his eyes at her answer, and she wrapped her arm around his waist. “Yeah, well, no one makes ice cream and vodka like you do.” “Very true.” The ferry ride was over shortly after that, and the baseball game was lovely. They had decent seats, but Asa had brought his iPhone with little video games for Jordan to play with when he got bored. The adults talked desultorily, cheered their team on to a crushing loss (one run in the tenth inning), and took turns taking Jordan to the bathroom. When it was Bella’s turn, Asa moved seats to right next to Sebastian and casually brushed his hand. “Having a good time?” “Having a great time. You forget how much more fun sports are close up, you know? It’s just cooler when thousands of people are rooting for the same thing you are. It, like, taps into some sort of primal, cave man urge to be with the crowd. It’s like, ‘Hey! There’s a zillion of us! We can beat off the big hairy mammoths!’” Asa smirked. “Sebastian, don’t you think ‘beating off’ a big, hairy mammoth is a one, or, at most, two-man job?” Sebastian’s eyes bulged, and he sprayed the beer in his mouth over his lap in a fine mist. By the time Bella and Jordan had returned, he was clinging to Asa, giggling, “Great hairy mammoth balls…” and not much else. “Ohmigod, Asa. What did you say?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 132 Asa’s mouth quirked up. “I’m not sure, Bella, but I think Sebastian finally has something to top the monkey story.” Sebastian rode in the back with Jordan (at the little boy’s request) for the ride home. The car purred quietly along, and Sebastian was lost in his own thoughts until he realized that Asa and Bella had actually initiated a conversation. They had completely forgotten about him in the back, which was nice, because he got to eavesdrop with impunity. “Are you done?” Asa asked, that deep voice resonating quietly through the car. “With my soda? No—I may make you stop for another one.” Sebastian recognized Asa’s grunt then; it was the tiniest bit of impatience that he used when Sebastian was being deliberately obtuse. “I meant with the torturing yourself for being young and imperfect.” Bella made a little whine. “Asa… it was such a lovely day….” “Yes. Yes it was.” Asa stopped there, as though he’d said something meaningful, and Bella’s frustrated sigh indicated he had. “It was a lovely day, and I should let myself have them and not dwell on the stupid shit I did when I was a kid,” she recited, like a little kid repeating her father’s instructions. “You do understand how to make sense,” Asa told her mildly. “I couldn’t believe you were still… I don’t know, what do you call it? Celebrating the most painful moment of your life? Why would you want to do that?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 133 “I don’t know, Asa. Are you going to take a moment and remember your wedding anniversary?” Ouch! Asa laughed, though, a little bitterly. “Not even when I was still married.” Bella sighed. “Damn—Asa, I’m sorry. You just hit my bitch-switch. That was a horrible thing for me to say.” “I was getting too close. Isn’t being on the offense a rule of emotional warfare?” Now it was Bella’s turn to laugh. “Yeah. At least the way we’ve always waged it.” Her voice grew darker. “You and me, Asa—we’ve always been… I don’t know. Self-contained. We don’t let a whole lot out. I… I really admired how you did that and still made me feel like you loved me when I was a kid. I had to remember, that’s all. I had to remember that I was stupid, and you were awesome. I had to remember how not to be stupid again, and how to live my life so I didn’t hurt anyone, or….” Or let them get too close. Sebastian remembered the look on her last boyfriend’s face when she’d broken up. He’d known—he’d known he had gotten too close. He’d known why she dropped the ax. “Anyway,” she continued, “I… I felt like I really let you down.” Asa let out a whole different sort of grunt. Sebastian thought he should start a list of them: Asa’s understanding grunt, Asa’s hurt grunt, Asa’s negative grunt, Asa’s I-likedthe-way-you-just-touched-me-do-it-again grunt. It would be like a communication manual for a man who claimed to be simple. This one was a “Don’t be stupid” grunt, and Bella grunted back. “I guess that was just me,” she murmured.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 134 Thank heaven someone in the car had the extra chromosome to facilitate communication. “Just you,” Asa affirmed. “Baby, if you think I hadn’t had my share of indiscretions by the end of high school… well, then I was just as good as I wanted to be at hiding them.” There was an awkward pause as Bella tried to put something into words. “Were, uhm, any of them male?” Sebastian could feel the wave of heat that washed off of Asa all the way from the front seat. “Not until now.” Bella telegraphed her move, or Sebastian would have been caught eavesdropping. As it was, he had just enough time to close his eyes before she looked. Satisfied that he was asleep, she said, “Be careful with him, Asa. He’s kind of… vulnerable.” “I know that,” Asa said softly, and in the ensuing silence, Sebastian really did fall asleep, and he missed the rest of the quiet conversation. When he woke up, though, as the SUV was pulling up the driveway, Bella’s voice was husky, as though she’d been crying. They made it into the house and put an unconscious Jordan in his bed after prying his puppet and his foam finger and new baseball hat out of his sleeping death grip. After that, Sebastian raced Bella to the shower—and lost. When he finally came out, a towel around his waist and still drying his hair, Asa was stretched out across his bed, wearing sleep shorts and a T-shirt, leaning his head on his hand as though he owned the place. Sebastian widened his eyes. “Tonight?” he asked. “Damn, Asa—aren’t you tired?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 135 Asa nodded. “Yes. I’m tired. So is Jordan. I thought….” He flushed under his tan, the high cheekbones going darker in the shadow of that straight, Roman nose. “I thought maybe we could, you know, spend a night.” Sebastian smiled in spite of himself. “If you think he’ll sleep through it….” “I locked my door, so he’ll call out if he doesn’t.” “Then yes.” Sebastian heard himself say it with faint surprise. He sounded needy and hungry for the touch of Asa’s skin. They’d managed to make love nearly every night that week, but this was the first night since the first one that Asa would be spending in Sebastian’s bed. Sebastian put on his sleep shorts unselfconsciously; their first two days together had burned much of the shame out of him. As he slid into bed, Asa buried his nose in the still-damp curls at his neck and breathed in. “You smell so good… even when you use Bella’s shampoo, you still smell like a man.” Sebastian snuggled backward; he enjoyed being the bottom, and, given his height, really enjoyed being the small spoon. “Lucky you,” he mumbled. “I am one.” Asa’s arm wrapped over his waist, and Sebastian closed his eyes, knowing the cold truth. There was not enough vodka and ice cream in the world. “You know,” Asa said quietly, “if you decided to stay, we could do this in my bed every night.” “I know,” Sebastian muttered, suddenly wide-awake. “Believe me, Asa, I know.” Asa’s body was so wonderful behind him, so solid, so real, that Sebastian actually dreamed that they were in Asa’s

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 136 bed—nothing else in the dream, just the security in being in that vast bed, with this kind, steady, funny man at his back. Bella woke them early in the morning because Jordan had crawled in bed with her. “You may want to sneak into your room like a debauched prom queen, Asa,” she said dryly, and Asa rolled his eyes. “I was always a perfect gentleman,” he grumbled. “I may have debauched them, but I always walked them to the front door.” Bella watched him go in the thin light of what would have been the crotch of dawn if they weren’t so close to solstice. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “when I was a kid, I never would have thought he’d be so good as a gay man.” “Was that just weird for you?” Sebastian asked, feeling insecure. “I mean… are you sure that wasn’t weird for you?” Bella shrugged. They’d both had liaisons in their old apartment—one of them would retreat to the couch and the other would get busy in the bedroom—it was a fact of college life sometimes. Privacy wasn’t a given. That hadn’t been weird; they’d managed just fine, although they’d both learned to be really quiet lest the other person give them a full-on ration of shit, with quotes from the heat of the moment, complete with expression. But that had been as college students. Sebastian had just spent the night with Bella’s brother; that put it on footing as family. “Here,” she said, yawning, “scoot over.” She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and it was chilly in the morning.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 137 “Bind up your hair, heifer… I don’t want to choke.” She always had an elastic band on her wrist to get it out of the way. He scooted backward into Asa’s warmth (ahhh!) and she scooted into his. For a moment they heard Jordan’s protesting voice as Asa got him out of Bella’s room, and then it was quiet again. “Was it weird?” she repeated. “A little—I mean, you know, because he’s my brother. It would probably be weird if I saw him with his ex-wife—and I certainly don’t want him to see me in bed with anybody.” She shuddered. They hadn’t spoken about her disclosure or her reasons for “Bella’s day off,” and she and Asa seemed to have made peace, especially after the baseball game, but still… sometimes, Sebastian reflected, you probably really didn’t want your family to know too much about you. “Was it weird because he’s with you?” She shrugged again, even though she was back spooning into him. “I’m just glad you’ve got an excuse to stay family.” Sebastian swallowed, oddly touched. “You and me aren’t an excuse to stay family?” She sighed. “You can be a diva, baby—don’t think I don’t know that. Don’t think I don’t know how you’ve been feeling your way with my family these last years. You love being the fun uncle, but you don’t know if you’ve got what it takes to stay. It’s been like every day we’ve been friends, you get another little filament of connection holding you with me… and I’m not sure if all the little threads are enough to make a rope. I just….” She sighed. “People lose contact all the time. We’ve already seen it. I mean, it’s been weeks since either of us

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 138 talked to Sammy, and I get that. He’s got a life, we’ve got a life. I just don’t want that to happen to us, that’s all.” He kissed her hair thoughtfully. She was right. She was the closest thing he had to family, really. For five years, she had been the one person on the planet he could count on to give a shit if he ever dropped off the face of the world. Until now. Now he had Asa and Jordan, and even though he and Asa hadn’t been lovers long, he was pretty damned sure the two of them would miss him if he was gone.

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Chapter 9 THE thought haunted him throughout the next few months. Every day made Jordan more a part of his heart. Every day twined Asa so closely to his soul he forgot where the thin spots of selfishness and fear had been and found only a seamless patchwork of Asa’s love. Sebastian and Bella made an effort to get Jordan from Asa’s worksite or from summer school itself every day. They started to figure out that when he made bold statements and asked them to repeat it, it was a leftover from standard grade school teaching technique, and they started to use it to give each other shit. “Bella, when’s Asa getting home again?” “Seven tonight. Say it!” “Seven tonight, heifer.” “That wasn’t part of it. Say it right.” And so on. Sebastian started to look forward to Asa’s tread in the house with a sort of fanaticism. It didn’t matter if he was swimming or watching television with Jordan or working on his paper: the keys in the door, the sound of the SUV pulling up the drive, all of it made his chest sore with the pounding of his heart.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 140 He actually wanted to run up and hug the guy. He’d never been particularly handsy or demonstrative, although he’d never minded necking in public. But now…. Now he started to help in the kitchen so they could bump hips and exchange looks. He would wait until Jordan was absorbed in television and offer Asa back rubs, and when Asa would reach up and touch his hand as he was working on those big construction-man muscles, his breath would quicken. It was all he could do not to wrap his arms around the man’s shoulders and start kissing his ear, or his neck, or his jaw. He started finding reasons to get Bella out of the house around lunch, so Asa could come home for a quickie. It didn’t take him long to realize that the Bryne family was in on it. Jordan must have had a sleepover a week that summer, and Bella would stay at her parents’ house those nights. One morning, she came home after dropping Jordan off at summer school and cried all over Sebastian. Her secret behind “Bella’s day off” had finally come out, and her mother, being the awesome person Sebastian knew and loved, had hugged her daughter and said she was sorry Bella had gone through that alone. Bella had said, “I wasn’t alone, Mom. You know Asa; he’s the best.” Of course he was. He was the absolute best man Sebastian had ever known. Sebastian loved him with all his heart. They’d never actually said the words, though. There were… walls. It was like they could hear the other person’s love over the wall, but neither one of them wanted to scale the wall to see the effects of the knowing.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 141 Sebastian knew how he felt, and Asa had made no bones about the fact that he wanted Sebastian to stay, but the words hadn’t been spoken. Probably, Sebastian reflected glumly, because it would hurt worse when he and Bella left if the words were there. They’d be tangible proof that Sebastian had severed something wonderful for reasons he’d mostly forgotten. A thing that was driven home to him one day as he was placing the book order at work. “Damn,” Julie said, sauntering up to him with a frozen latte, just the way he liked them. He looked up and she gave him the latte, and he closed his eyes with the wonder of it. “Damn what?” he asked, and she shrugged. “Damn, you two only have a couple more weeks here. I’m totally going to miss you!” “You’ll still bring the kids by to visit Jordan, right?” Sebastian asked anxiously, and Julie rolled her eyes. “Like my kids would let me forget to; you know they love that boy.” Sebastian sucked more latte through the straw and relaxed a little more. “Well, good,” he said softly. “I hate to think of leaving him. Hell… that kid alone is a reason to stay.” Jordan, with his dark hair and hazel eyes—and a face that would be a carbon copy of Asa’s narrow, grave profile when he grew. Hell—he could see how Asa pulled his shit together in a matter of months and relocated across the country after the destruction of his marriage. That kid alone was a reason to live. “That kid’s not the only reason you want to stay, is he?” Julie asked kindly, and Sebastian flushed.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 142 “Why—what’s Bella been saying?” He didn’t think Bella would gossip, but she and Julie had become tight this summer too. It was almost like… Sebastian didn’t think about what it was almost like, even though every time they went to dinner at the Bryne’s, Bella looked happier and happier to be home with her family. It was like those years at college, where she had bemoaned the terrible burden of domesticity, that had been her rebellion phase. That was over. She’d mothered Sebastian through some lonely years, and now she’d found her calling. And he was part if it—and he loved that—but she had more calling to her now. He was happy for her. Really. “Nothing,” Julie said, bringing him back. “But… he’s come by when we’ve been there, Sebastian. You never touch—not in front of Jordan—but… honey, I know how people look at each other when they’re in love. My husband looks at me like that every day—big fat body, wrinkles, gray hair, and all. That’s how you two look at each other. Like in twenty years, when you’re both not quite as cute, you’ll still see young hotness… like it’s forever.” Sebastian took a really big pull on his straw and swallowed hard. “I’m supposed to leave,” he said weakly. “I… it’s an opportunity I’ve worked toward for years.” Julie nodded. “Right,” she murmured, her full disapproval in the crinkles at her eyes. “And love—real love— that just opens its doors for you every day.” She walked away, leaving Sebastian to call, “Thanks for the coffee, sweetie!” to her retreating back. She lifted a hand in a “You’re welcome,” but it was clear he’d disappointed her in some way, and he wanted to bang his head against the counter. A second doctorate—really, you’d think he was

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 143 going off to mine diamonds in the far reaches of the African Congo. When did education lose its respect? When you’re using it to hide like a ferret in a hole, Sebastian. And why did his conscience sound like Bella? Now that was no goddamned fair at all, was it? But life wasn’t fair—and to prove it, Asa’s ex-wife showed up that night right after Jordan went to bed. She’d apparently called ahead, because Asa apologetically dislodged Sebastian (who had been laying on him to watch television—his accustomed place after Jordan went to bed) and stood up to answer the door like he knew who it was. He looked around the room with his hand on the doorknob and said, “If I take this into the study, is there any chance you two won’t listen in?” Sebastian looked at him blankly, and Bella equally so, and he just sighed and opened the door. Deirdre—a very different sort of Deirdre—walked in with some determination in her stride Deirdre was wearing slacks and a shirt—still very flattering, but with a sort of uniform look to it. In fact, the nametag was still on. Her shoes were practical, her hair had grown a little and was scraped into a ponytail, and she was wearing about five pounds less make-up. She flickered a glance at Bella and Sebastian, sitting stunned on the couch (Asa couldn’t have told them?) and lingered on Sebastian, her lip curling up in something that could have been either acknowledgment or derision. Asa ushered her into the study, a small room down the hallway behind the staircase on the ground floor. Bella and Sebastian looked at each other, and then Sebastian rabbited

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 144 to the small library next to the study and Bella ran to the kitchen for glasses. She came back with something even better: two big hollow tubes from Jordan’s LEGO table, and they did nicely. “Why are you here again?” Asa was always reasonable, but coming through the tube and the wall, they could almost detect a little bit of sharpness there. “I mean, Deirdre, I believe in being reasonable, but….” “I didn’t leave much room for reason when I left last time, I know.” Her voice was sharp too—but with defensiveness, not drugs. “You’re keeping the name?” Asa asked dryly. He must have been looking at the nametag. “Surprising move, Deirdre—you always hated that name.” Deirdre’s voice was low and restrained; it was hard to hear her through the wall. “I hope you’ll let me, Asa. At least until I get my shit together.” The silence through the plastic tubes was profound. “What is it you want, Dee Dee?” The silence in that room was so thick, it felt like another person. Then, apparently, Deirdre went for broke. “Asa, I want to see my son again.” Sebastian and Bella met horrified eyes, and Sebastian was on his way to barging into the other room and screaming “Oh fuck no!” when Deirdre spoke again. “I know I don’t deserve it… but I just spent sixty days in rehab, Asa, because I knew the first thirty didn’t take. I did it on my own dime; I sold everything you left me. I just got a job; it’s small. I’m a waitress. But I’ve held it for two weeks, and I have an apartment nearby—not too close, you know,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 145 because I know that could suck, but it’s down in Rocklin, and I can drive. All….” Her voice broke, and Sebastian and Bella shared a whole other expression this time. “All I want is to come to dinner once a week,” she finished with, and Sebastian pounded his forehead with his palm. Oh Jesus. This was so unprecedented. This was so… this was so not what he expected. It had been easy to dismiss Asa’s ex-wife, write her off as a first-class twunt and cut her out of Jordan’s life, when she’d been a brutal junkie. This was not that same person who had been begging for money for a fix. This was not the same woman who ran out on her son. This just wasn’t. Obviously Asa was just as shaken. “We’re not going to be a family again,” he said, or at least that’s what they thought he said. He was speaking very softly. “I know that,” Deirdre replied. “How’s that going, by the way?” They couldn’t see Asa’s expression, but it must have been shocked. “How’s what going?” he managed, and Deirdre chuffed in exasperation. “I’m not going to use it,” Deirdre said, just loud enough for Sebastian to hear. “You were right—my house is… the most brittle glass right now. No stone throwing for me, okay? I….” There was a restless sound then, like she was wandering, picking things up off of the maple-wood desk and putting them down. “I honestly wanted to know how you were,” she said quietly. There was a digestive silence on the other end. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said, the bewilderment clear.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 146 Sebastian wanted to be in there. He wanted to hold his hand and stand between Asa and the person who had hurt him most in the world. Deirdre laughed. It was a low, pleasant sound, and Sebastian got pissed off just hearing it. It was a really good laugh. “Asa, honey, you’ve never had any way of doing things but honest. He knows that. He must. He let you walk in here with me without a whimper.” Asa grunted. Sebastian and Bella met eyes and shrugged. In Asa-speak, this grunt meant, “That doesn’t mean that he’s not listening to us as we speak, along with my damned sister who has no shame.” But maybe Deirdre didn’t know his grunts like they did. “I’m trying very hard not to screw this up,” he said at last, leaving the statement ambiguous. Into the silence the statement left, the phone rang, and Bella mouthed a swearword and then turned around and hotfooted it out of the room. When Sebastian got back to the conversation, Deirdre was speaking, her words just as general as Asa’s. “You… you weren’t to blame for any of it, Asa, and I know that—at least I do now. Who… whomever you love right now, you loved me once. I killed that—and I get that. But I just want to know you’re happy.” Sebastian didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he saw spots in front of his eyes. He sucked in a breath, and another, but Asa started talking, so he took a rain check on the third. “I’d be happier if he’d stay,” came the quiet answer, and if it hadn’t meant giving away his position, Sebastian would have banged his head against the wall. “Why don’t you ask him?” Deirdre asked kindly.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 147 “Did begging you do any good, Dee Dee?” Asa’s voice was as it had always been. Kind, quiet, grave. Why did that dark, sweet bass seem to be ripping razorblades through the center of Sebastian’s chest? “I was damaged.” “Yeah—but I can’t help but think… you must have felt so trapped. If drugs were your way out, you must not have felt like there was anything better….” “That’s my fault!” Sebastian finally gave in and admitted that her laugh was more than good: it was stunning. He remembered the look on Jordan’s face as she had left the last time and figured sickly that it must have been that moment which prompted this turnaround—and that laugh, sad and self-aware—was the result. It hurt, not hating her. It really, really hurt. “It was my fault too…,” Asa was saying, but Deirdre interrupted. “No. This much I know. You offered me the world, Asa. You offered to move, you told me to take classes, you suggested careers. Feeling trapped, feeling helpless—that was all me. If you’re letting this m… an”—that hesitation was the only sign that this had been difficult for her to accept— and good for her—“if you’re letting this new relationship walk out of your house because you’re afraid of trapping him, don’t be.” “That’s only part of it,” Asa said quietly. “He’s smart, Deirdre; he’s got a whole future at his fingertips, if only he’d decide on it. I’m older. I’ve got a family. I love it. I wouldn’t change it. But if he’s not at that place in his life yet, I can’t force him to be. No matter how badly I want him to stay.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 148 Sebastian’s breath stopped again. His breath stopped and his vision blackened and he found himself reeling away from the wall, dropping the big hollow plastic tube and hanging his head between his knees. No matter how badly I want him to stay. Asa had never hidden that he wanted Sebastian to stay, but he had always seemed so accepting, so quietly resigned. That passion in his voice had been bottled up, tamped down, hidden away where it couldn’t grab Sebastian, wrap him in powerful manacles and chain him here, to this place, to this life he’d come to love. Sebastian didn’t hear Deirdre leave, and he didn’t hear Asa follow her. He knew that when Bella came in to see why he hadn’t buzzed out of the library as soon as Asa had walked his ex-wife outside, she found him sitting on the lush shag area rug, leaning his cheek against his knees. “Sebastian….” He looked up at her, knowing his face was hot and streaked with tears. “Sebastian?” she asked softly, coming to sit by him. “What’s the matter?” “It’s just another degree,” he said softly. “I mean, I’m getting another doctorate; I’m not breaking a home. I’m not… abandoning a baby. I’m not… I’m just getting another degree.” Bella’s mouth twisted up wryly, and she sat down next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. “I know.” “We had a plan.” “I know we did.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 149 “And… I mean, I’ve been in love before.” His voice started to rise hysterically, and her calm counter-voice was the only thing that kept him sane. “Not like this.” “What’s different about this?” he demanded, and he knew her answer before she said it. “You’re a grownup this time, Sebastian.” “Oh Christ.” He put his face against his knees and a fresh batch of tears washed forward and shook him on their way out. “Remember—hon, do you remember what you said, when we decided to go to Washington and just keep doing this? Do you remember?” Something new tore loose in his chest, and he had trouble answering. “I said ‘It beats the hell out of growing up.’” “Yeah.” There was a silence, and he knew what was coming. He’d known for a month. “Sebastian?” “Yeah?” “I’m ready to grow up now.” Christ. “I know you are, sweetheart.” Her voice was breaking, too, and it was completely shattered by the time she finished. “Baby?” “Don’t say it,” he begged. He knew. Oh God, he knew. But when she said it, it would be real. “I’m not coming with you,” she managed, and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer. “I know,” he managed, and that’s all they said for a while.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 150 Asa came back in and found them, sitting on the floor, looking like a bomb had gone off. He said, “Dee Dee’s coming to dinner next week. Sebastian, I’d like you to be there.” Sebastian looked up at him and saw the sympathetic tilt to his head, the quirk to his mouth, that told him that Asa knew. Asa knew what was wrong, Asa knew why he and Bella both looked like hell. Jesus. There wasn’t a thing about Sebastian that Asa didn’t know by now. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, trying to keep his voice clear. Failing. “If she’s going to be part of the big J’s holidays, I need to get to know her.” Asa walked forward, leveraged his big, broad body down on Sebastian’s other side, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, clasping hands with Bella. Suddenly, what had once been a panic-cry had turned into a group hug. “Good,” he said. He didn’t need to say the rest. A commitment to holidays—it was a step up for Sebastian. They all knew it. He was the only one who had to know it felt like a firstrate cop-out, wasn’t he?

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 151

Chapter 10 THE night before Sebastian left, Bella took Jordan to her parents so they could, according to Bella’s lame-assed excuse, wake up early to prepare a big breakfast for Sebastian before he left. “If we don’t cook Sebastian breakfast, does that mean he’ll stay?” Jordan asked plaintively, and Sebastian longed desperately for a brick to drop on his own head. It would hurt less, that was for damned sure. “No, J,” Sebastian told him kindly. “But it means I’ll remember you all mad at me before I come back for Thanksgiving, and I’d rather remember you all happy so I’m happy to come back, ’kay?” Jordan nodded bravely. “Okay.” His lower lip thrust out and quivered, and Sebastian ruffled his hair before he got into the car with Bella. “Are you sure you have to go, Sebastian?” Sebastian didn’t answer him; he just did the boy’s belt and shut the door safely and ran into the house and up to his room so Asa didn’t have to see him come unglued. He already knew he was going to cry his way to Spokane. There was just no way he was going to drive away from this family, from this man, and not feel like he left his heart back here, in this amazing house, stuck to a grappling hook and dripping pain.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 152 Asa found him there a little while later, sitting on his bed, staring sightlessly forward. Asa didn’t say anything— not a word. Just sat down next to him and wrapped that big, safe arm over Sebastian’s shoulders, letting him lean on Asa’s solid strength. “You’re coming back on Thanksgiving,” he said quietly in reassurance. “You shouldn’t wait for me.” “And Christmas.” “I said….” “And next summer.” “That’s not fair to you.” “You’re coming to this house, aren’t you?” Oh shit. Of course he was. “Yeah.” “Your last lover was a year ago, Sebastian; I don’t think you’re going to go paint the rainbow over Spokane. Were you planning to?” Oh God. Take another lover after this? Take another lover when he knew this place was here and Asa loved him? “No.” “Then I’ll be here.” “But I’m like Scotty—I’m your rebound guy!” he protested, terrified this was the truth. “Who’s Scotty?” “The rebound guy,” Sebastian thought he’d explained already. “He’s the guy you go out with to get over the guy you really cared about, so you know you can date again and it’ll all be fine. You needed to get over Deirdre, and be all gay because that was new, and you found me, and now you get to move on, because, I’m like that beautiful, flaky kid who

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 153 works at Starbucks who’s really nice and everything but you need someone a little more solid in your life. So I was good for a summer, but not for forever because I’m going to Godknows-where and I’ve got to be a certified asshole to just ditch you, kid and sister and all, and why would you want to wait for me….” “Shhh….” Sebastian had known the kiss was coming, but he hadn’t expected it to be devastatingly hungry. His words all scattered, and he opened his mouth in complete submission, for once, to someone who knew better. He would just have to trust, he thought muzzily. Asa’s mouth kept moving on his and Asa’s hands were under his shirt and they felt so good on his tender stomach, the soft skin of his chest, his buzzing nipples, and he would just have to trust their bodies, bare and naked and moving together when every tickle of nerve endings was highest sorcery. Sebastian would have to trust that Asa meant it. That, for a while, at least, it was not goodbye. That this wonderful, fabulous offer would still stand, until Sebastian figured out what in the fuck he was doing with his life. The morning came much too soon, and Sebastian lay still in Asa’s arms as the sun peeked through a morning sky of such a thick blue it could almost be cut like frosting. His body was… was used. There had been nothing between them the night before except goodbye. Asa’s spend was sticky between his backside and on his thighs, and Asa’s smell—his kisses, his touch, the faint, spicy smell of his soap, and the dark, sharp smell of his come—was written all over Sebastian’s body. Every nook, cranny, and orifice of Sebastian had been claimed.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 154 No. He was not going to paint the rainbow over Spokane. His skin had been marked with the smell of his lover, and he was not going to shake that—not in a month, or two, or four. Not in a year. Maybe not even in forever, if only he’d believe. He turned in Asa’s arms and found that Asa was awake, too, just looking at him. For a moment, Sebastian ran delicate fingertips over Asa’s oval face with the square jaw. In the sunlight, he could see the fine lines in the corner of Asa’s ocean blue eyes, and the grooves that worked their way into a man’s mouth when he held it at grave attention more often than not. Sebastian swallowed hard. “What are you thinking?” Asa asked, his voice rumbling through his chest, and, therefore, through Sebastian’s. “I’m thinking that you need someone in your life that can make these smile lines.” “I already do. He just needs to come home for break.” Breakfast was a depressing affair. All of the Brynes turned out, and while the adults were cheerful and hellbent on wishing Sebastian good fortune in his studies, the children clung to him like they would to a favorite teddy bear or a pet, and he gave them hugs and reassurance that it would only be until Thanksgiving, and that he’d definitely be there for Christmas and it was nothing to cry about, really, sweetie—Sebastian wasn’t going forever. Where was that brick again? Jordan hung back from the maddening throng of the other kids, clinging to his father’s hand throughout most of the breakfast. The two of them disappeared while the adults

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 155 were lingering over coffee, and Brenda blew off Sebastian’s offer to help with a quick nod of her chin. “Go talk to them,” she murmured. “If you think Asa’s not breaking his heart right now, you haven’t been paying attention.” Sebastian blushed. “Uhm, I’m nothing to….” “Don’t lie to me, boy.” Her face was kind. “My son has never lied to me—and until this moment, you’ve never thought of it, have you?” That blush got worse. “I’m going to miss him so bad,” he said, voicing what everybody knew but he hadn’t yet said. Brenda put her arm around his waist and kissed his cheek. “We’ll miss you too. Now go say goodbye so you can come back, okay?” Sebastian nodded. “Yes ma’am.” And then she used her thumbs to wipe his cheeks. “Don’t do that, sweetheart, or you’ll never get that tiny car to Spokane, okay?” The farewell to Asa was… well, he had spent the entire summer learning to listen. He had learned to sit quietly through Asa’s thoughtful silences and Jordan’s absorbed ones. He had learned that sometimes, watching someone work or standing beside them, looking at stars or at bugs or at a sunset, was far more communicative than the eternal babble that sprung from his own wayward tongue. These were big lessons, and as he walked up to Jordan and Asa, he thought that they had not only taught him how to listen to the silences in his own heart, but how to keep going when it was screaming.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 156 Jordan lay on his stomach across a rock to look in a crevice, and Asa sat on the rock next to him. As Sebastian approached, Asa met his eyes and rubbed a big, comforting hand on his son’s back. After a few moments of quiet, Sebastian said, “What did you find, Big J?” “A lizard. Lizards are cold-blooded and humans are warm-blooded.” “Oh,” said Sebastian, knowing what came next. Jordan raised his head, his messy dark hair a riot around his face and his hazel eyes intent. “Say it!” “Absolutely. Lizards are cold-blooded and humans are warm-blooded,” he repeated, and Jordan nodded his head. “Humans are warm-blooded. That’s why their hearts break,” he said gravely, and Sebastian’s eyes widened. Jordan had drawn him pictures in the past few weeks. They always featured Jordan as a square and a hole in the ground that was also square, with a deceased butterfly in the hole. There was always a broken heart inside Jordan’s square. Jordan knew what a broken heart meant. “Yeah,” Sebastian said, sitting near his feet. “But they’re also good at mending, okay, Jordan?” Jordan leveled him an unfriendly look and Asa shot Sebastian a grimace over the kid’s head. He was a very singular child—he needed to be heard. “Only if you come back,” Jordan said. “And then never leave again.” Sebastian cringed. They’d tried to explain the idea of “Thanksgiving break” and “Christmas break,” but Jordan

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 157 had drawn a line in the sand. The only way Sebastian could leave now is if he never left again. “Jordan,” he said now, not able to face that discussion again, “will it help if you know my heart never leaves? You’re sort of in charge of it now, okay? You can keep it for me when I have to go, and I’ll get it back when I come back, how’s that?” It was stupid. It was stupid and romantic, and it was a promise—something he had studiously avoided making. Until this exact moment. “Sebastian…” Asa said, a little sharply. It was a promise; they both knew the reason that Sebastian had avoided committing to anything beyond visiting during the holidays had been so he didn’t hurt Jordan. “I mean it,” Sebastian said a little desperately. “I mean it, okay? It’s a promise. I’ll be back, and he can give me my heart back, okay?” Sebastian looked up at him, everything they’d avoided saying absolutely clear in his eyes. “It’s a promise. I’ll be back.” Asa sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though realizing that he was agreeing to something that might cause him pain. “You’ll always have a home with us, you know that, right?” Sebastian nodded. “I’ll take you up on that. I promise.” He was both surprised and appalled when Asa stood from the rock and wrapped his arms around Sebastian’s shoulders, drawing him into his chest in what was not a platonic hug. Right there. In front of Jordan. “I’m holding you to that,” Asa said, and Sebastian gave it up and melted into him. Okay. It was a commitment. He

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 158 was coming back. He wouldn’t betray that moment for anything.

AN HOUR later, he was packed up in the VW with the tiny UHaul trailer hitched to the back and trying very hard not to cry through three states. He only partially succeeded. He managed not to cry on the winding part of the road in the Sierras, which was good because he probably would have killed himself, and he managed to make his way past Reno and through northern Nevada. He must have turned to the seat next to him six times during that part of the trip in order to ask Bella if he was doing the right thing. When she wasn’t there, he thought about the way Asa had held him the night before and told him that it was okay; he and Bella would always be tight, they wouldn’t just fade out of each other’s lives the way some college friends did. By the time he pulled up in front of the hotel room he’d planned as a halfway point, he was not only exhausted, he was pretty sure he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. By the time he pulled up in front of the tiny off-campus apartment he and Bella had pre-rented, he was absolutely sure of it. The hotel room had been one thing; he’d expected it to be sterile, and he’d texted Bella when he got there. Green polyester paisley. Oh the horror.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 159 Bella must have handed her phone to her brother, because Asa texted back. Did you know the paisley design came from India but got its name from Scotland?--A He’d giggled through his tears then, remembering the moment, and texted: Stop me. Stop me now. No, baby. Stop yourself. Does it count if I say it in text? Not if you don’t say it out loud first. I love you. Even out loud. His phone had buzzed then, and Asa’s voice on the other end said, “I love you too. You couldn’t have said it here?” “I wouldn’t have been able to leave.” “I’ll remember that during Christmas break.” “You do that. Tell Jordan I’ll have the laptop set up tomorrow and we can face to face before bed.” They talked some more then, about the trip (pretty country, winding roads, only a couple hours of driving in the morning), and then said goodnight. Sebastian said, “I love you,” before signing off, and wondered why the words had been so hard face to face. They were such a part of him now. But that was the hotel room. Hotel rooms were, by nature, transitory, even the shitty parts. An apartment…. Oh God. This apartment. It was exactly like his and Bella’s last apartment, down to the cracked mirror and the miniscule shower and the crappy green carpeting.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 160 It had been one thing to live in a place like this with Bella to make it bearable, but he’d just left a wonderful home and a man who apparently adored him enough to set him free, and for this? And why was that, Sebastian? Can we look at why again? Because this was the only university on this side of the country that didn’t laugh his thesis out of the hallowed halls of higher education. And what was he planning to do with that doctorate? Do we remember? Oh yes… there’s the answer: not a goddamned thing. Fact was, he could have written his dissertation as a crackpot book, found a publisher, and done the whole thing on his own. The same number of people would read it and laugh at it, and he could have slept in the big king-size bed every goddamned night instead of the tiny twin-sized student cot that left his toes dangling over the edge. And, more importantly, he could have slept with Asa. He unpacked with persistence rather than eagerness and returned the U-Haul in time to go get himself a salad for dinner. He hated salad. Bella used to know how to make healthy stuff; she could make a grilled chicken sandwich on a hotplate. It was some testament to his state of mind, though, that realizing that he was not only alone, but alone without any cooking skills whatsoever, was the last of his worries. He set up the laptop and found himself face to face with Jordan, staring stonily back at him, and manned up to the worst of them. “Still mad at me, huh Big J?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 161 “I start school next week. I wanted you at home when I started school. How am I supposed to tell you about school when you’re not here?” Sebastian sighed. “Well, I’ll tell you what. You have your dad tell me what time you’ll be home, and we’ll talk just like this, okay?” Jordan nodded, and his lip quivered. “But we’re having dinner with Mom tomorrow. I liked it when you were here the last time. It meant Dad had a place where Mom was supposed to go.” Oh Christ. This was why people avoided children at all costs. Sebastian had been there when Deirdre had eaten with them. She’d been quiet and soft-spoken and charming; in short, everything Sebastian was not. Jordan had sat stonily next to Sebastian as they’d watched cartoons after dinner and ate dessert, and had asked for Sebastian’s company exclusively to tuck him in. Asa had rolled his eyes and said that was fine, and Deirdre had waited until Sebastian got down to the bottom of the stairs before she said—politely—what she was really thinking. “Is it really wise to let him get so attached to you when you’re leaving?” Sebastian had blushed, looked miserably at Asa and said, “I’m coming back. It’s school, not prison.” Deirdre’s lips had quirked reluctantly. “Yeah, Sebastian—but my kid is already stuck with me for a mother. I’d like to know his other mother is going to be a little more regular than I am.” “I’ll be here, Deirdre,” Bella had said. Bella hadn’t tried to make nice with the other woman; her silence would have frozen pickles. Sebastian hadn’t heard that much ice tinkling

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 162 since one of her dates had cracked a gay-pride joke. “Between me and Sebastian, we’ll be like June Cleaver—but Sebastian can wear the pearls.” “Can I vacuum in them?” Sebastian asked, and Bella grinned cheekily at him. “Only if you wear the high heels!” “I’d pay to see that,” Asa said, and Sebastian smirked at him gratefully. Even Deirdre’s mouth curved reluctantly. “Look,” she’d said after a moment. “Don’t get me wrong. I like you, Sebastian. I like this whole set up. I’m the last person who should get hung up on appearances or technicalities. But it’s my kid, and you’re about to break his heart.” Sebastian had sighed then and said, “Well, consider the favor returned,” and then flopped on the couch. He hadn’t had anything else to say. He didn’t have anything to say now. And then Asa stepped up and saved him, and Sebastian thought bitterly that he didn’t deserve it. “Come on, Jordan. Let’s leave Sebastian alone. He feels bad enough already.” Jordan sighed and let Asa sit down in front of the computer so he could look at the monitor himself. “You made it,” he observed, that faint, grave smile on his face, and Sebastian nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t now how long I’ll live on McSalads. Man, you need to tell Bella that I never thanked her enough for cooking, because I just realized I’m going to be living on tinned soup for a year, and what sort of diet is that for a grown man?” “It’s not,” Asa replied, his mouth quirking.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 163 “And this shower—Asa, this shower is barely big enough for Jordan, and I think something is growing in it that was not made on this planet. I’ve never seen mold that color, sweartodog—and it’s not just funky colored, it’s got texture, it’s like the gods got busy with a palette knife made of yuck and just smeared it on the damned cubicle. I bought some of that wonder cleaner you have and sprayed the whole thing down, but you may want to give me a Silkwood shower or something when I come back because I’ll probably catch something just from breathing the same air….” “I get it,” Asa said. His eyes were focused on the computer monitor hungrily as he listened to Sebastian prattle, and his mouth stayed quirked on the side. “It’s not ever going to fit the two of us, is it?” “No,” Sebastian said hollowly, silenced with that. “No.” Asa’s shower could have stood four, but all Sebastian cared about was that it fit him and Asa. It was a masterwork in glass and non-skid royal blue tile, with big chrome bars at every corner. One third of the cubicle was the glass door, and there was even a little plastic bench to sit on and still revel in the spray coming from the three showerheads. All of which had come in handy and then been completely forgotten the day they’d both snuck away from work for a quickie and ended up with Sebastian clinging to the chrome bars, his face plastered against the blue tile, riding three of Asa’s fingers in his ass while he begged for more. Asa’s whole body, chest, thighs, groin, and cock, had been smashed slickly against Sebastian’s back, and he’d lowered his mouth to Sebastian’s ear and spoke harshly against the sound of the spray.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 164 “Come on, Sebastian. Tell me what you want. I’m just a little ol’ man-virgin, right? I wouldn’t possibly know what an experienced cocksman like yourself would need.” “Aw, Asa, fuck you,” Sebastian whined. He knew he was being teased, but Asa had tormented him through the whole shower—teasing touches to the chest, the nipples, his cock. Sebastian had finally gotten impatient and leaned back against the wall, taken himself in hand and said, “Here’s a refresher course, man-virgin, just in case you forgot!” And Asa had whirled him around, laughing throatily, and that’s how Sebastian had ended up begging shamelessly, his words muffled by his hair and the blue tile. “Fuck me?” Asa chuckled, shoving his cock harder against Sebastian’s hip and his fingers farther up into Sebastian’s willing, dilated body. “Fuck me? I’m pretty sure I’ll get off today, buddy… but that’s not what you’re worried about, is it?” He wiggled his fingers then, and grunted happily when Sebastian whimpered. Then he reached around, his hand good and soapy from the bath sponge he was still holding and wrapped the hand—sponge and all—around Sebastian’s swollen, aching, rampant cock. Sebastian’s groan echoed—probably beyond the shower. It probably resounded off the damned ceiling in the living room, and he hadn’t given a shit because, oh boy oh boy oh boy oh shit! Did that feel fucking wonderful! The texture of the sponge, the firm grip, the slickness of the soap… all of it…. Sebastian had shivered and moaned, and Asa had worked the fingers in his backside and the hand around his cock and he’d moaned some more.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 165 But Asa—strong, silent, grave Asa—was not as unaffected as he seemed. His voice cracked breathlessly as he hissed in Sebastian’s ear. “Come on, baby… come on and tell me what you want… say the words, Sebastian… you’re… ah God… you’re so good with the words….” It was the crack in Asa’s voice that had done it. Sebastian wouldn’t have trusted him enough to beg if he hadn’t thought Asa had wanted Sebastian as much as Sebastian wanted him. “Oh please, Asa. Please please please please… fuck me… oh please… just… just… ahheeeeehhaaaahhhhh….” Asa’s cock was so thick, the head so broad and flat, and Sebastian felt the whole smooth, flat, plum-sized head glide tightly through the ring of his flesh and pop inside his body, until Sebastian was clenching down on that thick, veiny shaft and begging some more. Asa had been happy to oblige. He’d put one hand on the chrome bar to his side and one hand on Sebastian’s cock, squeezing, stroking, slicking like silk, and he’d thrown his hips into it, back and forth, driving, penetrating, slamming into Sebastian with force and passion, until Sebastian had screamed against the tile and come, collapsing in a heap of sobbing breath and euphoria, right into Asa’s arms. Asa had fucked him until the water had run cold, and then he’d howled release into Sebastian’s shoulder and shuddered orgasm into Sebastian’s stretched, sore, happy ass. That entire moment, that entire giddy afternoon, flickered between them, as they sat and stared helplessly at the computer monitor, hungry for each other’s faces.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 166 Jordan whimpered on his father’s lap, and Asa said, “I love you.” “I love you too,” Sebastian answered him, glad to finally get the words out. Asa smiled his slight smile, and Sebastian both loved and damned that expression because he wasn’t always sure what it meant. Mostly, he was sure that Asa’s emotions ran far under the surface, and that smile was like the tiny flashing of a black fin that did no justice at all to the giant beastie underneath the indigo water. And in a moment, even that tip-of-the-iceberg smile was gone. Asa said goodnight so he could take Jordan up to bed, and Sebastian flopped his head forward on the table next to the laptop. Bella appeared, gave him an unimpressed expression down her perfect nose, and flipped her white-blonde braid over her shoulder. “Why the dead fish impression, baby?” Sebastian answered her by gaping his mouth open and shut, because he knew it would make her laugh. She obliged and then looked behind him on her monitor. “Oh my God—is that our old apartment? Are you sure you’re not in Davis?” “Am I getting laid tonight?” he asked sharply, and she said, “You’d better not be!” “Then I’m definitely not in Davis,” he responded with a scowl. She laughed, in a gratified sort of way, and asked him what was on the menu for tomorrow. It was easy talking to Bella like this, he thought wretchedly. This was how they talked. He missed cuddling on the couch with her, but this banter, this back and forth; it was the language that defined them.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 167 His language with Asa had been punctuated by silences and defined by touch. Asa had listened under his words and heard his heart. Bella did too—but Asa had been the one to hold that rambling, prattling, word-riddled heart in his hands and gentle it and give it peace. The thought pestered him when he finished talking with Bella and folded his laptop up for the night. The most exciting summer of his life, and it had been all about finding peace. He’d left it for more exciting prospects, supposedly, right? Why was it that all he could think about as he dangled his feet off his little student cot and gazed suspiciously into the bathroom, was that his heart was wailing with chaos and he’d never been so bored with his own breathing?

BELLA had asked him what was on the menu for the next day, and he’d told her: he was meeting his supervising professor. Dr. Schlesinger was a middle-aged, round woman, with hair that was halfway between brown and gray, crooked glasses, and the abstracted air of a woman whose mind was never in the same room with her body. She’d greeted Sebastian enthusiastically, been sorry that Bella had not been able to accompany him (she’d heard good things about Ms. Bryne), and was curious as to why Sebastian would have left his family to come pursue this rather thankless branch of study. “Because I’m nuttier than a rabid squirrel,” he’d said. He’d been so glum and disgusted with himself that the professor hadn’t even been able to laugh.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 168 “Well, sweetie, if you find a cure for squirrel-rabies, let me know. Two ex-husbands and kids who won’t speak to me--I’m telling you, obsessions are a tough thing to live with.” Until that moment, she had reminded him a little bit of Julie. He was absurdly disappointed that she was another sort of person altogether. So he met his supervising professor, the other grad students he was teamed with to research, and his general manager at the bookstore (who was yet another tool. Seriously, was there any chance of someone with intelligence and a sense of humor taking that job? Ever?). By the end of the day, he had a firm toehold in his new, temporary life, and although it should have looked like he was climbing the same cliff, it didn’t. This cliff was colder. It was like comparing the cliffs in Cabo with the cliffs of Puget Sound or Newfoundland. It just wasn’t the same. As he was eating dinner in a diner (he’d had to get a rec from a fellow grad student), he got a text from Bella. Guess what? Freddie Mercury came back as a zombie and ate Sarah Palin’s brain. You wish! Well don’t you? I’ll wish for zombies later. Right now I’ve got a line on a real job. What’s a real job?

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 169 A docent to a gallery in Grass Valley. I can buy and sell and, you know, look alluring and wear grown-up clothes and shit. You sound excited. You sound jealous. Shut up, bitch, I’m eating my chicken Caesar. The bookstore wasn’t fun without you. Tell me about it. I couldn’t just work there and wait for you to come home. I’m happy for you, sweets, I really am. It was just proof of one more way time really didn’t stop. Asa would come home and not get his shoulder rub, Jordan would start his first day of school, Sebastian wouldn’t be there, and he would miss the whole show because rabid squirrels had been in fashion last September, when he and Bella had first conceived this idea, and now they were just plain nuts.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 170

Chapter 11 HE

LIKED to tell himself that he would have come to his

senses eventually. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to go back after Thanksgiving break, at any rate. As it was, the thing that woke him up and showed him what a complete ass he was being was actually quite small. Tiny in fact. Microscopic. About the size of a virus. The varicella zoster virus, specifically. Jordan had eventually settled into his new routine for “Sebastian time.” He wasn’t happy about it, but he’d learned to take advantage of their half-hour on the computer. He’d started to come equipped with props: the drawings he’d done at school, a story to read to Sebastian, a new bug in his collection. (He’d branched out to lizards now. Asa was hopeful that by Christmas he’d be all excited about mammals and they could get a puppy. Jordan had been afraid a dog would smash the bugs, which was what had been holding him back during the summer.) At any rate, between Jordan and the quiet recap of Asa’s day, Sebastian had started looking forward to his phone calls home with some zeal; on this night, he’d left his fellow grad students swilling beer to make his scheduled time. “Hey, Sebastian—hang out a bit!” Anthony was a skinny kid, not quite Sebastian’s age, who had developed crush-atfirst-sight when they’d been introduced. Poor guy—Sebastian

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 171 wasn’t even sure the kid knew he was gay, but Sebastian had spotted the symptoms right away. Anthony had dark hair, dark eyes, and a square, handsome cut to his jaw. For a moment Sebastian toyed with the possibility of cutting all ties with Bella’s family and becoming Spokane’s newest virgin killer. The idea really held no appeal at all. “Naw,” he’d said, smiling. “I’ve got a laptop rendezvous with my boyfriend’s kid. Jordan gets upset when I’m late.” Anthony blinked. “Is Jordan the boyfriend or the kid?” “The kid. Asa is the boyfriend. Sorry bout the beer— gotta go!” And like that he was puttering from the pub to his crappy apartment, looking forward to this convo like he hadn’t looked forward to interviewing artisans all day. (Spokane—in fact, much of the smaller towns in Washington—was rife with them. They made a nice background of first-person accounts for his dissertation.) But when he flipped open his laptop and logged in, Jordan was tired and fractious. “You’re not here,” he kept saying. “And I want to be a lizard. Lizards are cold-blooded, not warm-blooded.” “But I’m not a lizard, Jordan. I’m warm-blooded.” “You can’t be warm-blooded!” Jordan sulked. “You don’t have a heart!” “Jordan!” Bella said from his side, shocked. “Ohmigod, baby—that was harsh!” But Sebastian was more upset by Jordan’s appearance than by what he’d just said. “Bella-love, do me a favor and touch his forehead, would you? I’ve been playing with the contrast on this thing since he’s been on, and he looks really flushed!”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 172 Bella’s hand came into view, cupping Jordan’s forehead. “Ouch!” The boy shivered. “Bella, that’s cold.” “Oh crap. Asa!” Bella looked into the monitor after calling for her brother. “Sebastian, I’ll get back to you, okay?” Bella stood up, leaving a miserable Jordan staring at the computer. “I’m sorry, Sebastian.” “That’s okay, baby—you’re not feeling well.” Suddenly the kid looked really uncomfortable, his face screwing into a grimace and his eyes squinching shut, and his entire body shuddering, and…. Oh Christ. Sebastian closed his eyes for the finale, and then closed his laptop. Odds were good Asa was going to have to buy a new laptop on his end anyway. For all the spiffy Dad-ways Asa had of cleaning shit up, Sebastian was pretty sure there wasn’t a spray-bottle in the world that would get that out of a computer. An hour later, he got a text from Asa. Temp of 103. Doc says dose him up and hang on. Chicken pox is going around and the vaccine doesn’t always work. Sebastian cringed. Oh geez—poor J—poor little goombah. Chicken pox? How badly did that suck? He went to sleep that night picturing the little guy, sick for two weeks, without Sebastian to make him bugs and make him laugh. That wasn’t right. Asa was quiet and grave and sweet, but Sebastian could make him smile like no one else, not even Aunt Bella. Jesus. Could this get any worse? The next day he got a text from Bella. It’s chicken pox. Got it from Julie’s kids. Asa’s got it too. Oh fuck. That’s worse in grownups!

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 173 No shit. He’s got a fever of 104. Mom’s here. Gotta go. Chicken pox? The fucking chicken pox? Chicken pox could kill—grownups, kids… it didn’t matter. It probably wasn’t fatal. He tried to calm himself down. It happened, sure—but not that often. This wasn’t really life or death, right? They’d recover. They’d get to tell stories, family stories, of the time dad and son came down with the pox and didn’t that suck and Sebastian wouldn’t be the meanie who was away at college for some dumbshit idea when the love of his life and the kid he’d never replace died of varicella zoster, right? The thought made him hyperventilate, and when he’d cleared the black spots from his eyes with the judicious use of oxygen in the lungs, he had a moment of total and complete clarity. It didn’t matter. Just didn’t. It didn’t matter if they had a cold or an allergy or if Jordan’s pet bug died or if he found a lizard and wanted to set it loose in the kitchen or if Asa came home from a really bad day and needed someone to rub his feet or his shoulders or make his drink or just give him a hug, it didn’t matter. Didn’t. Fucking. Matter. Sebastian wanted to be there. He wanted to be there more than anything in the world. He got on the computer and in one hour, he’d secured his plane ticket, transferred his job back to Auburn, and given his regrets to Dr. Two-ex-husbands-no-happy-kids Schlesinger. Ten hours later, he left his car in long-term parking, took his laptop and his ten favorite T-shirts and three favorite pairs of jeans, and got on the plane from Spokane. He even remembered socks and underwear.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 174 Two hours after that, he was at Sac International, looking for a cab and hoping he had enough money in his account to pay the outrageous cab fare this was going to cost him. He did. In another two hours, he was home. He still had his key from the summer, and Bella was asleep sitting up on the couch in the lamplight. She heard the door open and saw him come in out of the still-warm summer dark, and launched herself into his arms like a jetpropelled-body-rocket. “What are you doing here?” she demanded in the middle of a rib-cracking hug. She looked like shit: her hair was falling out of its braid, she was wearing an old T-shirt and pajama pants, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in two nights. “It’s my home, heifer! Where should I be?” She laughed against him and grabbed his suitcase. “They’re upstairs—Jordan’s asleep—but wake him up anyway, he’s been asking for you. Asa’s….” She grimaced. “Asa’s hella sick, baby. He’s in and out and weird… he keeps asking for you, Sebastian, and he always forgets you’re not here….” Her voice trailed off and she brightened. “Except you are here! Sebastian’s here, and you’ll make everything better!” Her voice broke a little. His self-confident Bella sounded suddenly young and lost and needy. She hadn’t sounded this bad when she’d confessed to her misspent youth. In his memory, she had never sounded lost. “You’re going to stay, right?”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 175 All summer long he’d been wishing for a brick with which to whap himself upside the head. God finally dropped one from heaven, and it nearly smacked him senseless. He was needed. Asa, Bella, Jordan—he’d thought the whole time that he had needed them, and it terrified him. If he needed them, he was vulnerable to them—oh the horror! He needed to be self-sufficient, able to live on his own like a grownup, but that wasn’t true, was it? It was two ways, wasn’t it? “Stay? Are you kidding? I have to—I just dropped out of school and gave up my lease.” She dropped the suitcase this time to cling to him and cry. Eventually she picked it up again and grabbed his hand, hauling him toward the stairs. “Jordan’s room first,” she said decisively. “Give him a hug, tell him you’re staying; he’ll sleep better. Where do you want your bags?” “In Asa’s room,” he said decisively, and she paused on the staircase to grin tiredly. “Good.” Jordan was sleepy, like she said, but he wrapped his skinny little arms around Sebastian’s neck so tight he almost left bruises. “You’re here… you’re here, and it’s not Thanksgiving!” “You feel icky, Big J—where else am I going to be?” Jordan leaned back into the bed smiling, his big hazel eyes lighting up and then growing hooded and sleepy, just that fast. “Are you going away again when I’m better? Because I can be sick for a long time.” Yup. Still a little conman in his Big J.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 176 “Nope—I’m gonna be here as long as your Dad wants me. That means you’ve got to get better soon so you can go back to school!” Jordan’s eyes were closed but his smile was very satisfied. “He missed you a lot. You’re going to be here forever.” He was still feverish, so no spots yet, but that didn’t stop him from reaching tiredly to scratch at something on his arm. Sebastian stopped the scratching with a gentle hand, then laughed softly and kissed his (still warm) forehead. “That’s the plan, little man.” He left Jordan sleeping as he slipped out of Jordan’s bedroom and into Asa’s. Bella stopped him on her way out, thrusting a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water into his hand. “Make him swallow this,” she murmured. “Right now he’s giving me shit about it and he’s burning like a fucking furnace.” Sebastian smirked and tried to make her laugh. “Baby, the day I can’t get a man to swallow is the day I turn in my gay card.” She did laugh, just for him, and he kissed her cheek. “Go to bed, Bella-love—my shift, okay? You look like shit; it’s time for the bench to take the field.” Bella rolled her eyes and gave him a push toward her brother’s room. “Then go—that benchwarmer’s ass is only getting flatter!” Sebastian eyed the bedroom warily when he walked in. The once orderly, tranquil space was now a disaster. The hamper was full—bedding and clothes were stuffed into it and bulging out, and given the smell, he assumed they were soaked with sweat. There were about a thousand water

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 177 bottles lined up on the headboard and the sink by the bathroom, and the end tables, as well as cloths that had once been wet but had since dried draped on all of the spaces left over. Poor Bella—she had been overwhelmed, hadn’t she? His suitcase and carry-on were there on his side of the bed—the side away from the alarm clock. Or, it used to be his side of the bed. Right now it was occupied by six-feet, five-inches of massy, muscled male, wearing sleep shorts and a white T-shirt. No spots as of yet—but they were coming. Bella had texted him details when he’d been on the plane (not that she’d known that was where he’d been when she texted). Julie’s youngest had brought this plague upon both their houses, and she’d coughed directly into Asa’s face as he’d bent to give her a glass of water. She’d cleared up the last of the spots on the day Asa and Jordan had developed the fever. Sebastian had thought bitterly that this was yet another thing he had missed by not being there. If he’d been there, at least he would not have been so surprised when it happened. But then, looking at Asa’s room left no space for bitterness, now did it? Asa’s big, muscular, safe body was wrapped his arms securely around Sebastian’s pillow—the one with the rainbow flag pillowcase, the one concession Sebastian had made to moving in. Sebastian’s heart broke just a little as he watched Asa snuggle his cheek into that pillow like a kid squishing a teddy bear. “Here,” he said softly, bumping Asa’s knees with his hand. “Scoot over, big guy, and you can hug the real me.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 178 “Sebastian?” Asa turned his head and squinted into Sebastian’s face with that same befuddled, dear look of Bella’s initial sketch. Bella had known her brother, even then when she hadn’t thought so. Here he was, all power and patience and steady, steady love—and just enough earnestness to be surprised when someone like his dumbshit lover didn’t know how to take all that good shit in one pretty package. Sebastian placed a gentle kiss on his lover’s forehead. “Hey, baby. How you doing?” Asa grunted. “I feel like shit. Why’d you come back?” “Because you feel like shit.” “I’ll be fine.” Asa rolled forward and hunched a shoulder protectively, like he was curling away from pain. “Don’t give a crap,” Sebastian told him, rubbing a soft hand on the back of that shoulder, thinking he had some oatmeal soap that might help Asa deal with the itching that would happen in a couple of days. “Don’t you have a future?” Asa asked, and Sebastian had to smile. It took the chicken pox to bring it out, but apparently he had a little bit of asshole in him. Well, good. Sebastian had some flake and some snark and some neurosis. If it took a little bit of asshole to deal with all that, then they were well matched. “Sure I do, big guy—and right now, he’s overdue for some fever drugs and hogging my pillow.” Asa grunted. “It’s hard to be mad at you when you talk pretty,” he said sourly, and Sebastian grunted back. “Wait until I force your mouth open like a sick cat and shove ibuprofen down your gullet— you’ll find it plenty easy to hate me then.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 179 A shadow of that faint smile dusted Asa’s lips. “Yup. Sweet talk—gets me every time.” He was stalling. “Asa, I love you, but if you don’t take your medicine, I’ll wait until you’re asleep and shove it up your ass. It’s your call, but so far you haven’t bottomed. I think that would be a lousy way to start.” Asa’s shoulder shook in spite of his exhaustion. “Okay, fine—but I can see why that doctor thing is only a pretty piece of paper for you.” Sebastian gave him the medicine and watched as he downed three tablets and pretty much the entire glass of water. Sebastian took the glass from Asa and scooted him to the middle of the bed so Sebastian could sit up and lean back against the headboard and talk to him. “Was that so hard? Really? Jesus, why are you such a baby about it?” Asa made a child’s sound. “Rips up my stomach. I’ll crap blood for a week.” Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “That was an unexpected answer.” “I’m old, Sebastian.” Asa’s eyes were closed as he spoke, and he leaned unconsciously into Sebastian’s hand, which was stroking through the hair at his temple. “I’m old and I have complications. Why do you think I let you go?” Sebastian grunted, and kept stroking his hair. Asa’s hair needed washing—and brushing—and Sebastian could see the occasional silver or wiry black strand in the mess of it as he smoothed it back from Asa’s face.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 180 “That’s why you let me go? I thought at first it was because you didn’t need me, but I can see I wasn’t the only dumbshit in the bag of diapers, was I?” Asa lifted his head to Sebastian’s lap, wrapped limp arms around his waist, and burrowed that uncomfortably hot body into his hip. “Of course I need you,” he grumbled. “I just got used to living without, that’s all. Figured, you needed to go finish your education, I could live without you until you were done. Didn’t mean I didn’t need you—or at least the hope of you.” That grip around Sebastian’s waist tightened, and Sebastian leaned over and placed a kiss on that great leonine head. “I need you too. The real you. Even hot and sweaty and sick and old and crapping blood. Now get some sleep and build up your strength, because when you get better, I’m going to have to hit you up for the cash to bail my car out of long-term parking at Spokane International airport, and the shock alone is going to knock you on your ass.” Asa let out some little puffs of air that might have been a laugh, and then he followed orders and fell immediately asleep. Sebastian had actually had one hell of a day himself, and he dozed off sitting up in bed, his arms wrapped around the big baby with the chicken pox who also happened to be the love of his life. The next four days were a blur of tending to the two sick Bryne men. Jordan was needy and Asa was fractious and both of them needed medicine and cold cloths and basic tending. Sebastian got there and took over his share of it— and for all that he thought of himself as a selfish creature, Bella told him later that he was a pretty damned awesome nursemaid.

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 181 Sebastian rolled blood-shot eyes at her; she would say something like this at four in the morning after they’d changed Jordan’s bedding for the third time that day. “I’m no better at it than you are, heifer. We just love them, so we stretch our skill set.” Bella had to laugh at that—but not loudly. She was as tired as he was. Finally—finally—they got to a place where Asa and Jordan could sit up in bed and watch television together. Of course, it was about the time the first lesions appeared, and that made them both itchy, irritable, and genuinely unpleasant, but Sebastian was so relieved they were going to be okay that he actually tolerated their unpleasantness with limited bitchiness in return. Besides, their recovering patient nastiness gave him a chance to ditch them in front of the TV in Asa’s room while he settled down to clear up some loose ends. Except just as he sat down to make the plane reservation to go back and get his stuff, the door opened, and Brenda and Bjorn Bryne walked in. When Sebastian had arrived, they’d stayed away at Bella’s request—nobody wanted the elder Brynes to get sick, no matter how small the risk. But they’d stopped by once about two days before for a hasty conversation with Bella and to drop off some chicken soup that Sebastian had appreciated even if Asa and Jordan hadn’t been up to eating it. Now they walked in looking very proud of themselves— and very tired as well. Asa’s dad had spent his youth tall, but had developed a small stoop in recent years. That didn’t stop him from giving off an impression of hearty and hale senior-ness, just like his wife gave off elegant and self-

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 182 contained womanhood. Sebastian noticed for the first time that his hair had gone both black and gray as he’d aged— just like Asa’s—and, of course, he had the Bryne ocean blue eyes. They had his car keys, which went with his car and all of his stuff in the back of another tiny U-haul trailer that was sitting in the driveway. “Omigod!” Sebastian was flummoxed. He walked dazedly into Brenda’s hug and shook hands with Bjorn, feeling like he’d won the lottery. He had dreaded the trip back to Spokane. “You did that for me?” “Well yeah,” Bjorn said, smiling. “You’re family.” He had crinkles at the corners of his eyes just like Asa too. Sebastian had never known what the man had thought about his relationship with Bjorn’s son; he was always the quiet observer at family meetings. Apparently, what he observed hadn’t sent him screaming for the nearest fundamentalist church, Sebastian thought with some relief, and he fought everything in him not to throw himself into the guy’s arms and cry like a little kid. “Thank you,” he said, choking up a little. He took the keys and tucked them into his pocket and gave them both a bleary smile. “It would have about killed me to go back there, even for a day.” Brenda smiled and patted his cheek a little, and he managed to get his shit together, even if he had to use both hands. “What can I say, sweetheart—you were the one doing the hard part. We just took a trip.” And with that she yawned and stretched and looked apologetically at Bella, who had been sitting—with Sebastian—at the breakfast table when they’d walked in. “But it was an all-night trip. Bella,

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 183 darling, you look like you got the most sleep; you wouldn’t want to drive us home, would you? Your daddy and I have to get a nap in, or we’re not going to make it.” Bjorn nodded, characteristically taciturn, and then added, “But I think we should tell you, Sebastian—we didn’t clean the bathroom when we left. We were afraid of retaliation from the alien life forms in there. They were scary.” Sebastian started to giggle, and then he started to laugh, and then the laughter turned hysterical, and then he hugged the man in spite of all the proprieties that told him he shouldn’t. Asa’s father returned the hug and whispered, “We’re really glad you’re in the family, son—but don’t leave him again. It’ll break his heart.” “I won’t,” Sebastian murmured. “I promise.” They left, and he went upstairs to tell Asa. Asa was asleep next to Jordan with the television on, so Sebastian scooted in next to him and watched the rerun of Cold Case (because Asa seemed to adore crime procedurals and detective shows with all his heart), before falling asleep himself. When he woke up, Bella was there in the chair by the bed, sketching casually away in her sketchbook. He blinked at her, wiping his mouth, and said, “Did you catch the drool track, heifer? It would be a shame if you missed that.” “Don’t be a drooling ass, Sebastian. Here—you want to see?” The nature of a caricature was that it captured specific characteristics in only a few lines, and that was what this did. It showed three lions—two males and a cub, one male

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 184 lying on his side, protecting the cub, the way Asa was curled around his son, and one male lazily licking the other’s ear. Sebastian looked at it, and felt his eyes prickle again. “Damn you and your family—you’re not going to be happy until I’m a poster boy for the women’s network, are you?” “Yeah, Sebastian, we like our men weepy, like our open sores. What do you think?” He cringed at the metaphor—part of their day had been spent putting Asa and Jordan into oatmeal baths because the sores had gotten bad and itchy, as predicted. But then he looked at the picture and felt all of his art snobbery disappear, leaving him with nothing but love for the drawing. “I think you should slap some color on this baby and frame it, and put it on your brother’s boring downstairs wall, that’s what I think.” Bella colored prettily, looking like a real girl. “I really like drawing these,” she said softly. “Maybe I can do these as a sideline. Work fairs and street corners and shit. What do you think?” Sebastian smiled a little, snuggling against Asa some more. “I think I can hire you to work Saturday nights at the bookstore—I’m the store manager now, you know.” Bella gasped. “Really?” “Really really. Rhonda said fine, she’d transfer me back, but first I had to demote Mike Greavy and take his spot. I figured, what the hell? I actually really like that job, you know?” Bella was still impressed. “Shit, Sebastian—I knew you were coming back, I didn’t know you were… were….”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 185 Sebastian closed his eyes, listening to Asa’s breathing and thinking about another nap. “Growing up? Yeah. It hurt to get here, but the fringe benefits rock.” He woke up a little when Bella came and got Jordan and took him to his own room. He woke up a lot when Asa growled in his ear. “You’ve been sleeping in my bed.” “When I’ve been sleeping, yes,” Sebastian told him. “Yes, Daddy Bear, I’ve been sleeping in your bed.” “You remember what I said,” Asa warned, and Sebastian turned toward him, spots and all. Sebastian wanted to kiss him, but Asa’s pox looked sore and Sebastian’s skin itched looking at him, and he figured the kiss could wait. Asa’s eyes were still beautiful, though, and he smelled like Asa and oatmeal soap, and they were going to be all right. “Yeah, I remember.” He managed a kiss on the tip of Asa’s spot-free nose. “You said that I could only spend the night here with Jordan in the house if I meant to stay. I know you’ve been out of it, baby, but I really mean to stay.” “Thank God,” Asa swore. “Because when I get better, I have such incredible fantasies of you in this bed.” Sebastian looked at him seriously, searching those ocean gray eyes with his own deep-blue ones. “Is one of those growing old together? I’ve got to tell you, I’ve got the best fantasy in that department.” Asa nodded and smiled. “You know the best thing about that fantasy?” “You’re gonna tell me.” “I can spend every day making it come true.”

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 186 They were quiet for a minute, and then Sebastian remembered something. “Hey, Asa, you know what happened while you were out of it?” “You moved in?” “Even better!” Asa raised his eyebrows and then winced and then winced again. Every movement hurt when you were an adult with the chicken pox. “Thrill me.” “The Giants made the playoffs!” Asa grinned in spite of the pain. “When’s the first game of the series?” “Next week.” “I can make that.” Sebastian doubted it, but he wouldn’t ruin the moment. “Good—so can I.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Turns out, I’m going to be in town.” Asa laughed and then grew sober. He reached out a fingertip and traced Sebastian’s cheekbone, and Sebastian closed his eyes at the tenderness of the touch. “Say it,” Asa begged quietly. “We haven’t said it face to face, and I’m feeling weak and insecure.” Sebastian was feeling weepy again. “You go ahead and feel weak,” he said softly. “You go ahead and feel weak, and I’ll be there to lean on. I love you, you old geezer. I will love you in the nursing home together, when all the orderlies are trying to get a piece of your old wrinkly ass. Better yet, I’ll love you in a week when I can get a piece of your fine young

Bewitched by Bella’s Brother | Amy Lane 187 ass, and I’ll love you in twenty years when Jordan’s getting married and you’re going to want to kick his ass, and….” Asa pecked him very gingerly on the forehead, and Sebastian stopped talking. “I love you too.”

AMY LANE teaches high school English, mothers four children, and writes the occasional book. When she’s not begging students to sit-the-hell-down or taxiing kids to soccer/dance/karate—oh my! she can be found catching emergency naps, grocery shopping, or hiding in the bathroom, trying to read without interruption. She will never be found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while commuting, while her classes are doing bookwork, or while she’s wandering the neighborhood at night pretending to exercise and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested and crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved mate, Mack, to keep her tethered to reality—which he does while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change. Visit Amy’s web site at http://www.greenshill.com. You can e-mail her at [email protected].

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Bewitched by Bella’s Brother ©Copyright Amy Lane, 2010 Published by Dreamspinner Press 4760 Preston Road Suite 244-149 Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Art by Anne Cain [email protected] Cover Design by Mara McKennen This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ Released in the United States of America August 2010 eBook Edition eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-568-5